Of course, reaching North America is a far larger task in terms of both geography and population than it was in 1845 – and far more complex as well.  Looking to the future, Southern Baptists must make the adjustments that will focus our work in order to make maximum impact on this land.

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has this very much in mind as we hope to assist Southern Baptists to be even more faithful in this task. With that in mind, we are recommending changes in the assignment of the North American Mission Board and changes in the way the board works with the state conventions.

Beginning in the 1950s, Southern Baptists began working with the state conventions through what were known as “Cooperative Agreements.” These agreements were undoubtedly a good idea, and they served well for many decades. The idea of the Cooperative Agreements is simple – the North American Mission Board (and originally, the Home Mission Board) established agreements with each state convention in order to avoid overlap, confusion, and duplication of work.

So, why is a change needed now? The answer is really very simple – the Cooperative Agreements are now outdated and confusing to Southern Baptists. When the Great Commission Task Force recommends the phased elimination of these agreements, we are calling for the North American Mission Board to rethink how it should relate to the state conventions so that the mission board retains a more focused ministry of assisting Southern Baptist churches to reach North America.

In the year 2009, about $50-million dollars was routed through these Cooperative Agreements. Many of these dollars were spent on the salaries of workers in the state conventions and associations. The monies are allocated and channeled in ways that are difficult to trace, much less to prioritize.

We are calling on the North American Mission Board to focus its energies on reaching North America, with a strategic concentration on unreached and underserved people groups, the cities, and the planting of healthy, reproducing churches. There is simply no way that Southern Baptists can be more effective and faithful in this task if we retain the funding mechanisms of the Cooperative Agreements.

Much of the impetus for this came from leaders of the North American Mission Board and others who have been hard at work in this task. The purpose is not to weaken relationships with the state conventions, nor to cut funding to effective programs and partnerships. The purpose is simple, and well recognized by anyone who leads an enterprise – NAMB must have the ability to focus its energies and strategic mission funds on efforts that truly match the priorities of the board, as it serves Southern Baptists.

We are calling for the North American Mission Board to concentrate on its task assigned by the Southern Baptist Convention – and to do so through the direct appointment of missionaries and church planters who are accountable to NAMB and deployed according to its national priorities. This echoes the call made by the Convention when it adopted the Covenant for a New Century in 1995. This is the necessary next step.

This does not mean that Southern Baptists will abandon pioneer areas and underserved regions. To the contrary, we are calling for even greater efforts in these areas of our mission and work. But we do not believe that Southern Baptists expect NAMB to be primarily engaged in replicating state convention structures and personnel.

The North American Mission Board will continue to work with state conventions, and to do so in partnership. But now is the time for a new partnership structure – a structure that liberates NAMB to do its work, while respecting the important work of the state conventions.

Will this mean change? Of course it will. But this is the kind of change necessary for Southern Baptists to step boldly into the future, and to reach North America with the Gospel. This is not the 1950s, and the challenges of reaching North America in the 21st century will require far more of us than the current structures will allow.

The North American Mission Board and the state conventions both have essential roles to play in this, and we need a new spirit and structure for the partnerships that will take us into the future. With this step, the North American Mission Board will be ready to make the most of these partnerships, and to move into the future with greater flexibility, strategic focus, and stewardship of mission resources.

In other words, we need something better than the Cooperative Agreements if we are to cooperate to the fullest. We are not living in the 1950s, and North America is waiting to see if Southern Baptists are serious about reaching this continent. I believe we are, and I can’t wait to see how the North American Mission Board will lead us in this great task.

_______________________________

I am always glad to hear from readers and listeners. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

The article is breathtaking in its argument — that a man who abandoned the Christian faith was “no less devoted to Christ” than Southern Baptists’ most famous missionary.

In “Lottie Moon and Crawford Toy: Two Baptist Heroes,” Cartledge begins by noting the recent news that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth has secured a large collection of memorabilia from the house of Lottie Moon in P’ingtu City, China. Included in the 35,000 pounds of material are remnants of what is believed to be Lottie Moon’s rented home.

