Fair choices
The issue of July 14 had two letters bewailing the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention appointments for Virginia were all from the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia and none from the Baptist General Association of Virginia. They appeared under the banner, “A spirit of cooperation.” This is amazing!
I wonder if they have counted all the conservative or evangelical men and women in Virginia who have been appointed to a post or committee in the BGAV? I'd be surprised if they found any! If there are any, they are probably few in number.
If I remember the figures correctly, with fewer numbers of churches, the SBCV contributes more to the SBC than does the BGAV.
Behind all this is the sorrow that we are so divided. If the BGAV does, as has been proposed, bring in to the association chuches outside of Virginia, the split may become even wider. Will this be the real beginning of another national convention, a liberal convention of Baptists? It has long been a saying that a disagreement in a church results in the establishment of another church. That may soon be the situation if the BGAV continues down this path.
Brother Polk and Brother Lawson had better look inward at the BGAV before harshly critiquing the SBC concerning appointments.
Edgar W. Brown, Charlottesville
Editor's Note: For the record, members of BGAV committees have members from all four giving tracks in the BGAV budget, and include those whose national contributions support only the Southern Baptist Convention, others who support only the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and still others that support both or neither. The most recent past president of the BGAV is pastor of a church which sends its national gifts only to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Correct counts
In his address to the Southern Baptist Convention emphasising evangelism, Bobby Welch said baptizing was down in the SBC. It came to me that it might be that the larger fundamentalist churches have stop counting those who were re-baptized along with those who were baptized in the first place.
I was visiting in a large Baptist church in Tennessee and in talking to one of the deacons about its membership, he said to me, “We are baptizing 15 to 25 every Sunday.” I said to him, “Where are all these people coming from?” He said to me, “Most of them are people that said they were not saved the first time, they were baptized and wish to be re-baptized.”
Maybe in the past, counting people that were baptized may not show up as real growth.
Art Pierce, Chesapeake