Way back in the 1980s when I was a young editor of The Deacon at the Baptist Sunday School Board (now renamed LifeWay, of course), Connie and I had the profound privilege of having James L. Sullivan, retired president of the board, as a substitute Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church of Nashville, Tenn. Our usual teachers, a couple, were very good, but we could hardly wait for them to be absent so Dr. Sullivan would fill in. This incredible man of God was full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom.
On one occasion when he was substituting, he began to talk about the nature of fundamentalism. He remembered well the kind of narrowness and arrogance of J. Frank Norris and fellow Southern Baptist John Birch, for whom the society was named. He noted that they were so sure they were right that everyone who disagreed with them, of necessity, had to be wrong.
Jim White
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Sullivan contended that this kind of thinking eventually becomes so exclusionary that it creates divisions among its own adherents. Only a few people can be right about everything, it seems!
Unfortunately, but perhaps inevitably, Sullivan’s predictions appear to be coming true in the Southern Baptist Convention these days. A part of me is sorely tempted to expound on the difficulties boards and agencies are experiencing — not to mention the whole Great Commission Resurgence debate — over the level of bureaucratic bloatedness and other ecclesiastical essentials. I sincerely want to draw what appears to me to be obvious connections between divisiveness and the doctrinal direction of the so-called conservative resurgence. I won’t even let myself speculate on how many more resurgences are waiting to surge. Resurgences, like Rocky movies, will keep coming as long as they keep meeting their producers’ goals, I suppose.
But I don’t wish to dwell on these matters at this point for three very good reasons. First, I would be ignoring the good things that are going on in the convention and the good people who are causing them to happen. It is easy to point out that some egos in the SBC are gaseous grande. That observation has been self-evident even to SBC leaders themselves. But let’s not forget the true servants of Christ who labor not under a denominations’ political slogan, but beneath the banner of Jesus’ love.
Although we cannot and we should not ignore the ills we see developing, I want to focus my eyes on the lives being touched and changed by Jesus Christ who is using human beings as his instruments.
The second reason I don’t wish to dwell on SBC issues is because so many great things are happening in Virginia Baptist life! It is thrilling to hear of the success of a church start or, at the other end of the church life cycle, of a church giving its property to a church better able to reach the community around the building. It has been my privilege to report on one such case and it appears very likely that soon I shall be able to share another such instance of sacrifice. These folks have caught a vision of the Kingdom. Celebrate!
A church in Chatham develops partnerships with social service agencies, universities and local government to reach Kingdom goals. A Virginia Baptist in Falls Church becomes concerned about hunger in the world, shares her burden with her pastor and the church develops a potent ministry to feed the hungry here in Virginia and on a global scale. A church near Radford almost closed its doors because so few attended, but in a Spirit-led burst of renewal and revival it has baptized 70 persons in the past year. Sing the doxology!
I haven’t even mentioned the local and international ministry partnerships open to Virginia Baptist churches through glocal missions. And what about the Baptist World Alliance-Virginia Baptist connection? That John Upton has been nominated to serve as president of the BWA is only a miniscule part of the picture. Dean Miller, missions learning coordinator with the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, planned and coordinated the last BWA Youth Congress in Leipzig, Germany.
The BWA has more than 37 million members in 214 national and regional unions and conventions with almost 160,000 congregations. Upton will be the eighth American to serve as president and the third with Virginia Baptist ties.
The VBMB has become a strategic player in getting pastors and churches linked to others who are like-minded in order to form networks that provide encouragement and resources. Virginia Baptists have enough to think about without looking elsewhere only to be discouraged at what they see.
But, truth be told, there is another very good reason I don’t want to focus on misfortunes befalling the SBC. It’s because I’m a Bible believer. Jesus said before we start poking around in our brother’s eye to extract a splinter, we should first remove the plank from our own. While we are pleased at what is happening in Virginia Baptist life, we cannot ignore what it not happening.
Let’s be honest. If another resurgence is needed let’s make it a simple evangelism resurgence. I’m not talking about becoming kooks for Christ or being stupidly offensive, but we need to recapture a sense of urgency in sharing the good news. It isn’t a method we lack nor are we wanting in denominational emphases. No, our problem is even more basic. What we are lacking a program won’t correct.
When we truly love the lost, we will find a way to share our faith with integrity. We are right to be concerned about their hunger and other physical needs. Jesus commanded it. But if Christ’s own people do not share him we can be sure no one else will. It is easier and less risky to give food to the hungry and medicine to the ill than to offer Jesus to the self-satisfied. The ill and hungry are convinced of their need.
Virginia Baptists have other planks that need attention. We have become worldly. Not all of us, I grant you; but many of us. We are spending too much on ourselves and too little for Kingdom causes. We crave comfort — in our homes and even in our churches. Now, I’m not saying pain is good. But few of us are at risk of suffering for Jesus. To the contrary, we’ve grown lazy in our service, complacent in our commitment and undisciplined in our discipleship.
We are not without passions, but these feelings are too often reserved for our chosen sports teams. I suppose our problems have more to do with human nature rather than with our times. Even in the New Testament era the church was being challenged at these points. Perhaps the words of John are a fitting benediction: “Don't love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world — wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important — has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out — but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity” (1 John 2:15-17, The Message).
Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.