Cartledge took issue with comments made by Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson, who noted that Lottie Moon was a defender of biblical orthodoxy. Patterson also cited Miss Moon’s breaking of her engagement with Crawford H. Toy over the issue of biblical authority. Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that Lottie Moon broke her engagement with Crawford Toy precisely over this question.

Nevertheless, Cartledge writes, “while there is evidence for a broken engagement, I’ve seen nothing to substantiate the motives Patterson attributes to Moon.” That statement seems especially odd given the fact that Cartledge cites an essay by the late Dan Gentry Kent of Southwestern Seminary — an essay that substantiates those motives.

The most troubling section of Cartledge’s article has little to do with Lottie Moon, however. After stating his admiration for Lottie Moon’s “willingness to suffer deprivation because of her devotion to Christ and to missions,” Cartledge then states, “Increasingly, I have also come to admire Crawford Toy, who was no less devoted to Christ, and was willing to suffer rejection by Southern Baptists rather than surrender to the narrow-minded demand that he forgo scholarship and limit his teaching to popularly accepted notions.”

The admiration of liberal Baptists for Crawford Howell Toy should be a matter of both amazement and genuine concern. It is also a telling indication of how many of those identified as “moderates” in the Southern Baptist Convention controversy actually view the Bible. To celebrate Toy is to celebrate his beliefs about the Bible. Those beliefs were not heroic.

Crawford Toy was a man of unquestioned brilliance. As a young man, he came to the attention of John A. Broadus during the time Broadus was pastor of the Charlottesville Baptist Church in Virginia. As a student in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s first class, Toy established his reputation for scholarship. He joined the faculty of Southern Seminary in 1869 as Professor of Old Testament Interpretation and Oriental Languages. Prior to his election at Southern Seminary, Toy had studied at the University of Berlin for the years 1866-1868. As later became clear, Toy drank deeply from the wells of theological liberalism and Biblical criticism during his years in Germany.

In his inaugural address as a professor at Southern Seminary, Toy argued that the Bible has both a human and a divine element. As his theological pilgrimage revealed, Toy would use this hermeneutical distinction in order to argue that the Bible contains nothing but truth in its divine element, even as its human element shows all the marks of human fallibility. The human element contains both errors and myths, but the Bible’s “religious thought is independent of this outward form.”

Concerns about Toy’s teaching led to his eventual resignation from Southern Seminary — a resignation pressed upon him by the institution’s founding leaders and accepted by the vast majority of its trustees. Prior to his resignation, Toy had been warned by Broadus that his trajectory was headed toward serious theological error. Broadus also expressed his concern that Toy might eventually become a Unitarian. Eventually, Broadus’s worst fears were realized.

After his resignation from Southern Seminary, Crawford Toy accepted a professorship at Harvard University, where he taught for many years and established a reputation for scholarship. By all accounts, Toy was an esteemed member of the faculty. Nevertheless, Toy’s theological trajectory did indeed take him not only out of the Southern Baptist fellowship, but out of the Christian faith altogether. During his time at Harvard, Toy eventually became a Unitarian — a faith that denies the deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. He also accepted an evolutionary understanding of religion which accepted religion as a purely natural phenomenon.

In other words, Toy became what Christians throughout all the centuries of church history and in all the major traditions of the Christian Church would rightly identify as a heretic. He abandoned faith in the deity of Christ and abandoned the Christian faith. Yet, moderates in the SBC controversy often celebrated Crawford Toy as a hero and as a theological martyr for academic scholarship. Tony Cartledge continues this tradition by expressing his admiration for Crawford Toy, going so far as to claim that he “was no less devoted to Christ” than Lottie Moon. “There’s more than one way to be a hero,” Cartledge concluded.

I can only hope that Tony Cartledge either does not understand or does not mean what he writes in this article. To declare Crawford Toy and Lottie Moon to be equally devoted to Christ defies both common sense and theological sanity.

As Old Testament scholar Paul House, now of the Beeson Divinity School, has argued, the roots of Toy’s later heresies were found in the presuppositions of his hermeneutic as he set forth his thought in his inaugural address at Southern Seminary. House does not question Toy’s personal integrity, noting his honesty in presenting his own beliefs. Toy himself recognized that his beliefs changed even during the years he taught at Southern Seminary. The key issue is that Toy’s understanding of the Bible left him completely vulnerable to every heresy and doctrinal aberration. Broadus rightly warned Toy of this danger at the time of his resignation.

We should grieve the example of Crawford Howell Toy and learn from it, even as we are inspired by the courageous and Gospel-centered witness of Lottie Moon. The story of Crawford Howell Toy contains a cautionary message for every Christian teacher, seminary, church, and denomination. The elevation of Crawford Toy to the status of a hero alongside one of Christianity’s most famous Gospel missionaries is both tragic and scandalous. Heresy is not heroic.

__________________________

For more on Crawford Howell Toy and the history of Southern Seminary, see Gregory A. Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-2009 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

1. They are deeply committed to the Gospel and to the authority of Scripture. They are men driven by conviction and the ability to “connect the dots” theologically. They understand the threat of theological liberalism and want nothing of it. They love the Gospel and have a firm grip on it. They are animated by a biblical theology that brings them joy and grounds them in truth.

2. They love the church. They have resisted the temptation to give up on the church or to be satisfied with a parachurch form of ministry. They love people, love the church, and see the Body of Christ in terms of God’s redemptive purpose. They like the gritty work of the ministry and are not afraid. They understand the joy of authentic Christian community and they give their lives to it. They are recovering a biblical ecclesiology in its fullness. They affirm and practice church discipline. They see the glory of God in an inter-generational congregation of believers growing into faithfulness together.

3. They are gifted preachers and teachers. They rightly divide the Word of Truth and they make no apology for preaching the Bible. They are dedicated to expository preaching and they actually know what that means. They may not use pulpits, but they do have something important to say when they get before a congregation.

4. They are eager evangelists. They are driven by an urgency to see lost people come to know Jesus and become both believers and disciples. They are innovative in methodology and boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They affirm that Jesus is indeed the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and they know that there is no other Gospel that saves.

5. They are complementarians who affirm the biblical roles for men and women in both the church and the home. They love God’s gift of marriage and the blessing of children, and they make clear that Christian discipleship requires faithfulness in marriage, family, parenthood, sexuality, and they embrace the Bible’s teaching concerning the roles of men and women. They motivate younger men to embrace God’s plan for their lives and lead. They talk openly about their joy in their wives and children. They change diapers.

6. They are men of vision. They apply intelligence and discernment to the building up of the church and the cause of the Gospel. They see and seize opportunities. They are planting and building churches that glorify God by reaching the world, preaching the Gospel, and changing lives. They are innovators and churchmen. They love a challenge. They would be embarrassed to aim low.

7. They are men of global reach and Great Commission passion. They long to see the nations exult in Christ. They know nothing of a world with fixed borders and nationalistic aims. They eagerly send, go, and give. They refuse to let their congregations fixate on themselves. They look at unreached people groups and hear the call.

8. They are men of joy. To be with them is to sense their joy and their lack of cynicism. They are not interested in complaining about the church. They are planters and fixers. They scratch their heads as they look at many denominational structures and habits, but they have not given up.

Most denominations now look to the younger generation and wonder if there will be any pastors, or if the younger pastors will love the Gospel, preach the Word, and commit themselves to the church and the Great Commission. Southern Baptists are now blessed to look at the rising generation of pastors and see so much that should bring satisfaction, hope, and joy. The younger you go in the Southern Baptist Convention, the more conviction you discover. There is reason for great hope.

