I have spent a great deal of time over the last couple of months reflecting on the relationship between the gospel and ecclesiology. I am honestly convinced that Baptist ecclesiology better depicts the gospel and fits within the grand narrative of Scripture than other forms of ecclesiology. If I did not think so, I would be something besides a Baptist. I have spoken with several friends and colleagues around the convention about this issue. This is a topic I hit on pretty hard in my Baptist History and Distinctives classes at The College at Southeastern. I hope to write something on this topic soon–possibly more than one somethings.

Lord willing, I will also discuss this topic in future posts, hopefully in greater detail, so these are just some initial thoughts. I am very fearful that there is a false dichotomy in Southern Baptist circles between “gospel Baptists” and “identity Baptists.” While there are no doubt thoughtful Southern Baptists who emphasize different things, I suspect this particular divide has been created (or at least exacerbated) by a combination of some unhelpful bloggers, immature Calvinists who simplistically equate the gospel with the doctrines of grace, and a Baptocentrism that, while not technically Landmark in the sense of affirming Baptist succession or perpetuity, is Landmark-like in its denominational jingoism. While all of these elements may predominate in certain areas of SBC life (the blogosphere, seminary cafeterias and libraries, some conferences, some geographic regions) , I am convinced they are extremes within the broader convention. And as I argued in an earlier post titled “Varieties of SBC Conservatism,” if we are not careful, it will be the extremes that kill us.

Enter Russ Moore and Robbie Sagers of Southern Seminary. In the most recent issue of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, these brothers have authored a fine article titled “The Kingdom of God: A Baptist Reassessment.” The article can be read online [click here] at the website of The Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement, a Southern thinktank which Moore serves as director and for which Sagers regularly blogs and occasionally authors longer commentaries. While their specific topic is somewhat broader than the relationship between the gospel and Baptist identity, they hit on the issue and other crucial items related thereto. I commend their article to you.

There are other recent publications that I believe also make significant contributions to moving Southern Baptists in the right direction. I will address them in future posts.

Word on the street is that LifeWay is publishing a new edition of The Baptist Hymnal this summer. As a personal lover of hymns–the older the better!–I am excited about the venture. Yesterday, a student introduced me to a hymn that I am convinced needs to be added to the new hymnal. It has history. It has panache. And it is Southern Baptist to the marrow. So without further adieu, I give you “A Million More in ‘54,” the companion hymn for the well-known SBC Sunday School enrollment campaign of the mid-1950s:

A Million More in ‘54

A million more in fifty-four! Enrolled in Sunday School,
To hear the gospel, read the Word And learn the Golden Rule.
A million more in fifty-four, To leave the paths of sin;
To meet the Saviour, know His grace, And find new peace within.

A million more in fifty-four! The gospel will be sown
In hearts of women, boy and girls, And men who have not known
The saving pow’r of matchless grace Provided by God’s Son
Who came and died on Calv’ry’s tree To save them, ev’ry one.

A million more in fifty-four! Depends on workers true;
Our hearts, our strength, our wills, our time, We dedicate anew.
We each must visit, work, and pray In answer to God’s call.
A work to honor Christ our King Demands our best, our all.

Chorus:
A million more in fifty-four, Enrolled in Sunday School;
A million more in fifty-four, Enrolled in Sunday School.

[By W. Hines Sims. Copyright, 1953, Broadman Press]

Although I’m pretty sure my reading audience is relatively young, I would suspect that more than one reader can remember singing this hymn in childhood days. The Million More in ‘54 campaign is arguably the most influential program/denominational emphasis in the convention’s history, rivaled only by the 75 Million Campaign of the late teens and early 1920s. The two of them (along with some other factors) greatly contributed to the modern denomination that the SBC had become by the 1950s. There would have likely never been a Bold Mission Thrust, a call for us to be Empowering Kingdom Growth, or a reminder that Everyone Can! were it not for the relative successes of these two earlier programs.

From time to time, one hears Southern Baptist pastors and scholars complain about the danger of hyper-Calvinism in the SBC. I have argued on this blog and in other venues that there are virtually no hyper-Calvinists in the SBC. I have contended that those who use the term do so recklessly, either out of ignorance or malice. I choose to believe it is out of ignorance, because while it may sound ugly, it is a whole heap better than the alternative.

My protests to the contrary, I have recently become convinced that there are some hyper-Calvinists in the SBC after all. But in this case, these hyper-Calvinists are not opposed to urging all people to repent of their sins and trust Christ, but rather they bristle at the idea that human beings have the ability to influence global climate change. Let me explain.

