Love the Southern Baptist Convention

With all her faults [JC Ryle] loves the Church of England still, he loves the souls of men much more, and most of all the gospel of their salvation. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I have always loved JC Ryle’s passion to love and transform his church from the inside out. For the many disagreements Ryle had with the established doctrine of his church it would have been easy for him to run into the dissenter and/or Baptist camps, but because he stayed he did much good to the souls that were entrusted to him.

As a Southern Baptist I have attempted to model JC Ryle’s commitment to his church. It is far easier in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) because we do not have an underlying cancer in our doctrine like the infant baptism or church/state melding of the Church of England, but the SBC is far from perfect. Unlike Ryle and his church’s doctrinal statement, there is nothing for me in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BF&M2K) that I have to explain away or hope that the authors meant something different than what they wrote. It is thoroughly biblical, and if we only allowed our creed to comprise the SBC, we’d have a perfect SBC. Where we go wrong is by allowing human beings to join our membership (obvious sarcasm intended). If there are heresies, moral failings, scandals, coverups, shameful biographies, and deviations from God’s Word in the SBC (and there are!) they were not birthed in the BF&M2K, but stand in stark contrast to what we profess to believe and preach.

What the SBC does so well is provide a framework which unites likeminded believers worldwide, and defers to conscience to hold true to what we say we believe. If there is a slide towards complacency and worldliness (and there is!) a church can return to godliness by believing what is written in the BF&M2K as it points the church back to Scripture, right theology, and saving faith. Our president does not define us nor drive our practices. He should be setting an example to follow, stating with a good conscience, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ”, but the churches of the SBC vest no special authority in him and can choose individually to glean from his preaching, teaching, and leading, or not.

By far the most important part of the SBC is that nowhere do we profess that a convention can go to Heaven, nor that just by being a member of an SBC church grants you favor with God. No-one should be deceived into thinking that by their affiliation with the SBC they have a special standing in God’s eyes. Be not deceived: Conventions, Sees, Synods, Presbyteries, Seminaries, Parishes, Chapels, nor Fellowships will have any inheritance in the kingdom of Heaven. Christ came not to save institutions, but to seek and save the lost. It is the duty of any assembly to point their people to the saving work of the Living Christ. So many have failed, some because of a flawed dogma, and others because of a lack of doctrine, but I am sure that membership bodies like the SBC will be judged not on the faithfulness to their creeds, but to their faithfulness to the Word of God.

So for these reasons and more I remain a Southern Baptist. Not all Southern Baptist Churches are faithfully pointing to Christ, but that is their sin, because they have professed to believe the BF&M2K, and it repeatedly gives all glory to God. There is no SBC Inquisition – nor should there be – to ensure that all churches are faithful, because our head is Christ and our helper is the Holy Spirit. Are there wolves and tares in our midst? Absolutely, because there are human beings in our midst. Show me a perfect church and I will show you a creed with no members.

On a tangent, I must say that the name of the Southern Baptist Convention is a hindrance to world evangelization. I cannot imagine calling a church “Southern” in North Sudan or North Korea; it even has bad connotations in New England. There has been talk in recent years of changing the name and – while I enjoy the tradition of the SBC – I wonder if a name change should be something we are willing to reconsider. As an unashamed graduate of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) I understand the sentimentality, but is world evangelization worth holding to our regional and founding title? Regardless, a faithful adherent to the BF&M2K will point towards Christ and away from institutions as the only hope of salvation. SBTS (and other SBC schools/seminaries) and the SBC exist as tools in the Redeemer’s hand: they must decrease, and he must increase.

May it be said when we are examined by faithful preachers yet to come,

With all her faults they loved the SBC, loved the souls of men much more, and most of all the gospel of their salvation.

Be Angry about Injustice in the World...and Sin Not

I’ve been privileged to conduct classes for the Air Force on “Bystander Intervention.” The basic premise of the training is to prepare to intervene in bad situations in whichever way you are most likely to intervene if you actually see a bad situation happening. These situations range from sexual assault to domestic violence to child abuse to suicidal ideations. It’s not a Christian training, per se, but it is one of the only workplace violence trainings that is quantifiable in its results, decreasing workplace violence by 17% on average in the first year.