I go to bed tonight having been encouraged by my time with these young pastors. I get to see this rising generation every day on the campus of Southern Seminary. I also know that none of this would be happening here if a generation of SBC pastors and leaders had not fought the good fight and recovered this denomination for the cause of truth, the authority of the Bible, and the furtherance of the Gospel.

All this will send a man to a thankful sleep.

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I am always glad to hear from readers and listeners.  Write me at mail@albertmohler.com.  Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

Bultmann called this method of stripping the supernatural from the New Testament “demythologization.” Dispel the myths, Bultmann commanded.

Well, theologically speaking, there is hardly a figure more oppposed to Rudolf Bultmann than Danny Akin, President of Southestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Dr. Akin is a staunch defender of the inerrancy of Scripture and a defender of the faith. When it comes to the supernatural claims of Scripture, Dr. Akin stands firm. Yet, in his own way, he knows a myth when he sees one.

In a series of short articles, Dr. Akin has recently responded to various myths about the Great Commission Resurgence. He gave leadership to framing many of these issues, and his article series is well worth the reading. Danny the Demythologizer sets the record straight.

GCR Myth #1: The goal of [particular members of] the Task Force to get more money to the nations is only a smoke screen to get more money to the seminaries.

GCR Myth #2: The goal of [certain members of] the Task Force is to turn North American church planting over to Acts 29 or to at least enter into a formal partnership with them.

Myth #3: The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is attempting to influence and even control the search committee process at the Executive Committee, the IMB and NAMB.

Myth #4: The goal of the Great Commission Task Force is to dismantle if not destroy the Cooperative Program as we know it today.

Myth #5: The GCR is actually a grand Calvinist plot to infiltrate the SBC and gain control or at least greater influence in the Convention.

On Tuesday we will be meeting with the majority of the Executive Directors of the state conventions for a very important session. Please pray that we will all hear each other, speak honestly to each other, and hold each other accountable to a Great Commission vision that will require the very best and the very most from all of us.

We face hard questions. Questions of finance and structure are secondary to the missional questions of reaching North America and the world beyond. We are living in a denominational house built long before the revolutions in transportation, communications, and geopolitics that have simultaneously made the world smaller and larger than ever before.

We are privileged to be able to ask these questions — and even to ask what questions we must ask. We are drowning in data.  Please pray that we will be led to the insights, judgments, and proposals that will best serve Southern Baptists as we face the future together.

I’ll report back as we make progress.

Mohler: SBC must be willing to change or face decline

In this address, I hoped to set out a vision for the future of the Southern Baptist Convention that takes seriously the history that has shaped our denomination. Even more importantly my goal was to share a vision that would help us all to think about what the Southern Baptist Convention could be and should be as we seek to be more faithful to the Great Commission.

Please let me know what you think about what I had to say. My sincere hope is that this address helps to begin a conversation. I will look forward to hearing from you as together we think and pray about what the Southern Baptist Convention should become as we move toward to the future. Please continue to pray for our churches, our convention, and for the work of the Great Commission Task Force that will report to the SBC in Orlando.

The book will also serve as the 2008 Baptist Doctrine Study. LifeWay has also made a 25-page sample of the book available as a PDF file [see here].

Without doubt, this is a major development. The church Pennington-Russell leads at present, Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, is probably even now the largest church with historic connections to the SBC or the CBF to call a woman as pastor.

Associated Baptist Press [ABP] suggested that the Decatur church’s move “will immediately become a centerpiece in the effort to elevate and celebrate women in pastoral roles.” Nevertheless, the church claimed that the move was not a way of “making a statement.”

That claim will not hold up. The church points to the proposed pastor’s qualifications and gifts, but if the church’s pastor search committee had chosen a man as their proposed candidate, the development would not have received nationwide news coverage. The church is making a statement.

The church’s Web site even explains that it is “different from many Baptist churches” in several respects. Among these the church states: “We accept women and men as equally called of God for ministry as laity and clergy.” By contrast, The Baptist Faith & Message adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention was revised in 2000 to state that “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

More from the ABP report:

While records on Baptist women in ministry are hard to track, experts in the field said May 29 that the Decatur congregation would likely be by far the largest church of Southern Baptist heritage ever led by a woman.