Bona fide hyper-Calvinism is a collection of various doctrines that are perverted distortions of historic Calvinism, much like the relationship of open-theism to classical Arminianism. But where the hyper-Calvinist rubber meets the real world road is on the issue of gospel preaching. Simply put, the most important difference between Calvinism and hyper-Calvinism is that the latter denies the role of human means in bringing lost men and women to faith in Christ. Hence, they refuse to urge all lost people to turn to Christ in faith. To say it another way, hypers reject the theological principle that the same God who has ordained the end (the salvation of the elect) has ordained the means (the preaching of the gospel to all men).

When I observe how some Southern Baptists have responded to “A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change”–a document I have endorsed–I am convinced that there may be some hyper-Calvinists among us after all. I have read blog comments, blog posts, and letters to the editor of at least one Baptist state paper that argue that human beings cannot play a role in climate change. Those who make this claim will then quote a number of Scripture texts that tell us that God is the one who controls the weather. The implication, sometimes explicitly stated, is that to believe that our actions can negatively impact the environment is man-centered and undermines the sovereignty of God. Not a few folks have even said that Jonathan Merritt, the main author of the Declaration, is a young enthusiast who needs to sit down and shut up. After all, when God is ready to change the climate, he will do so without your help or mine.

For the record, I have no issue with someone who refuses to sign the Declaration. While all Southern Baptists believe in the Christian duty to be good stewards of God’s creation, not all agree that Climate Change is really happening. Fair enough. But don’t go hyper-Calvinist on me and argue that we cannot influence the environment. As one of my students said, “I don’t see how anyone can see the stuff coming out of factory smokestacks and believe that it is good for the environment.” Please note that this comment came from a brother who did not sign the Declaration.

God is surely sovereign over his creation. But if the climate is changing, is it that hard to believe that the same God who ordained the ends has ordained the means? And think carefully before you answer that question–someone may just accuse you of being a hyper-Calvinist.

Please pray for the family and friends of Forrest Pollock, who was the pastor of the Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida. Dr. Pollock and his 13 year old son, Preston, were killed when their plane crashed in the North Carolina mountains Sunday evening. Bell Shoals is one of the leading churches in the Florida Baptist Convention. You may remember that Dr. Pollock gave the nomination speech for Frank Page at the 2006 SBC annual meeting in Greensboro. Information about the tragedy can be found on the website of Bell Shoals Church.

In the last three weeks, at least two different semi-private emails have been leaked to prominent bloggers. The first was an exchange involving a number of people, myself included, regarding the wording of the Yarnell-Barber Resolution on Regenerate Church Membership. A couple dozen folks were involved in the discussion, and there was some give-and-take (as is the case with all consensus statements), but in the end almost every person involved in the discussion publicly endorsed the resolution. The plot thickened, however, when someone sent at least portions of those exchanges to Wade Burleson, who highlighted the give-and-take aspect of the discussions on his blog.

About ten days ago, New Orleans Seminary provost Steve Lemke sent an email to his faculty. The purpose of the email was to inform his faculty about the Yarnell-Barber Resolution. Someone leaked that email to Paul Littleton, who has blogged about it today at SBC Outpost. According to Paul, the email contained some critical remarks about Tom Ascol, who of course has proposed a Resolution on Integrity in Church Membership for the third year in a row. Paul also raises some interesting questions about honesty, which will no doubt make for some vigorous discussion in the comments section over the next day or two.

No doubt some will respond to these two events by bemoaning the fact that Wade and Paul would publish this material. After all, neither of them were included in the original emails, hence the “semi-private” nature of the correspondence. Others will complain about the unknown (at least to me) individuals who forwarded these emails on to Wade, Paul, and who knows who else. One of the complaints some have had about Wade’s blog for over two years is that he makes public what ought to be left private. Wade responds by noting that relatively few things should remain private because SBC agencies serve all Southern Baptists and that interested Baptists deserve to know what’s happening at their CP-funded institutions.

I am not interested in either defending or criticizing Wade, Paul, or the individual(s) who forwarded them the items of correspondence referenced above (or any other correspondence). They have each one made their decisions for their reasons. Besides, there are plenty of others who will either excoriate them or call them blessed because they have chosen to make information like this available to the wider public, or at least that portion of the public that reads SBC-focused blogs. Instead, I want to speak to the new reality that has been ushered in by the blogs.

