Since the beginnings of the Baptist denomination in the early 1700s, the idea of regenerate church membership has been a foundational Baptist principle. This was the concept that church membership should consist of the consciously converted rather than those baptized as infants. It was radical for its day because believer's baptism was radical in that time of paedo-baptism domination. This foundational Baptist principle has now spread throughout the free church movement and can no longer be considered exclusively Baptist. That is the good news.
The bad news is the decline of regenerate church membership among Baptists. The combination of shallow evangelism, a lack of church discipline, and general inattention has swelled the rolls of most Baptist churches to where the total membership figure is meaningless. It is not at all uncommon to find that active church members constitute only one-half or one-third of the total membership.
Over the past few years, a group of Southern Baptists have tried to introduce a resolution on regenerate church membership at the Southern Baptist Convention, calling for repentance for our past inattention and a renewal of the biblical practice of church discipline. Each time, the resolution failed to make it out of committee to be voted on by the convention at large.
This year was different. The recognition had grown across the Southern Baptist Convention that we had a problem that needed to be addressed. There were three competing resolutions on regenerate church membership. Predictably, the committee brought the weakest of the three to the floor for a vote. In the discussion prior to the vote, groups wanting a stronger resolution managed to add two amendments to the proffered resolution.
The first amendment called for the resolution to mention baptism by immersion. The second called for churches "to repent of the failure among us to live up to our professed commitment to regenerate church membership and any failure to obey Jesus Christ in the practice of lovingly correcting wayward church members."
The second part of that amendment stated: "We humbly encourage denominational servants to support and encourage churches that seek to recover and implement our Savior’s teachings on church discipline, even if such efforts result in the reduction in the number of members that are reported in those churches."Both amendments were accepted and the amended resolution easily passed. I applaud the messengers to the the convention for passing this needed resolution. I doubly applaud those who were not willing to accept the watered-down resolution and offered amendment that the convention accepted. This was a good day for Southern Baptists. Now, we must be diligent in following up on this action.The full resolution can be read here.
With the global warming debate continuing to hold headlines, often generating more heat than light, I guess it is not surprising that some Southern Baptists feel the need to weigh in or else we might be viewed as "irrelevant." With that, "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" has been birthed. It is the brainchild of Jonathan Merritt, son of former SBC president James Merritt. Merritt credits a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary professor who stated that destroying God's creation was like "tearing a page out of the Bible" with giving him this inspiration. This led him to lobby several SBC leaders, presumably using his father's Rolodex, to sign on to the initiative.
As a Southern Baptist pastor, I had been pleased that our denomination had not followed more liberal denominations in generating a knee-jerk response to the issue of "global warming." A few years ago, some evangelical leaders, including some prominent Southern Baptists, signed the declaration of the Evangelical Climate Initiative which declared that global warming was real, that it was detrimental, and that governments should immediately act to curb emissions. Many other Southern Baptists moved quickly to disagree with the sweeping statements of this declaration with the belief that the science of the question was far from settled.
This current initiative with its auspicious title, "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change," aspires to be far more than it is. It is not an official Southern Baptist statement but rather simply a statement of the signatories. The Southern Baptist Convention passed an official resolution, "On Global Warming," in the 2007 convention which urged caution on climate issues because of the unsettled nature of the science.
In my opinion, the global warming issue is the biggest fraud ever foisted upon the public, both national and international. We are continually inundated with stories of impending and unabated global warming. We are warned in apocalyptic language that we might soon reach a "tipping point" where no amount a action could reverse runaway catastrophic global warming. In such a situation, we are told, many of the world's major cities would become uninhabitable due to rising ocean levels. This is to spur us into pressing our government leaders to take drastic actions to reverse the process without regard for economic consequences. The dangers are too great...so they say.
History is replete with crises created so that the "annointed" can rush in and save everyone with, of course, the implicit understanding that this will take great sacrifice. Global warming is the latest "crisis" that requires immediate action. Never mind that there are many contrary voices in the global warming debate. Never mind that many accomplished scientists dispute the findings of those who warn us that the end is near. Never mind also that the drastic actions demanded will hold off the industrialization that many third world societies desperately need thus ensuring that they will remain in generational poverty. The risk is too great to waste time on debate. The time for action is now.
Thankfully, this Southern Baptist initiative falls short of calling for precipitous action as did the Evangelical Climate Initiative. However, it adopts much of the same language and circuitously advocates a scaled-down version of the same kind of action advocated by the more radical declaration.
Ironically, or sadly, depending upon your perspective, these Southern Baptists are rushing to board the climate change ship just as it seems that the wind is leaving its sails. Global warming skeptics receive more press than ever before. Global temperatures are actually falling right now. One Russian scientist has stated that global temperatures peaked in 2004 and were now dropping due to decreasing solar activity. If the previous global warming was due to the sun, and many scientists think it was, there is no amount of government action that can change that and all our precipitous actions will have had no effect; other than to enrich those trading in the carbon offsets they said we needed.
Southern Baptists, as well as all other Americans, will do well to exercise eternal vigilance when fads arise leading to calls for drastic action significantly affecting our way of life. Human "crises" will come and go but one thing remains constant, our need for reconciliation with God that can only come through Jesus Christ. If we do our job as the Church, proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost world, we may not be "cool" but we will never be irrelevant.
Since the beginnings of the Baptist denomination in the early 1700s, the idea of regenerate church membership has been a foundational Baptist principle. This was the concept that church membership should consist of the consciously converted rather than those baptized as infants. It was radical for its day because believer's baptism was radical in that time of paedo-baptism domination. This foundational Baptist principle has now spread throughout the free church movement and can no longer be considered exclusively Baptist. That is the good news.