“I can’t think of any other church that would have been bigger,” said Pam Durso, a Baptist historian who serves as an officer with Baptist Women in Ministry.

Her group is finishing work on a new study that, its leaders say, will be the most comprehensive survey of the extent of women’s ordination in modern-day Baptist life in the South. Durso said the study has identified female senior pastors in 117 congregations that either are affiliated with the SBC or trace their roots to the denomination. She said the study has documented 1,825 women who have been ordained as ministers in such congregations.

The vast majority of those churches are affiliated with moderate splinter groups — such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists — that grew out of the conflict in the SBC. However, while such groups are officially supportive of women in ministry, few large moderate churches have called women as senior pastors. A 2006 report from Durso’s group said only 5.5 percent of churches that are affiliated with CBF had female pastors.

The distance between “official support” and churches actually calling women as pastors has been considerable, as the research clearly indicates. Advocates for women pastors have pressed their case that the absence of women from moderate and liberal churches indicates a failure of nerve and a compromise of conviction.

The issue of conviction is central to understanding this issue. A look at Julie Pennington-Russell’s education, experience, and related qualifications would appear to qualify her for a major pulpit . . . except for the fact that she is a woman. On that point both sides in the controversy over women in ministry should agree. Those opposed to the service of women in the pastorate are not arguing that women are less articulate, less bright, less winsome, less caring, or less educated. Gender is the issue.

For those who support and celebrate women as pastors, this singular concern is irrational. For those who believe that the Bible is clear that only men should be pastors, this singular concern is non-negotiable.

The Southern Baptist Convention has made its convictions on the issue clear. The adoption of the revised edition of The Baptist Faith & Message in 2000 elevates the issue to confessional status. This is a natural consequence of the denomination’s commitment to biblical inerrancy. The Bible clearly calls for male leadership in the church — and particularly in the pulpit. Southern Baptists have chosen to affirm a complementarian understanding of gender roles and leadership, seeing these principles as clearly set forth in the Bible.

The culture is on the side of those who support women pastors. We live in an egalitarian age. At the same time, that support seems to be more about talk than action. Until this development in Decatur, no historic moderate church affiliated with the SBC had called a woman as pastor.

Moderate and liberal Baptists are not alone in this respect. A “glass ceiling” exists even in explicitly liberal Protestant denominations.

Christianity Today recently reported that a group of churches affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA [PCUSA], fed up with the liberalism in that denomination, were looking for a new denominational home. The group, known as the New Wineskins Association of Churches, is now moving toward affiliation with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church [EPC]. According to the magazine, the group chose the EPC over the Presbyterian Church in America [PCA] because of the fact that the EPC allows for women to serve as pastor and the PCA does not.

Yet, it turns out that only two congregations in the EPC have women as pastors, and one is set to retire soon.

Writing at the Web site for Christians for Biblical Equality [CBE], a group that explicitly promotes women as pastors, Rev. Anita Miller Bell, Minister at Large for the Philadelphia Presbytery, suggests that the EPC is not really all that different from the PCUSA in this regard:

Yet, lest we become too judgmental of our brothers and sister in the EPC and those who would join them, we must take a moment of honest self-reflection in our PCUSA fellowship. Ordained women, especially those called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, know full inclusion in the ministry life of the PCUSA in name only. After 50 years, women still face the “glass ceiling” across the theological spectrum of the church. “Our church is not quite ready for a woman pastor…”  “Perhaps as an associate, but as the senior pastor…?”   “If the senior pastor is a woman, how will our men relate…?”… And so it goes… One glance at the larger pulpits of our denomination proves the point.

