“All is not well” among Southern Baptists, according to seminary president Danny Akin, who cited slumping evangelism statistics as evidence of “grave weakness” in the denomination.
The Southern Baptist Convention has “experienced a conservative resurgence, a return to our biblical roots,” but not to “a full restoration,” Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, told a group of conservatives in North Carolina. “There is still work to be done. There is still ground to be regained.”
For the SBC and North Carolina Baptists, he said, “we need to be honest; all is not well. There are many things yet to be done, there are many areas of grave weakness, there are many areas of disobedience to the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Akin cited a recent journal article in which seminary professor Thom Rainer said, “An honest evaluation of the data leads us to but one conclusion: The conservative resurgence has not resulted in a more evangelistic denomination.”
Rainer, dean of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth, cited statistics to demonstrate the denomination is less evangelistic now than it was before the conservative reformation began in 1979. Baptism totals in the SBC have remained about the same while the number of church members has increased dramatically, Rainer noted in the seminary's Journal of Theology. The SBC has reported declines in baptisms for four straight years.
However, Rainer added, the statistics would be even worse without the conservative movement. He surveyed a group of churches aligned with the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and found their baptism ratio was 92-to-1.
Akin cited other research by Rainer that estimated half of the members of SBC churches are “unregenerate.” Churches should police “these big, fat, sassy” church membership rolls, Akin said, to prevent unsaved people from serving in positions of influence in the church.
In light of the downward evangelism trends, Akin urged North Carolina Baptists to become “rabid dogs for evangelism” and defend “the exclusivity of the gospel.”
Associated Baptist Press