The SBC Circus and the Bride of Christ

If the Church is the pillar and buttress of the truth (which it is, see 1 Timothy 3:15), what is the Southern Baptist Convention? Some behave as if the SBC is the foundation beneath the Church, which is terribly unbiblical and blasphemous. They live first for denomination-culture and second or third for Christ, then fourth, fifth, or sixth for the Church, if they care for the Bride of Christ at all. Others identify with the SBC but know nothing about it, give it no support, deny the Baptist Faith and Message, and even trash it at every turn. There's a group that believes every local SBC church should be perfectly homogenized in theology and practice. Still, others see the SBC as something to be used, shaped, and crafted for selfish purposes. It's a circus.

Having given the SBC more attention over these past ten years, even partnering with NAMB to plant a church and serving as the President of my two-state convention, I'm tempted to borrow the words of Charles Spurgeon. About his own Baptist Union in 1887, he said, "We're going downhill and breakneck speed."

There are scores of baptists echoing Spurgeon's line, but finding unity in the catalyst of the problem is elusive. Even harder to find is agreement about a solution. Certainly, there are members of my two-state convention ready with complaints about my actions. Maybe I’m the problem. For them, I've either gone too far or not far enough. I'd likely agree with most of them.

Many are arguing that Critical Race Theory is unbiblical and creeping into the SBC. With them, I agree. There is concern that many churches are closet egalitarians. Some churches are unhitching themselves from the Word of God. One SBC entity seems content to become it’s own denomination and toss out the rest. Liberalism in the SBC is growing. The convention is too political at times not political enough at critical moments. Important doctrines are falling by the wayside. Biblical literacy has been assumed for so long that biblical knowledge has all but disappeared. Mission drift--there's a bunch of that too. Even still, the SBC is not going downhill at breakneck speeds. It has always been a big-tent circus selling tickets at the bottom of the valley. And it's the same circus as it always has been, even if the animals and performers keep changing.

To get a better vantage point, it helps to know what the Southern Baptist Convention is supposed to be.

According to the SBC website, "The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a body of like-minded local churches cooperating together to reach the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ" (http://www.sbc.net/about). Note the purpose. There is nothing there about defining what the local church is or should believe or should be. It's not about politics or culture. It's about reaching the world with the gospel.

Even the Baptist Faith and Message is not a statement about what every church should believe, but instead, it’s a threshold for confessing churches to determine if their confessions line up enough to work together for the purpose of local and global mission work. If they line up, they should partner, if they don’t, they should seek different partnerships. That’s it.

Furthermore, the 1845 charter states that the Southern Baptist Convention was "created for the purpose of eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the Baptist denomination of Christians, for the propagation of the gospel" (https://www.sbc.net/about/what-we-do/legal-documentation/charter/). The constitution affirms the same purpose.

The SBC is not a denomination; it's a mission organization. (It’s but one partnership opportunity among many for the local church.) Over time, baptists determined that seminaries should be started and supported to aid gospel proclamation to the lost. An entity was started to publish educational materials. A government relations and lobbying arm was added. To justify these additions, baptist argued that the Church's greatest commandment was missions, and the primary purpose of the Church was to advance the gospel. It's up to each local church to determined this for themselves, but they would be hard-pressed to find support from the Bible. The Great Commission is vital, but it's not the greatest commandment to the Church.

I wonder what would happen if the SBC and all its entities stopped trying to tell the Church who She is and what the SBC wants of Her, and instead returned to the purpose of telling the world about how beautiful She is and how remarkable the salvation found only in her Husband (Jesus) can be when we submit to Him as Lord and King. Could it be that the valley circus might remember that they have a train? Will they see that the boxcars can be loaded and the track can lead them out of the stagnate places where they are to go on grand new adventures where they might do why they were created for? Maybe the gospel will be shared worldwide when both the local church and the SBC remember that the SBC is but a prosthetic limb on the Body of Christ, there to help the Church, not be the Church. Maybe we might do what the SBC is for when we realize the SBC is not the end, but a means to fulfill the Great Commission. The SBC is not there to help churches obey the greatest commandment (that’s the church’s job), but engage in the great commission (also the church’s job).

I don't know what the next season of the SBC will look like, but I know mission organizations come and go in the aid of Christ's Church. Jesus' Church will last because Jesus' bride is the Church. He’s not married to a convention of local churches working together to pool missional efforts. He cares much more for one than the other. Let's remember that.