Interesting story… I’ll have to remember that one. Could make a good Sunday School illustration someday…

Had an interesting story about “bad apples” that I heard 50+/- years ago. Seems a family in the country had a barrel of apples on the back porch. The kids would go get an apple each day from it and eat it, during the winter. Their mom made them take the one that was just starting to spoil, so they could eat it before it got rotten and not waste it.

They said they always spent the whole winter eating half-bad apples.

I think that may happen in the SBC, too. Some folks hack at what they think is half bad, to the exclusion of ever keeping the good parts from going bad.

Of course, the same thing can be said about Southern Baptists. There are bad apples in every denomination, church movement, etc. Contrary to the old adage, these bad apples don’t spoil the whole bunch… they just provide ammunition for those who want to use anecdotes as proof of misgeneralizations they want applied to the whole.

I’m not sure I have misgivings about the Acts 29 movement. All I know is what rhetoric I’ve heard. But I’ve heard, and spoken with, Ed Stetzer, and I’d line up with him any day, on the face of it, based on what I’ve heard Mr. Moran say about him.

The really sad fact is that there’s all this “outrage” about Acts 29, whose statements of faith I certainly cannot argue with, but absolutely NO such outrage about churches with half their members “missing in inaction”, and who largely are unwilling to take any steps to either prevent or correct it. There’s no outrage over divorce, etc, statistics in the church that seem to look like those outside. No outrage about laxity in things like starting times for services and classes, selling things in the church, and the very fact that “ministerially speaking” is a code word for exaggeration, which itself is another word for lying.

And where’s any outrage over the preponderance of churches not growing, or even shrinking?

Along comes a movement trying to reach people with sound biblically-based (but not tradition-based) actions. If they show any promise, I don’t wonder that some of the “establishment” will get all bent out of shape.

The bottom line is souls. Mr. Moran and others have yet to say anything about whether the Acts 29 movement is doing anything in that arena (at least not that I’ve seen).

I very much appreciate the link to Hinkle’s editorial. One wonders sometimes why we Baptists are so quick to pull our weapons.
Grace. WIth that, I am…

Peter

p.s Congratulations. Your daughter is beautiful, John