SBC, GCB: Is It Really About Our Name?

Over the past year, there has been much discussion about the possibility of a name change for the Southern Baptist Convention. This idea is not a new topic of discussion among Southern Baptists. But with the renewed SBC emphasis on church-planting, many of the church planters claimed that identification with the SBC created a hindrance to their planting efforts. Bryant Wright, President of the SBC, appointed a task force to research the implications and impact of a name change. What they found is what most most of us already knew--legally changing the name would be expensive and rebranding would be very difficult.

But the task force did make a recommendation that would allow church planters to identify themselves with the SBC using a non-legal SBC descriptor, GCB or Great Commission Baptists. SBC churches and church plants are autonomous, meaning they are self-governing, self-identifying, and self-theologizing within the framework of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (or like-minded confession.) This means that churches can call themselves whatever they want and include any descriptor they choose in their name. Many SBC churches have already made name changes and have removed "Baptist" from their names because they believe they serve areas where that label is a hindrance to their work. They did not need convention approval to do this. Neither do Church planters need our permission to use this kind of descriptor.

At the convention, there was much debate over affirmation of the addition of this descriptor to the SBC. Those against the descriptor missed the point of what this motion was really about. They rightly said that the motion wasn't necessary. They at times incoherently tried to make a case against rebranding. One even argued that since we were not fulfilling the Great Commission, we would be lying to call ourselves Great Commission Baptists. I was saddened by some of these arguments simply because this motion was not about the name of the SBC. The motion was really an opportunity for our convention to overwhelmingly support our church planters and the evangelistic work that they are doing in difficult areas of our nation. Many of these arguments really affirmed how little the churches in our denomination understand the difficult dynamics of church planting.

This motion was a plea from our church planters, many of them young and just out of seminary, for support from our denomination for their work. It was a chance for us to empathize with them and appreciate them for what they do. It was an opportunity for us to show them that they too have a voice in their convention. Debate over this motion only added to their skepticism about the SBC. It gives them cause to abandon the denomination that they may feel ultimately abandoned them. We will continue to wonder in amazement why our denomination is in decline if we continue to indirectly ignore the voice of our new generation of pastors and leaders.

The resolution passed, 53% to 47%. I am glad that the motion passed. I am saddened that it was such a close vote. At some point, Southern Baptists (at least 47% of us) are going to have to stop looking backwards, longing for the glory days of the way things used to be. We need to be forward thinking and that means affirming our planters who are theologically and doctrinally like-minded and giving them the tools to be successful Southern Baptist church planters, planting Great Commission focused Baptist churches.

Book Review: The Meaning of Marriage

Today our society offers many views of marriage. We are challenged to overlook or redefine the traditional roles of husband and wife in search for a more “relevant” institution—one that abandons the biblical picture of marriage in favor of a more culturally acceptable and politically palatable one.

Bob Dawson offers the following review of Tim Keller’s book, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with Wisdom from God. Just click the title for details and other helpful reviews from Amazon.com.

The Meaning of Marriage

Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

By Timothy Keller

With Kathy Keller

Are you getting married next month? Have you been married for fifty years? Perhaps you are some where between these two extremes.

Timothy Keller makes his case for the complexities of marriage by drawing heavily on Ephesians 5:18-33 where Paul talks about a man leaving his mother and father and clinging to his wife.

A man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery….

Ephesians 5:31-32

In the first chapter, The Meaning of Marriage” he states: I’m tired of listening to sentimental talks on marriage. At weddings, in church, and in Sunday school, much of what I’ve heard on the subject has as much depth as a Hallmark card. While marriage is many things, it is anything but sentimental. Marriage is glorious, but hard. It’s a burning joy and exhausting victories. No marriage I know more than a few weeks old could be described as a fairy tale come true. Therefore, it is not surprising that the only phrase in Paul’s famous discourse on marriage in Ephesians that many couples can relate to is verse 32 printed above. Sometimes you fall into bed after a long, hard day of trying to understand each other, and you can only sigh, “This is all a profound mystery!” At times, you marriage seems to be an unsolvable puzzle, a maze in which you feel lost.