Take note, my fellow Southern Baptists: there are no more secrets. At least not many. From the denomination’s inception, the SBC has been influenced by a Group of individuals who possessed both the ministry platfrom and the desire to help direct the general trajectory of the SBC. The Group has changed over time–people come and go, after all. The ministry platforms have changed–the leading churches of 1867 are not necessarily the leading churches of 2008, while the institutions and boards of 1885 have expanded into the institutions and boards of 2008. The theologies have changed–the mostly consistent Calvinism of 1850 gave way to the atheological pragmatism and progressivism of 1960 that was replaced by the more broadly conservative and relatively revivalistic theology of 2008. And regardless of lifetime, platform, and theology, the Group is always in flux; simply stated, not every engaged Baptist leader cares about every issue of their era. But there has always been a Group, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending upon the convictions and practices of the particular Group in question.

Modern technology played a critical role in the Group’s transformation into a conservative body. Many of the pastors and professors and missionaries who would later become the current manifestation of the Group used computer mailing lists, conference calls, and airport conference rooms to help facilitate a grassroots movement to replace the then-Group with a new Group. Mission accomplished. Once emails came along, the Group was able to communicate almost instantaneously, effortlessly contract and expand for each given issue, and keep Group members informed about priorities, policies, and potential problems.

Flash forward to 2005 or so, and technology began to play a critical role in the undermining of the Group. Message boards had already tilled the soil, as it were, because information was disseminated on discussion threads that was once relegated to water cooler chats, annual meeting dinner and lunch recesses, and seminary cafeteria gossip. Then some of the message boarders (and many others) began to use their blogs to help communicate their concerns to anyone with a RSS feed or a “Favorites” function on their web browser. The information communicated was a mixed bag. Some of it included legitimate scoops, creating a sort of shadow-media that worked alongside (and often outdid) Baptist Press and Associated Baptist Press. Some of it was insightful commentary. Some of it was less insightful. Some of it was pure gossip and hearsay. Some of it was possibly gossip and hearsay. Some of it was probably not gossip and hearsay. Some of it was revolutionary, some of it was anarchy, some of it was cyber-cronyism, and some of it was heart-breaking. And that was just last month.

The point is, whether helpful, unhelpful, or likely both, blogs have undermined (though not eliminated) the Group’s ability to work behind the scenes to influence the direction of the convention. There are almost no secrets anymore. The world always finds out, and if it hasn’t happened yet, trust me, it will. This should offer a word of warning to anyone who is in a high-profile position within the convention. (The same warning could be applied to pastors of local churches.) People are always watching. They are always listening. Every misspoken word will be recorded. Every fleshly moment will be found out. Every secret decision will come to light. Every hidden sin will be discovered. Every closed-door debate will be let out into the open. In some of these cases, it will be a bad thing when the cat is let out of the bag; it is a fact that not every secret is nefarious and not every closed-door debate is insidious. But sometimes it will be a good thing, if for no other reason than the ongoing sanctification of the one who must now be careful concerning what he says and does behind closed doors. Because all of the doors are now made of glass.

So watch your life, your doctrine, and your email exchanges–somebody is always watching. And even if some secrets manage to slide pass the blogo-police who are always on patrol, remember that there is One who sees all, and pleasing Him is infinitely more important than maintaining whatever meager amount of influence any of us may presume to wield in the Southern Baptist Convention. May the very presence of blogs remind us to allow God’s Word to shine its gospel spotlight into the deepest recesses of each of our hearts, exposing our sin, convicting us of our transgressions, and conforming us to the image of the One who gave his life for us.

Sean Lucas of Covenant Seminary offers some wise words for seminarians (and collegians) who are contemplating doctoral studies. You can read his post here.

Hardly a week goes by that I do not have a student who is asking questions about whether or not it is in his best interests to pursue the PhD. Some of these students want to be professors who teach either church history or theology. Most of them want to be pastor-theologians like John Piper or Mark Dever, even if they do not agree with those men’s Calvinism. I typically offer the former advice similar to what Sean suggests in his post. For the latter group, I inform them that the PhD is not necessary to be a thoughtful pastor. I also remind them that both Piper and Dever earned their doctorates because of their initial desire to teach, and Mark at least has said on occasion that he’s not sure he would have pursued the PhD had he known he’d be a full-time pastor rather than a seminary professor.

[HT: Justin Taylor]