The First Baptist Church of Decatur sits in a prominent location in that venerable city, now part of the Atlanta metroplex. The church has a history reaching back to the Civil War and was associated with the Southern Baptist Convention from its inception. Even now, the church allows its members to designate support for SBC causes. The church’s Web site indicates that 80 percent of its members designate support for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and 20 percent choose to support the SBC. Many similar churches have made an absolute break with the SBC.

Recent pastors of the church included Dr. Peter Rhea Jones, who left the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to become pastor of the congregation in 1979. Jones, a well-known New Testament scholar and moderate leader, retired in 2000 and now teaches at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology.

The church is well-known throughout the region and is well established among moderate Baptists in the South. At the same time, the church is not the “megachurch” described in some press reports.

The Christian Post ran a story that was headlined: “Baptist Megachurch Prepares for Female Senior Pastor.”

In 2006 the church reported a weekly average Sunday School attendance of 451. A source at the church reported average weekly worship attendance of just over 500. [The figure for Calvary Baptist in Waco is 340.] In comparison with the average congregation in the United States, First Baptist Church, Decatur is a large church. But it is certainly not a megachurch.

Would the election of Julie Pennington-Russell as pastor of this church make history? Of course it will. This development would set a precedent that, until now, has eluded those pressing for women in major pulpits. First Baptist Church, Decatur, is in the heart of the South, has a proud place in the history of the Southern Baptist Convention, and can claim a legacy of prominent pastors. For a church of this stature to call a woman as senior minister is undeniably historic.

What does this mean? Only time will tell. Advocates for women as pastors will hope to see this precedent followed in other historic moderate pulpits. Any number of factors may play into this equation, including a generational shift and a relatively small number of male seminary graduates from moderate schools headed for the pastorate.

One prediction is an almost certain — Julie Pennington-Russell will quickly become one of the most prominent leaders among moderate and liberal Baptists.

One additional development is just as certain. This move increases the visible distance between the Southern Baptist Convention and the constellation of moderate Baptist organizations disaffected from the denomination. The distance is theological, cultural, ideological — and growing.

The Decatur church is set to vote on Pennington-Russell as Senior Minister on June 17. By all accounts, the church is indeed set to make a statement — and to make history. The distance between those who hold to different positions on the question of women in the pulpit is most evident in the fact that while some will see this move as a triumph, others will see it as tragedy.

____________________

SEE ALSO:

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Do SBC Moderates Really Believe Women Should Serve as Pastors?  An Important Research Project,” August 21, 2006.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Biblical Pattern of Male Leadership Limits Pastorate to Men,” June 3, 2000.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “A Call for Courage on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,” December 16, 2003.

Recommended Web site:  The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

The Marin Independent Journal, the county’s newspaper, recently discovered a subversive and alien force within its environs — an evangelical seminary.  As the paper informed its readers: “It is an anomaly - the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, a conservative, evangelical island in the heart of Marin, one of the country’s most liberal counties.”

Further:  “Situated on 100 acres at the top of a hill with a panoramic view of San Francisco, the Southern Baptist seminary - which trains clergy in the most conservative branch of a conservative church - is flourishing in an area better known for its New Age adherents and liberal politics.”

Strange?  As the paper explained:  “We live with it every day,” said Jeff Org, seminary president, who acknowledges the seminary is a square peg in a roundly holistic-inclined Marin. “It is an anomaly for us as well.”  But it is an anomaly those at the seminary are comfortable with because, they say, they are captivated by the beauty of Marin as well as the multi cultural population of the Bay Area and the cultural attractions of San Francisco.”

The article is worth a look.

On the Elliott controversy [1963-1965]:

Under the banner of institutional independence and academic freedom, some seminary professors and others in positions of leadership had become separated from the historic core of Southern Baptist doctrine.  Depending on the viewer’s perspective, either the church was drifting toward a modernist, relativistic interpretation of the Bible and away from its traditional beliefs, or it was under attack from closed-minded reactionaries determined to conform everyone to their way of thinking.