“I believe all this, and yet there’s no relationship between human beings that is greater or more important than marriage……And that is why, like knowing God himself, coming to know and love your spouse is difficult and painful—yet rewarding and wondrous.”

In the chapter The Secret of Marriage Rev. Keller quotes ethics professor Stanley Hauerwas as follows:

Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person.

We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change……The primary problem is…learning to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.

Rev. Keller goes on to explain that a biblical marriage is not a contract but a covenant. He goes to great lengths to explain the difference and how that difference is vitally important.

So if you are looking for a spouse or trying to strengthen your marriage of many years this book is for you. Whether you are a man or a woman, it will clarify what you should be looking for in a future spouse and it will point out how you should be relating to the spouse you have.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to make their marriage the truly biblical covenant marriage that God wants it to be.

May God bless,

Bob Dawson

  

Keller, Timothy. The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with Wisdom from God. Dutton Adult, 2011. 288 pages. $25.95 ($14.34 at Amazon).

The Hypocrisy of Dan Savage

Last week while speaking at the National High School Journalist Conference in Seattle, Dan Savage hurled insults at students who left the room because they were offended by his remarks concerning the Bible and its position with regard to homosexuality. The irony is that he made his comments at a conference that was themed around an anti-bullying message. He even implicated himself as a bully when he said, “It’s funny that someone who is on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-a*** some people react when we push back.”

Forget the irony for minute. Savage makes the claim about the Bible that pro-homosexual activists have been making for years, that since the Bible got its views of slavery wrong then there is a one-hundred percent chance that its views on human sexuality are wrong as well. He basically levies the accusation that bullying towards homosexuals takes place because the Bible calls it an immoral act and that Christians justify their bullying from a biblical worldview.

Savage makes many assumptions in his argument. First and foremost he seems to assume that Christians who operate from a biblical worldview are the primary source of homosexual bullying. He assumes that Christians simply ignore other types of sexual behavior that the Bible speaks against. He also assumes that people who attack homosexuals are true Christians. Because he does not understand biblical Christianity, Savage creates what he thinks is a Christian for the explicit purpose of arguing against Christianity. In philosophy, that is called a straw-man. My response to Savage is that his own worldview, secular humanism, logically concludes that homosexuality is unnatural, and that we do not need to create straw-men secular humanists to make our case.

Darwinian evolution teaches that animals evolve in such a way as to maintain survivability in their respective environments. We have many different species of animals that came from a particular genetic descent because they evolved through chance mutations in order to fit their environment. Darwin also argued that species that did not evolve became extinct. Darwin assumed that the species that were the most fit survived. For Darwin life was all about survivability and the perpetuation of the species.

Evolution is to humanists what the Bible is to Christians—the underlying foundation to their worldview. The problem with humanists like Savage is that they fail to see that there is no place for homosexuality in their own worldview. Biologically, there is no way for a population that is entirely homosexual to perpetuate itself. The only way that homosexuality can exist is if it does so in a heterosexual society. According to Darwinian evolution, homosexuality should cease to exist because it biologically, genetically cannot survive on its own. It would have to evolve to heterosexuality in order to do so.

Christians can argue against homosexuality from multiple worldviews. Humanists like Savage can only argue for homosexuality by attacking the worldviews of others. In order to justify homosexuality, they have to step outside of their own worldview and admit that there is such thing as morality and then they have to convince people that humans are capable of defining their own morality, hence the attacks on the Bible and Bible-believing Christians.

Nobody develops their worldview in isolation. Every thinker is influenced by other thinkers. Because we are thinking beings, we choose the influences that form our worldview. Christians that operate from a biblical worldview have chosen to let the Bible stand as their authority. Others, such as Savage have chosen other forms of influence in the development of their worldview. Here is the difference: Savage’s worldview allows him to hurl insults at people that he would call bullies. A biblical worldview mandates that we love those who are trapped in the sinful lifestyle of homosexuality. So, who are the real hypocrites?