I appreciate this training because it is taking an active role in people’s lives to train them to be courageous and to be peacemakers in their world. Because of this training the tragic death of George Floyd makes me all the more angry.

The Untimely Death of a Human Being

All of the facts have not come out yet, so I cannot and will not speak on the toxicology or resisting of arrest allegations. I suspect more to this story will come about in future days from body-cameras and the autopsy. However, the life of George Floyd was not valued by the police officers at the scene, and this should make all of us angry. Putting pressure on someone’s neck for a prolonged amount of time is never acceptable outside of them trying to kill you. We’ve heard from several police officers that this violated safety training that all police officers should have received. In the military we speak of proportionality of using the right amount of force to accomplish the objective. The reason that this is such an important concept is because we don’t want to cause undue damage or suffering, and we certainly don’t want to kill someone we weren’t intending to kill.

When we see blatant safety violations and excessive force being used on a person who is made in the image of God we should be angry. We should be more angry in this case that George Floyd lost his life. Floyd’s pastor (whom I’ll address more farther on), said it well, “Even if he was a capital criminal he deserved to be treated as someone created in his image.”

The Bystanders are Culpable in their Cowardice

What makes me nearly as angry as the death of George Floyd is the video of his death, the pictures of the person holding the camera, and the uninvolved police officer standing nonchalantly listening to a man be assaulted. This will be what I think about in the future when I think about spinelessness.

This has long been called the “bystander effect” by secular psychology. The Bible calls it cowardice. Cell phones and portable cameras are purportedly making it worse, as holding the phone makes it feel like you’re doing something. 

Further Reading: People Are Filming Accidents Instead of Helping

But just because everyone is sinning by not helping doesn’t mean you are innocent of the blood that was shed. In the long list of sinners in Revelation 21:8 that will be thrown into Hell, cowards are at the top of the list. I am further and further convinced that this is on purpose, there is not a sin on earth that can’t be made worse by bystanders refusing to speak up for the truth or intervene.

All that the standing police officer had to do was tap his buddy and say something, anything, maybe, “He’s done resisting, let’s get him up.” or, “Hey, don’t forget to keep your knee on his shoulder.” Or, “Hey, let me tap you out.” Or the camera-coward could have said, “He’s not breathing, can you let him get a breath?” Or to save a life would you physically remove someone from an asphyxia situation?

The False Gospel Preached to George Floyd

While a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, a false gospel murdered his soul. Members of his “church” in Houston have testified to how faithful Floyd was in attendance, but a brief search of their doctrine shows them to elevate social justice far above salvation. Their gospel is no gospel and their peace is no peace.

Do you hate the police officers and bystanders who contributed to Floyd’s death? As awful as their sin was, it could only kill Floyd’s body, but could do nothing to his soul. But when Floyd met the judge of the universe he faced a Saviour spurned, and Floyd’s hope – if congruent with his pastor – was in social justice and self-worth, not in the blood of Jesus Christ nor the justification of his resurrection.

Get Angry

Dear Reader, there is sin in this world and it is going from bad to worse: people hate and hurt people. This is one reason that Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” We worship a God who takes peace and justice so seriously as to make peace by the blood of the cross.

So I am calling you to hate sin, and rage against it, not with worldly weapons, but with the love and forgiveness and peace of the blood of Christ. Love your enemies by taking the gospel of reconciliation with God to them. Declare his hope to a lost and dying world. Who do you hate the most? Might I suggest that there is your missions field?