On the Genesis commentary controversy [1970-1972]:

Perhaps the best summary of the whole business was an insightful article by Joe T. Odle, editor of the Mississippi Baptist Record, who wrote: “What is being said is far deeper than mere discontent with a commentary.  Southern Baptists are saying that they are determined to stay with the Bible believing conservatism which has characterized the convention since its beginning, and they are not willing to move toward a more liberal position. . . .  We may have seen the last convention where messengers feel compelled to deal with theological issues.” Dr. Draper added, “If only it were so.”

On the conservative resurgence [1979-1990]:

Many of us felt that we had to act to preserve the theological integrity of Southern Baptist seminaries and that the proper way to change things was by using the system that had been in place for many years.  That was what we did.  [Judge Paul] Pressler believed the conflict could have been stopped after Adrian [Rogers] was elected if the seminaries and their moderate supporters had taken two steps to accommodate the views of the conservative majority:  “The first was to add to their faculties professors who personally held a traditional, conservative position and would have taught the traditional Southern Baptist belief that the Bible is completely true.  The other was to halt the ridicule and attacks on students who defended the belief that the Bible was completely true.  However, neither was done.”

LifeWay Legacy is a must-read for all interested in the Southern Baptist Convention — especially the last five decades.  Dr. Draper’s humanity and conviction show through in each chapter.

From the report:

Increasingly, for example, Baptist churches in disagreement with the Southern Baptist Convention over issues of women’s ordination or gay-lesbian inclusion are exploring UCC affiliation. At least that’s been the case in Virginia and Georgia. And that’s quite a new twist for a Yankee-prone denomination, one that has more than 700 congregations in Pennsylvania but just one in Mississippi.

Widely recognized for its liberal mix of mainline Christianity and social activism, the UCC often touts its “early arrival” on justice issues, including the first ordination of an African- American pastor (1785), the first ordination of a woman (1853), and the first ordination of an openly gay minister (1972).

In 2003, the Alliance of Baptists (formerly known as the Southern Baptist Alliance) and the UCC entered into a “partnership in mission and ministry.”  The groups recognize each other’s ministers, etc.

Interestingly, the report of the UCC growth among liberal congregations disaffected from the SBC came just days after Andover Newton Theological School announced an October 25, 2006 “dialogue” between UCC representatives and officials of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

As the school announced:

Rev. John Thomas, General Minister and President of the UCC and Rev. William Sinkford, President, of the UUA, will reflect on the historical affinities and divisions between their denominations, and then go on to explore current realities and future possibilities. This exchange is of interest to clergy and congregants in both denominations because, despite theological differences and the historical controversy that led to their split, in recent years there has been a growing solidarity of the two groups. On a number of issues of progressive religious conviction and social justice the two share common perspectives, and in some communities there are some churches that have become aligned with both denominations.

Keep in mind the fact that the UUA does not even claim to be a Christian denomination.  By definition, it is committed to Unitarianism and Universalism.

So, the UCC is now a meeting place for disaffected Baptists, on the one hand, and Unitarian Universalists on the other.

The big story for the SBC is the fact that some of the churches formerly associated with the convention have moved so far, so fast, to the far left.

It was a great honor to welcome Dr. Page for his first SBC seminary visit after his election in June.  We were all reminded to pray for him as he fulfillls his presidential duties and represents us all.

The conclusive evidence for this is found in a report commissioned by Baptist
Women in Ministry. “The
State of Women in Baptist Life, 2005” by Eileen R. Campbell-Reed and Pamela
R. Durso is a major research project that should reshape the conversation over
women in ministry among Baptists.

The researchers acknowledge their own ideological commitments, but their analysis appears to be both comprehensive and fair. “The perspective of this report rests firmly in the moderate-to-progressive constellation of Baptist organizations in the southern United States,” the authors state. “Institutions that make up this constellation are those that parted company with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), some gradually and others more abruptly beginning in the 1980s.”

