Sad Day At Green Lake

Recently I had the privilege of preaching in a congregation of another denomination in Nevada. Following the message, I was greeted by a gracious elderly gentleman, a retired minister who had served churches in that denomination for 39 years. He told me he had been saved in an American Baptist Church, and then he added poignantly “They’re not what they used to be.” If you question whether his assessment of ABCUSA is true, you have no further to look than the recent vote at the Minister’s Council in Green Lake. There the “Senators” (representatives) of the various Minister’s Council areas voted to defeat an amendment to the Minister’s Council by-laws that called for the integrity of biblical teaching regarding sexual intimacy to be maintained in Minister’s Council qualifications for senatorial service, and for the ABCUSA policy regarding homosexuality to be the standard for sexual behavior. And they defeated it! They rejected it! They said "No!" to endorsing the teaching of scripture. Yes, its true, the American Baptist Churches are not what they used to be, or should be, when the ministers who stand in the pulpits are not willing to let the biblical teaching of the revelation of God be the expected and required standard of the church and its adjunct organizations.

August 22, 2005 is a sad, dark, pivotal day in the life of our denomination. The Minister’s Council abandoned it’s calling to be a biblical minister’s council. Evangelical, Bible believing pastors should be resigning from that unhappy organization in droves.

Specifics

My youngest daughter, now a college grad, was really a funny kid. I can remember sitting at the dinner table where on frequent occasions she would say something so funny I would just break up. The whole family would be in an uproar. Sometimes her comment would be right in the middle of a bite of food or a drink of the beverage of the meal, and I’d end up choking or spouting liquid through my nose like a whale. But I never journaled the things she said. “I’ll never forget that,” I thought, “it was too funny.” However, over the years I did forget, and now I have the general memory but no specifics.

Christians, and in our case American Baptists, want to be careful that we don’t treat what the Bible says in the same way. To walk in the way of God we need the specific teachings of scripture not just a general feeling of religion. That is one of our reasons for seeking God’s will in His word.

There are some American Baptists who will tell us that they love God, or revere Jesus (I heard one leading light of ABC say “Don’t mess with my Jesus!”), or we enjoy the feeling of being Baptist, but they don’t want to observe (or expect from those declaring faith) the specific behavioral teachings of the New Testament. Without obedience to what the Scriptures specifically state regarding sin versus purity they have a general positive feeling for Christian faith if it can be defined without letting the Scripture dictate a lifestyle. They are missing the point, and the denomination, by accepting their redefintion, seems to have lost its way.

Non-grace or Grace

How do we grace those whose rejection of certain teachings of God's Word has done such harm to our denomination?

Is it grace to endorse what the Bible doesn't? Is it grace to tell someone caught up in sin that the sin is O.K. before God? Is it grace to pretend that those who reject the clear teaching of scripture are still Baptists in more than name only? Is it grace to put friendship ahead of biblical principle? Is it grace to accept as orthodox a so-called theology that flies in the face of 2,000 years of biblical understanding?

All these questions have the same answer, "No." That would be non-grace.

How then do we grace those rejecting biblical morality who claim they are in the center of the tradition of traditional Baptists?

God's way of grace is the Romans 5:8 way, "...while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Grace is not looking at the sinner through rose colored glasses and pronouncing that his sin is not really sin. Grace is doing him the kindness of treating him with love, while recognizing the sin and calling him to make a new start.

Haven't our ABCUSA denominational leaders done disservice to the denomination by refusing to take an all out stand in favor of scripture's teaching, and haven't they also done disservice to the Welcoming & Affirming churches and individuals by giving them the false hope that God approves of their sin. It is time for our leaders to make a new start in advocating biblical morality, and if they do not it is time for Bible believing churches to take serious action to make their scriptural stance known even if it means breaking fellowship with a prodigal, runaway ABCUSA.