Dueling Declarations?
September 26th, 2006 | Posted in » Baptist Issues
Yesterday’s big news seemed to be centered around the Joshua Convergence, a conference of 40+ pastors and seminary professors which is meeting outside Orlando.
According to the Florida Baptist Witness, attendees at the Joshua Convergence presented their “Principles of Affirmation”, which basically affirms the direction and purpose of the Southern Baptist Convention, and urges continued commitment to such. The Joshua Convergence statement is similar in its development to the Memphis Declaration, although its content diiffers dramatically in regard to statements about our convention. You can read more here.
Now, I don’t know who is attending the Joshua Convergence, and I don’t know who attended the Memphis Summit, but it seems to me we’re got different groups of people playing a game of dueling declarations. It’s like we’re creating political parties in the SBC… the Memphis Party and Joshua Party. Is this what we want?
I just don’t get it. Shouldn’t we be spending our time working through our differences for the glory of God rather than issuing these nice-sounding, yet politically-charged documents?
How about this instead? Now that we’ve had the Joshua Convergence and the Memphis Summit, let’s get everyone from both “sides” together and pray. We can pray for unity. We can pray for each other’s ministries. We can pray for the direction of our convention. We can pray for the leadership of our convention. We can pray for our missionaries. We can pray for our churches. We can pray for our country. We can pray for the lost. We can pray for revival.
Need I go on?
Here’s the deal, folks. I believe that our commonalities as Baptists by far exceed our differences, and we really need to be focusing on unity at this point. If some kind of prayer summit would help to promote unity amongst these groups of dueling declarants, let’s get it going. I may not be a mover or a shaker in our convention… to be completely honest, I’m just a peon layperson from a small church. But you know what? I’m willing to step out on a limb if it helps further the cause of Christ, so I’m more than willing to help put something like this together. I willing to further step out on that limb and state that I think there are a lot of people out there who would love to help.
So, what do you think? Do we need this to get past our differences? Would something different help more? Am I just out of my mind?
I don’t know. Tell me what YOU think.
9 Responses to “Dueling Declarations?”
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- Sep 26, 2006: The Voice of God « She who knows
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By Kevin Bussey on Sep 26, 2006
John,
I’m with you. I truly believe that you, Micah, Marty, Wade, Art and others want to get along. But I’m telling you, something stinks about this.
By Dorcas Hawker on Sep 26, 2006
So you want to know what I think … I don’t think we have a duel on our hands. Or at least we don’t have to have one.
God has placed on my heart a real burden to realize that we are one body. We need all of us. For me that means I have to acknowledge we need those guys who may say not so nice stuff about my pastor. That is hard to take. I’ll admit I don’t always want to listen to people once they have falsely accused another … like some have done to Wade. And yet, unless we are ready to say some people are not Christians, which I do not believe is the case, then we are going to have to admit we need each other.
So what do we do with the Memphis Declaration and the Florida Affirmations. I think we can look at them for what they are … using an analogy of anatomy–perhaps one is the nervous system and the other the circulatory system. We need both in a way. Now I’ll admit I do not agree with all of the affirmations. I think there is too much hero worship and that whole anti-alcohol thing is a political fireball possibly included for less than honorable purposes by some. Yet others adamantly believe it is vital to being Baptist or Christian.
Many mock the Memphis Declaration and then denigrate those who were there if they do not think they meet every one as if it were a list of rules on the scale of the Ten Commandments. I saw the result of the Memphis meeting and I can honestly say it was a work of the Spirit and not a political manuever. I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to the Florida group as well. I was not there, so I cannot speak to the hearts of the men there … if they went in with political reasons, I pray they come out with the touch of the Spirit on their lives and changed hearts.
I will stand firm where conviction demands it, but I am also trying to maintain a soft heart to realize though I may be embarrassed by my feet, and wear socks and shoes instead of sandals, I still need them to get from here to there.
If we truly believe that we are one body, we need to focus on the Spirit indwelling us and allow Him to do the work of unity within us.
By Paul on Sep 26, 2006
“I just don’t get it. Shouldn’t we be spending our time working through our differences for the glory of God rather than issuing these nice-sounding, yet politically-charged documents?”
That’s a very keen statement. I totally agree. Good words, John.
By John on Sep 26, 2006
Dorcas,
Great point… we don’t have to have a duel on our hands.
That’s what I’m getting at. I don’t have a problem with either the Memphis Declaration or the Principles of Affirmation in and of themselves, even though I don’t necessarily agree with everything in both.
Where I do get a bit frustrated (okay, a LOT frustrated) is that if we’re concerned about unity at all, why aren’t we getting both of these groups together to work through our issues? Writing declarations is nice and all, but I just don’t see how they help us overcome our underlying differences.
So… back to my thought… Let’s get everyone from these two groups together and hash out our differences. Maybe that way, we can move forward together with a real “difference†in mind… making a difference in this world for Christ.
By Paul Burleson on Sep 26, 2006
John,
If I understand 1 Corinthians correctly, unity is never about agreeing on issues. Hence Paul wrote to that church saying “who is Paul, Peter, Apollos, but gifts.” [They were arguing over who had been the best pastor of the three.] Receiving each as they are as a gift from God for a purpose would be an attitude that is a unifying element.
So for us [SBC] to continue to point out our differences by declarations, sermons, or shouting will continue to create a lack of unity. We divide when bad attitudes develop because of differences. We unite when good attitudes develop because Jesus is real even where there are differences.
If you put together a meetings to celebrate around the reality of Christ and share our differences in unity count me in. Kevin’s church sounds like a great place to do it.
Paul
By Bryan Riley on Sep 28, 2006
What do we have in common as Christians? Jesus. Period. End of story. Unless someone is going to stand up and say if you believe that drinking alcohol is okay means that you can’t have Jesus, (as just one example), then I agree with the spirit of this post … what are we battling over? We are one body. In Christ. And, if we believe that another person is a born again Christian, regardless of some different beliefs they may have, then we shouldn’t be out with our pocket knives (when we fight against ourselves I’m not thinking we have our our swords of the Spirit) cutting at them. Period. End of story. It makes no sense. Particularly not out in front of people who aren’t believers. In fact, I think it comes from our humanity, not from the Spirit, when we fight. It isn’t contending for the faith as described in Jude. It also isn’t loving. It’s not wise. I’m really not sure what it is other than a distraction from our true calling to demonstrate Christ to a dying world.
By Bob Cleveland on Sep 29, 2006
Now that the meeting’s history, what’s different?
That’s an earnest question.