Then, act as a righteous bystander who opens your mouth for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy (Prov 31:8-9). A friend of mine pulled into a gas station a few years ago to see the unthinkable, a man was on fire in the parking lot! My friend ran into the store to ask for their fire extinguisher but was told the fire department had been called and that he could not take the fire extinguisher. My friend was able to extinguish the flames with a rubber mat, but it was far too late, and he laid on the ground and prayed with the man as he died. The gas station had a fire extinguisher to satisfy legal code, not to extinguish fires. I’m calling you today to make the determination in your heart that you will be prepared, that you will act when action is due, that you will be a bystander who intervenes, not a coward who watches or films or walks by. That you will, to the best of your ability, use your life to extinguish the hatred and violence in the world.

And finally, loved ones, I’m calling you to love the gospel and hate imitations. Proclaim to the world forgiveness of sin in Christ’s sacrifice. Declare the only hope of Heaven found in the Prince of Peace. Stand firm in loving your enemies as Christ loved his enemies and died to give them a seat at his table and transform their lives from hatred to peacemaking so that they may be called sons of God.

Anything less is the murder of souls, and God will not hold those that love sin, preach falsehood, spread division, or watch injustice without acting, faultless on judgment day.

The Power to Destroy

Introduction

Raising boys has made my wife and I realize that there are many differences between little boys and little girls. Indeed, as the old adage says, “A little boy is the only thing God can use to make a man.” One of the blessings of children is the theological truths you learn as you watch them grow. I want to share one such truth I’ve learned through my sons, I’m going to post it in three installments.

Little boys crave power. They want to feel powerful, be powerful, and be recognized for being powerful. Knowing this truth has changed the ways we’ve watched our sons grow and how we try to channel their energy for good. Titus Haddon, our littlest boy, is a perpetual sermon illustration, especially concerning power. He loves to destroy things, he loves to use words that hurt, but he also loves to help in meaningful ways, and – when he understands what the final purpose is – he loves to build things.

I would like to introduce you to three stages of power and how they relate to us, and how they relate to our Creator, and how we can grow in each of these. These three are the power to destroy, the power to preserve, and the power to create. This first installment will focus on the power to destroy.

1. The Power to Destroy

All children – especially boys – realize early that they have the power to destroy order and hurt people through their actions. Kicking, biting, and smashing are all ways which children can express their anger and frustration. As they grow they will also start to use words. “The tongue truly is a small member, yet it boasts of great things! How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness” (Jas 3:5-6).

It is no surprise that the power to destroy is the first thing little sinners learn and grasp. A tiny person who feels like they have no power sees their parent reel when they use a hurtful word, and they realize they do have a tool to inflict as much rage as they are feeling. Studies on troubled children – specifically those with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) – also point at the power children feel is using excrement and fire to multiply their power.

The power to destroy is established in the antithesis of what God is doing in the universe, “the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10).

But even in this role our power is limited, for Christ warned, “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). God’s power is perfect, but it is not capricious, for when you see God destroying something it is after much patience that he executes judgment, and it is never solely for the sake of demonstrating his power: but as a warning, as a means of blessing his church, and to purify his creation (cf Gen 6:13, Lev 23:30, Ps 58:10-11, 2 Pet 3:10-11).

Being made in the image of God we also have the power to destroy for good. We have the power, given through the Holy Spirit, to cut off sin, such as John Owen warned, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” We have the power to discipline sinful habits out of tiny people and to administer correction when they err. And while we have the power to lash out, we must restrain ourselves like God, and leave vengeance up to him, for he is far better at it than we ever could be.

Finally, destruction should be used to clear the path for rebuilding. We should not – like certain nations have recently done – topple the government of a warring nation only to watch the populace devolve into anarchy. We must rebuild and maintain, which are topics for a future discussion.

The gospel in this is that we were without peace and without hope in the world when Christ laid down his life for us. He faced the full destructive power of his Father on the cross which otherwise would have been directed at us, and in our place he faced the crushing pain that we deserved.

He himself is our peace, who has made us both (Jews and Gentiles) one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility... ~Ephesians 2:14

So the next time your boys demonstrate their power through destruction you have two options:

1. Encourage them to voice their anger/disapproval in a different way.

2. Redirect their energy to destroying something that needs to be destroyed (cardboard is a great target!).