After tracing the history of the ordination of women in Baptist life, the report turns to the controversial question of women serving in the pastorate. With specific reference to moderate and liberal Baptist bodies including the Alliance of Baptists, the Baptist General Association of Virginia, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the authors offer this blunt assessment:

Never before have so many Baptist women officially served as pastors and co-pastors, and yet statistically the great majority of Baptist churches affiliated with the Alliance, BGAV, BGCT, and CBF have not called women to serve as pastor.

Indeed, their research indicated that out of the thousands of churches involved in their sample, only 66 of these churches have called women as pastors or co-pastors. The percentages tell the story. The BGAV reports 16 women pastors among 1,411 churches. Among the BGCT’s 5,900 churches, only 11 women serve as either pastor or co-pastor — and this amounts to .19% of the total. In other words, even if the BGCT is understood to be supportive of women in the pastorate, less than one-fifth of one percent of their churches have called a woman as pastor or co-pastor.

Unsurprisingly, the group most supportive of women pastors is the Alliance, and that group reports 26 women serving as pastor or co-pastor out of 118 affiliating congregations.

The bottom line of the research reveals that moderate Southern Baptists, while
registering strong opposition to the 2000 revision of the Baptist
Faith and Message, and while offering strong words of encouragement to women
seeking to serve in the pastorate, appear to be extremely reluctant to call
women to serve in these positions.

As a matter of fact, dozens of the largest and most visible moderate pulpits have transitioned over the last 20 years, but, as yet, not one of these churches has yet called a woman to serve as pastor. These churches would include congregations such as Crescent Hill Baptist Church and Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Wieuca Road Baptist Church and First Baptist Church Decatur in the Atlanta area, South Main Baptist Church in Houston, First Baptist in Asheville, Second Baptist Church in Lubbock, Broadway Baptist Church and University Baptist Church in Fort Worth, College Park Baptist Church in Orlando, Third Baptist Church in St. Louis, Kirkwood Baptist Church in Kansas City, and even churches like River Road (Baptist) Church in Richmond.  The list goes on.

In other words, moderate Baptist congregations — even self-consciously liberal congregations — are just not calling women to serve as pastors to any significant degree.

This report deserves a wide reading and should be of interest to both moderate and conservative Baptists. The researchers cover a wide range of questions and their quantitative analysis should prompt much discussion among Baptists on both sides of this controversy.

Among moderates, the report should serve as a catalyst for asking what must be a very hard question:  To what degree are moderate Southern Baptists actually open to women serving in the pastorate? At the hypothetical level, this openness appears to be nearly universal among moderates — especially those associated with the CBF. At the congregational level, however, the reality appears to be dramatically at odds with this public commitment.

Beyond this, this report points to a future crisis in terms of a disconnect between moderate theological education and moderate churches. According to these researchers, women now constitute a majority of students studying for ministry at schools including Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, and Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology.  Will churches call these women to serve as pastor?  Will the feminization of these schools force a disconnect between these institutions and their supporting churches?  Where are the men?

[The percentage of women enrolled at American Baptist Convention USA schools such as Andover Newton Theological School and Colgate Rochester Crozer Theological Seminary were even higher. At Andover Newton, 65% of students are women, reflecting an exodus of men from the ministry among mainline Protestants.]

This important report, now available online, helps to clarify and to quantify where many Baptists really stand on the question of women serving in the pastorate. If nothing else, regardless of one’s convictions on this question, the report must raise the question of credibility on the part of moderate Baptists who claim to support women pastors. At this point, with the singular exception of the Alliance of Baptists, this support appears to be hypothetical, not real.

One section of this post deserves particular attention:
Even more than denominational press, the threats and name calling from some of the brethren also felt like a violation. But much of that was from the heat of emotion and must be overlooked.

There is simply no excuse for name calling when it comes to brothers and sisters in Christ who are earnestly seeking the mind of Christ. Let’s continue to pray for this church and for Dr. Newkirk as they struggle with the question of baptism. At the same time, let us kindly and honestly encourage each other with the full measure of our conviction.