Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Politics

Well it has been eight months since my last post. In that time my father has passed away, my son is about to graduate high school, another of my sons is about to get married, and SBC politics is driving me nuts. Don't get me wrong, I love the Southern Baptist Convention. It is the best missions organization in the world, but it seems it is becoming more and more top heavy. In Baptist polity the local church is autonomous freely associating with associations and conventions. The convention is supposed to work for the local church not the other way around. I feel that some of the things that are taking place are moving the SBC to a more top down denomination. Already, many of the large and mega SBC churches are funding their own missions and giving less to the convention. If the convention begins to alienate the smaller to mid sized churches, which there are far more of than the larger or mega churches, they will find the co-operative program not so co-operative. Let me give you a couple of illustrations, when I was at the convention in San Antonio a few years back, the convention voted that the SBC entities, particularly the IMB and NAMB, not go beyond the Baptist Faith and Message in their qualifications. The entities have totally disregarded that injunction. Now NAMB is facing a restructuring that is going to kill a lot of missions in the western US. Then on top of that The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission led by Richard Land has been on the wrong side of several issues lately like supporting a Mormon candidate for president and sitting down with terrorists to open a dialog between Islam and Christians. Doesn't the Bible say something about fellowship with light and darkness?
Dr. Land should resign, retire or get de-funded. Anyway, I am not going to go to the national convention because the program looks to be about simply rubber stamping the agenda, and I have too much work to do locally. Maybe that is the problem, too many of us don't get involved in the politics, but unless you are the pastor of a mega-church your voice doesn't get heard. Or at least that is the impression many of us have. Politics, even when people are genuinely trying to do what is right, is not much fun, and when it becomes fun ie about winning and power, then it is for the wrong reasons. God save the SBC.

No comments: