Dear Blog Readers,

I have been thinking quite a bit the last few days about blogging. There are times I consider walking away from blogging; in fact, I have done that on two different occasions, though one was more of a planned hiatus rather than a permanent blog stoppage. But I don’t really want to quit blogging, for any real length of time, for a couple of reasons. First, there are too many things I want to say! Second, I just enjoy it. So I am not throwing in the blog towel.

Though I am not going to quit blogging, after several days of thinking and praying about the matter, I am going to stop blogging at The Fullness of Time. There are several reasons for this decision.

First, I find myself with less and less time to devote to thoughtful blogging. An increasing amount of my writing is devoted to classroom lectures and my professional publications. Because of my primary ministry calling as a professor, this ought to be the case. People like Jim Hamilton and Denny Burk can be prolific bloggers and published younger scholars. I am no Hamilton or Burk (sounds like a law firm, doesn’t it?), so I need to ease up on the blogging.

Second, I want to blog more deliberately, despite blogging less often. I want to blog less frequently, but make more substantive contributions to the conversation(s) going on in the SBC. Generally speaking, I want my posts to be less like thought pieces and more like short editorials.

Third, with the launching of Between the Times, I have the opportunity to blog less, but be a part of an active group blog that is saying important things and saying them several times a week. As an added bonus, at Between the Times I have the honor of blogging with several colleagues whom I respect and with whom I share a substantially common vision for the future of the SBC. The launching of that blog makes my decision about this blog much less complicated.

So after just over 400 posts, this is my last post at The Fullness of Time. I have enjoyed blogging here for the last two years. I have made many friends because of this blog. I will not be taking down the existing posts anytime soon, but do not expect any new material at this website. Thanks to the many people, both known and unknown, who regularly read this blog. Thanks to the many people who have taken the time to comment or shoot me an email about something I have written. I hope The Fullness of Time has made a mostly positive contribution to the ongoing conversation about the past, present, and future of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Sincerely in Christ,

Nathan A. Finn

PS: I want to encourage you to regularly read Between the Times. I have published a post there today titled “The Gospel and Baptist Identity.”

“An overt campaign to gain control of the denominational machinery was a long, drawn-out process…. In response to the conservative move to control the denominational machinery, moderates organized a countermove. Early in the 1990s, moderates finally conceded defeat.”

Jerry Sutton, The Baptist Reformation: The Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, p. 474

“Although the adoption of a confession of faith is hardly determinative,especially in a free-church denomination, there is a sense in which the adoption of the family article and the revision of the entire confession [Baptist Faith and Message] signaled closure to this reformation.”

Paige Patterson, “Anatomy of a Reformation,” p. 15

“The battle is over, but we will feel the effects and ramifcations of it for many years.”

Judge Paul Pressler, A Hill on Which to Die: One Southern Baptist’s Journey, p. 299

Introduction

It was my intention to take a short break from blogging. I have decided to interrupt that break with this post. The following thoughts are my own. Though I know many conservative Southern Baptists who share these sentiments, I am not speaking on behalf of anyone except myself. This means at least two things. First, this means it is superfluous to insist that anybody with whom I share other commonalities should have to express their disagreement with my sentiments on this issue–they are, after all, my sentiments, not the sentiments of another. Second, this means if anyone attempts to impute my opinions to someone else, it will be for reasons other than the pursuit of clarity, since imputing my opinions to others would actually result in confusion. And I think we all agree that confusion would be most unhelpful at this juncture in SBC history.

1). The battle for the Bible will never end.

I agree with Danny Akin that the battle for the Bible–or better, the battle for God’s Word–began in the Garden of Eden. There are individuals in every generation who call into question the integrity of God’s Word. This was true millennia before there was a Southern Baptist Convention, let alone a 1979. The battle for the Bible will continue until Christ makes all things new. We must be ready to defend the Word of God against whatever new threats may arise.

2). The Conservative Resurgence was one manifestation of the battle for the Bible and it is now over.

Though some Southern Baptists questioned the truthfulness of Scripture in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was in the generation after World War II that the problem became widespread in our Convention. Every Southern Baptist seminary employed professors who denied biblical inerrancy. These seminaries trained all of our missionaries, most of our denominational servants, and a good many of our pastors, especially those who occupied the pulpits of the historic “First Churches.” Most Convention bureaucrats were either sympathetic to the progressive theology or unconcerned with it, choosing to focus instead on promoting Convention programs and preserving the status quo. This irked many conservatives. Some of them left the Convention for the Independent Baptist movement. Others exercised conservative dissent by withholding Cooperative Program funds, forming alternative entities like Mid-America Seminary and Southern Baptist Advocate, and voting for a revision to the first volume of the Broadman Bible Commentary.

In the mid-1970s, conservative dissenters came together with a specific plan to capture the Convention’s bureaucracy for the purpose of reorganizing the denomination’s entities around conservative theological principles. Their plan worked. The Convention’s bureaucracy was changed. Most of the moderates disengaged. The denomination was restructured. A new confession of faith was adopted. The Conservative Resurgence was a resounding success, and as a unique manifestation of the battle for the Bible within the SBC, it was over around the year 2000.

3). State Convention versions of the Conservative Resurgence were launched in the 1980s and continue to this day in some places.

I differentiate between the Conservative Resurgence proper–which was about the SBC–and related movements in the state conventions. I do so for several reasons. First, strictly speaking, the state conventions are not “part” of the SBC in the same sense our seminaries and mission boards are “part” of the SBC. The state conventions are autonomous entities that voluntarily cooperate with the SBC through the Cooperative Program. Second, the various attempts to enact state-level conservative movements that were in sympathy with the Conservative Resurgence started at different times during the 1980s; it was a cluster of like-minded movements, not a single movement. Third, the state movements were and are sometimes led by different people than the SBC Conservative Resurgence. Finally, the state movements have a mixed track record of success, unlike the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC, which accomplished its stated task.

Some of our state conventions are still in need of a conservative renovation. That is the case with at least a half dozen than I can think of off the top of my head. Conservative Baptists in those state conventions must remain diligent to contend for the control of those states so that they can embrace BF&M 2000, possibly be restructured, witness a disengagement of moderates, and ultimately cooperate more closely with the SBC. But those movements are not the Conservative Resurgence proper; they are movements inspired by the Conservative Resurgence and, in most cases, modeled after the Conservative Resurgence. I hope every one of them is ultimately successful.

4). Despite the complete success of the Conservative Resurgence, there are still theological problems that arise from time to time within the SBC.

Simply put, though we now have a thoroughly conservative Southern Baptist Convention, there are still periodic assaults on the Bible’s truthfulness or sufficiency. The battle for the Bible in the Southern Baptist Convention will continue despite the fact that the Conservative Resurgence was a success. But we will not need another Conservative Resurgence unless we face another Convention-wide theological downgrade like the one we faced during the mid-20th century. I pray that never happens.

5). Because the Conservative Resurgence is over, any agenda we embrace in the Southern Baptist Convention is necessarily post-Conservative Resurgence.

By “post-Conservative Resurgence,” I certainly do not mean “anti-Conservative Resurgence.” Rather, I mean “after” the Conservative Resurgence, though by God’s grace deliberately in continuity with the Conservative Resurgence. To say it another way, within the entities of the SBC, the Conservative Resurgence has given us a solid foundation upon which to build. Despite some of our doctrinal differences, we share greater theological commonality than we have in several generations. The Conservative Resurgence has brought conservative Southern Baptists together and provided us with vital ministry resources in our various entities and boards. The time is ripe to capitalize on the gains of the last three decades. I hope the Conservative Resurgence bears great fruit in the present Southern Baptist Convention.

Conclusion

I well recognize that some will choose not to characterize our recent past and present circumstances in exactly the way I do. That said, I sincerely hope that we all have the same foundation and the same basic goals, even if we exegete the details of the history in different ways. No conservative Southern Baptist is calling or will call for a reversal of the Conservative Resurgence. No conservative Southern Baptist is calling or will call for a “relaxing” of our Convention-wide commitment to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. No conservative Southern Baptist is arguing or will argue that any present or future agenda should be disconnected from the foundation secured between 1979 and 2000.

For my part, I am thankful for the Conservative Resurgence. By God’s grace, the Southern Baptist Convention did not follow the path of so many mainline denominations by capitulating to culture and rejecting our biblical foundation. There is still much work to be done in many of our state conventions (and associations). And there is still much work to be done for the kingdom. And the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, Lord willing, will provide us with both the foundation and the inspiration to accomplish these things and all things that God would have us do, to His glory.

I am in the middle of teaching a two week summer class on Church History II. It has been a great class, but it is very time consuming. I will be taking a break from blogging here for the next few days so I can concentrate on the class. I will post once or twice at Between the Times (I’ve got stuff already written for that blog), but I will not be doing any posting here for at least the next ten days or so. If you think about it, pray for the seventeen students who are trying to learn 500+ years worth of church history in ten days of lectures!

Denny Burk has some helpful thoughts on Resolution No. 6, On Regenerate Church Membership and Church Member Restoration. The gist of his post: it’s not really about the membership statistics:

For those who think that resolution 6 was mainly about membership numbers, I think that idea really misses the point. The inflated membership numbers aren’t really the heart of the problem being addressed by the resolution. The numbers are merely a symptom of the real issue. Southern Baptists don’t practice what they preach when it comes to a regenerate church membership, and that’s the pastoral/ecclesiastical failure that’s the heart of the problem [emphasis in original].

I think Denny is right. The good news is that things are getting better, slowly but surely and by the grace of God. There is growing recognition among Southern Baptists of almost every theological persuasion that we need to practice what we preach (or ought to preach!) when it comes to meaningful church membership. I am very grateful for the passing of Resolution No. 6. Even more important, I am thankful for the hundreds of Southern Baptist churches that are taking steps to make their practice more consistent with their convictions. By God’s grace, may their tribe increase tenfold! 

For well over a year now, some of us have been talking about the need for a Great Commission Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. Sermons have been preached, addresses have been given, articles have been authored, and blog posts have been devoted to this topic. In Indianapolis, I heard several different recognized SBC leaders use this terminology from the Convention platform. And I find that encouraging.  

The Conservative Resurgence came to an end over the course of the 1990s. It actually happened in several stages. First, with the formation of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991, moderate Southern Baptists began to disengage from the Convention in increasing numbers, a trend that actually began as early as 1988 when the Southern Baptist Alliance was formed (now Alliance of Baptists). Second, the Covenant for a New Century was approved in 1995 and implemented in 1997, leading to a bureaucratic restructuring of the denomination. Third, the Baptist Faith and Message was amended in 1998 so as to reflect conservative gender and family views. Finally, a substantial revision of the Baptist Faith and Message adopted in 2000, marking the symbolic end to the Conservative Resurgence. 

A Great Commission Resurgence needs to build upon the theological foundation of the Conservative Resurgence. Our agencies, boards, and seminaries are now led by conservative administrators who are accountable to conservative trustees. We have embraced a thoroughly conservative confession of faith. LifeWay is producing conservative curricula and developing conservative programs for use in our churches. Our future pastors and missionaries are being taught conservative theology in our seminaries and a growing number of state Baptist colleges. Our professors are pursuing conservative scholarship that is often relevant to what happens in local churches. Our missionaries are planting conservative churches in our Jerusalem, our Judea and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. The time is ripe for all of these things to come together in a Great Commission Resurgence.

A Great Commission Resurgence needs to include at least three components. First, we must reemphasize–and in some cases recover–the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must never tire of telling the world of all that God has done on our behalf through the perfect life, atoning death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. Hopeless sinners have been adopted as cherished sons of the Father. Hateful rebels have been transformed into loving subjects of the True King. The dead have been made alive in Christ. And those of us who have been captivated by this gospel are called to live cross-centered lives that bear the fruit of the gospel as the Holy Spirit conforms us more and more to the image of Jesus Christ. Our Great Commission Resurgence must coincide with a Gospel Resurgence among the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Second, we must recognize that God is a missional God and that the church is His missional people. God has been at work from before the foundation of the world to redeem a people unto Himself (Eph. 1:3-14). He has revealed Himself to sinners progressively throughout redemptive history, culminating the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:1-4). He has made provision on our behalf through the person and work of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). He stands at the door and knocks (Rev. 3:20), today is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2), and all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom. 10:13). God is on mission to claim ruined sinners as His own and to make us into what we were really created to be.

God accomplished his missional purposes through his missional people, the church. The church is the community of the redeemed (Acts 2:37-47). We are the means that God is using to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to all people (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8). We partipate in God’s mission by preaching the gospel to the nations (Rom. 10:14-17). By God’s grace, that preaching will be effective and one day the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever (Rev. 11:15). There will be men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation who have turned from their sin, cast themselves upon Christ’s mercies, and become citizens of that kingdom (Rev. 5:9-10, 7:9). And we long for that day.

Third, because we long for that day, we commit now to labor on behalf of that day. In other words, we put the above theological concepts into action and apply them to our own lives and churches as we live what we believe and actively join God in His missional work. We pray for the lost, our hearts broken on behalf of those who do not yet know Christ. We share the gospel with our lost friends and neighbors, baptizing those who believe in the name of the Triune God. We strengthen existing churches and plant new churches, knowing that our churches exist as kingdom outposts and mission-sending agencies in the context God has placed them. We contextualize the good news in ways that commend Christ to every type of culture. We give sacrificially from our resources, knowing that their are gospel riches that far exceed the things of this world. And we not only do these things in North America, but we do carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, heralding Christ everywhere men do not know His name. When Southern Baptists do these things with greater passion than we can now imagine, we will be in the midst of a Great Commission Resurgence.

The Southern Baptist Convention now stands at a crossroads. We can rest on past victories and become self-satisfied, arrogant, or insular. We can shoot at each other over secondary matters, try to out-Baptist each other, or pursue our own intradenominational fiefdoms. Or we can allow our love of the gospel, our commitment to Scripture, and our historic identity as missionary Baptists to ignite in us a love for the lost and a heart for the nations. And God will get the glory.

The time is now. The choice is ours. I pray we choose wisely.  

The 2008 Southern Baptist Convention has come to an end. Because of flight delays, I arrived in Wake Forest at 2:00 AM this morning. I did not get to sleep until after 3:30. I’m dragging today.

Overall, I am very encouraged by the Convention this year. There were many positive things that came out the annual meeting, some of which could have some impact on the health of our local churches and spur us on in our efforts to proclaim the gospel to all people. The following are my thoughts about the Convention, in no particular order except the order they come to me.

1). I am thrilled that the Resolution on Regenerate Church Membership and Church Member Restoration passed overwhelmingly. Even more important, after an emasculated mutt resolution came out of the Resolutions Committee, Malcolm Yarnell strengthened the uniquely Baptist nature of the resolution and Tom Ascol successfully added a call for repentance and urged denominational servants to support local churches in their pursuit of church purity and vitality. [Update: See Wyman Richardson's blog, which includes a play-by-play recounting,  insightful commentary, and a comment by Malcolm that provides some context for the events that transpired.]

As an aside, I picked up from Bart’s blog that some folks are apparently alleging that this resolution is meaningless. Balderdash! Tom Ascol told me yesterday of two different pastors who came to him and said that this resolution provides them with a document they can hand to their local church as an encouragement to take membership more seriously. That is a very good thing.

2). I am glad that Johnny Hunt was elected Convention president. As you know, I endorsed him on this blog several weeks ago. I have no doubt he will be an excellent president and will continue to nudge Southern Baptists in the same direction that Frank Page has led us these past two years.

3). And speaking of Frank Page, let me say publicly that I think he has been an excellent Convention president. He has been forthright in his calls for unity and cooperation. He has been bold in his straight-talking about the current state and future hope for the SBC. He has been gracious when criticized. In short, he has been a statesman. I am hopeful that the Southern Baptist Convention has turned a corner, and Lord willing, future historians will look back to the Page presidency as a key early component of that turn.

4). And what is that corner, you ask? The SBC is beginning to actually capitalize on the gains of the Conservative Resurgence by calling for a Great Commission Resurgence. A number of leaders used this very terminology publicly before the entire Convention. We must not grow lazy, thinking that the conservative transformation of our agencies and institutions has accomplished our end. We would do well to remember that the takeover of the denominational bureaucracy was never the end, but was one important means toward the ultimate end of becoming an even greater part of all that God is doing to redeem a people for Himself from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

5). The number of messengers continues to shrink with almost every passing year. There are probably several reasons for this, including location outside the South and high gas prices, so I do not wish to imply that our relatively low messenger count (about 7300) is entirely a result of apathy or antagonism, though I think there is some of both. Whatever the reasons, the number of engaged Southern Baptists is not climbing. I know that many Southern Baptists leaders are giving great thought to this issue, and we need to pray for them as they do so.

6). The Convention is not getting any younger. Now there were of course many younger folks present, including yours truly. But the average age was still well over 50. Furthermore, remember that what matters at a Convention is not total attendance but registered messengers. MANY of the younger faces I saw, especially in the 18-30 age range, were not messengers, but rather were staff or volunteers working booths for the various agencies. I personally saw DOZENS of youngish men and women at the displays for the four large seminaries, the two mission boards, the Cooperative Program, Union University, and Criswell College. There were also a lot of younger folks working at the LifeWay Convention Bookstore. Almost NONE of these younger attendees were wearing messenger badges. No doubt some of these folks were messengers, but most were in Indianapolis as paid help and were thus disengaged from the Convention proper.

7). Ed Stetzer is a lunatic. But you probably already knew that.

8). I am thankful that the IMB policies were not publicly challenged at the Convention. My opinions about those policies are well-known, but I do not think the Convention is the best place to revisit this issue. But it will be revisited, though the final outcome remains to be seen.

9). Frank Page, David Dockery, and Al Gilbert all did a magnificent job in their Convention addresses. Several of the agency reports were also very encouraging. I also hear through the grapevine that Bill Stafford and James McDonald in particular preached fine sermons at the Pastors Conference, though I did not hear them because I was at the SEBTS booth for much of Monday.

10). Wade Burleson and Ben Cole seem to be about out of steam. I don’t expect either of them to disappear just yet, but it seems to me and many folks I talked to at the Convention that they have virtually no influence anymore among interested and engaged Southern Baptists. And those are the only ones that count if you want to actually change anything in the SBC.

11). Ben Stratton, the Landmark Southern Baptist himself, is my age. Am I the only one who thought Ben was sixty? He won’t admit it, but I actually got Ben to admit that Baptists are Protestants. OK, that didn’t really happen, but he did seem to ponder it for about three seconds before smiling and very kindly disagreeing with me. Ben is a really nice guy.

12). Bill Wagner deserves major kudos for the creativity of his presidential campaign. He ran on a platform. He enlisted an army of good-natured collegians to pass out campaign literature on the streets outside the Convention Center. I think he even wrote a letter to Barack Obama inviting the senator to engage in a series of townhall meetings this summer. I don’t think Bro. Wagner ever had much of a chance of winning, but I am very impressed with his political ingenuity and genuine love for both Southern Baptists and the nations.

13). Danny Akin can flat bring the thunder, even in a seminary report. Call me biased, but you know it’s true.

14). The best part about the Convention is seeing old friends and making new friends. I had so much fun with my Southeastern peeps, my fellow FBC Durham messengers, Jeff Robinson, Kevin Smith, Micah Fries, all the Union dudes and LifeWay guys (even Ed), Mark Overstreet, Allan and Pam Blume, Tom and Margaret Nettles, Tom and Donna Ascol, Jedidiah Coppenger, the Akin brothers, Kevin King, and Nick Moore, it ought to be illegal. Probably is.

In my opinion, a recent occurrence in the SBC blogosphere illustrates everything that is wrong with the Southern Baptist Convention. Earlier this week, JD Greear blogged on the topic of “Reversing the IMB Guidelines?” In that post, JD discusses why he chose to sign the new Time to Change statement which urges IMB trustees to reverse the policies on baptism and private prayer languages. Dozens of comments ensued, including some that agreed with JD and some that disagreed with JD.

Flash forward two days later. JD authored a post titled “Grateful,” wherein he shared some the exciting things God is doing at The Summit Church, the congregation he pastors in Durham, North Carolina. And how many people commented regarding the great movement of God through the ministry of this local Southern Baptist church? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not one person dropped a brief “praise the Lord,” or offered a “how exciting,” or noted “I’m praying for you, bro.” Not one comment, even from the folks who jumped to JD’s defense on the IMB post.

Pray for us as we gather together in Indianapolis next week. This will be my last post at this blog until after I return from the Convention.

I am excited to announce that this afternoon marks the launch of a new group blog that includes several faculty members at Southeastern Seminary. Between the Times is dedicated to living faithfully before Christ between His first and second comings. The regular contributors include Danny Akin, David Nelson, Ken Keathley, Bruce Ashford, and yours truly. We also hope to periodically feature “guest bloggers” who will weigh in on important issues. Some of the topics we will be blogging about include theology, cultural engagement, mission, preaching, American Christianity, and of course, the Southern Baptist Convention. We also hope to regularly post book reviews and book lists.

The first post is already up: Bruce Ashford has written the first installment of a two-part post about the need for a Great Commission Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. In the next couple of days, I will be posting a two-part summary and review of David Dockery’s new book Southern Baptist Consensus and Renewal. More posts will follow soon after, including some post-Convention thoughts from Dr. Akin. We hope that our blog will make a positive and constructive contribution to the Southern Baptist and broader evangelical blogosphere. 

I hope you will consider adding Between the Times to your blog reader.

Baptist Press published two articles today related to church membership. David Dockery addresses the topic of regenerate church membership. Cliff Tharp weighs in on the strengths and limitations of the statistics contained in the Annual Church Profile. Both are worth taking a look at.

If you want to read a good, brief biblical defense of regenerate church membership, check out John Hammett’s article “Regenerate Church Membership” in Restoring Integrity to Baptist Churches, a collection of essays edited by Thomas White, Jason Duesing, and Malcolm Yarnell. In fact, check out all of the fine articles in this volume.

This is the seventh in a series of posts wherein I will share my opinions on some of the pressing issues in the SBC. The genesis of this series is a post titled “The Questions Young Future Leaders are Asking.” In that post, I listed fifteen of the top questions my Baptist History and Distinctives students ask me on the last day of class, which is an extended Q & A about the future of the Convention. This list is not exhaustive. I do not claim it represents all or even the most pressing issues among us. It does, however, represent the specific issues my students are concerned about. These two question work well together, so I will address them in the same post.

13. Is Duke Divinity School liberal? (Duke is about 30 miles down the road.)

Almost every semester I have students ask me if I think Duke Divinity School is liberal. As I mention above, this is most likely due to the close geographic proximity of our two schools. Because I am generally uncomfortable with the terms liberal and fundamentalist in everyday discourse (both are too often abused), and because I like to make things complicated, I do not give a straight answer but launch into something like the following:

A) Duke Divinity is more theologically diverse than Southeastern Seminary. There are at least two reasons for this. First, Duke Divinity is interdenominational, whereas we are a denominational school. Second, at least to my knowledge, Duke is not confessional, whereas we are, affirming the Baptist Faith and Message and the Abstract of Principles.

B) Because of this diversity, Duke has some faculty members who could probably be described as liberal. But they also have faculty members who are broadly conservative, though not necessarily self-proclaimed evangelicals. Many of them are influenced by post-liberalism, a movement that self-consciously attempts to transcend the historic conservative-liberal divide and purposefully embraces basic Christian orthodoxy, though not biblical inerrancy. Among mainline divinity schools, I think it would be fair to characterize Duke as “center-right.”

C) Though generally speaking Duke is not as far to the theological left as, say, Harvard Divinity School or Union Seminary in New York, it is true that they are to the left of 98% of my students. I am not aware of any faculty members at Duke who are inerrantists or complementarians, two beliefs all SEBTS professors unashamedly affirm. I am also not sure that very many Duke Divinity professors are soteriological exclusivists, believing that conscious faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. Again, there are no SEBTS professors who are inclusivists, annihilationists, or universalists.

D) As a general rule I discourage my college students from pursuing the M.Div. at Duke Divinity, though some have chosen to do so anyway. This is not because of any animosity I have toward Duke–I have friends among both their faculty and student body. Rather, it is because I am a firm believer in students attending seminaries in their own confessional tradition for ministry preparation. I tell students that I think Duke is a fine place to pursue advanced graduate studies–I seriously considered that route myself–but I encourage them to attend Southeastern or another Southern Baptist seminary so they can receive an education that is intended to prepare them to serve in Southern Baptist churches. [Some of you may be wondering what I recommend to my non-SBC students. Well, since literally 95% of the students I have taught in the last two years are Southern Baptists and probably 3/4 of them want to minister in an SBC context, it never comes up. But I'd encourage them to go to SEBTS or another SBC school too, mostly because I like to root, root, root for the home team.]

14. Is the CBF going to die out? (Variation: Will the CBF ever “return” to the SBC?)

Ah, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship question. Every student wants to know what the Baptist history professor thinks of CBF. Every student wants to know if Wake Forest Baptist Church, located on the corner of our campus, is a liberal church. Every student wants to know how Southeastern is different than Campbell Divinity School. And is it really true that, before Dr. Patterson came, SEBTS actually used a feminist liturgy in a chapel service? (The answer to the last question is yes.)

I have a handful of friends who are active in CBF who sometimes read this blog, so perhaps they will jump in to this discussion. The biggest problem that has faced CBF in their 15+ years is that they have had trouble forging a positive identity. For most of its history, CBF’s basic identity has been “not Southern Baptist.” Furthermore, it has always been unclear as to just what exactly CBF is. Are they a denomination? Are they simply an alternative to the Cooperative Program? Are they a loose-knit coalition? I think the answer is probably that CBF functions as all these things, depending upon how each individual church relates to them.

I think that some of this identification confusion has begun to subside in recent years. There is a rising generation within CBF that is unfamiliar or unconcerned with the SBC. CBF is their ecclesiastical home, whether the Fellowship is a denomination or not. Furthermore, many young moderates are excited about multi-denominational initiatives like the New Baptist Covenant and the post-SBC Baptist World Alliance. If CBF can continue to carve out an identity that is increasingly unconnected to the SBC, then they have as good a hope of surviving as any of us. Their biggest problems are the same as ours: spiritual apathy, anti-denominationalism among the young turks, etc.

Now for the “return” question. First, we need to understand that moderate Baptists are significantly more diverse in their theology than conservative Southern Baptists (and we’re pretty diverse). Some of them are theological progressives who embrace various forms of neo-orthodoxy, liberation theologies, and even sometimes process theology. Many of their pastors and professors, at least the folks I know, are what I would call “evangelical left.” This means they hold to a basically evangelical understanding of salvation but tend to be egalitarian, sometimes inclusivist, and prefer not to use the “I” words like inerrancy and infallibility. Many–perhaps most–grassroots CBF church members are just as conservative as most of us, but they are either anti-SBC for non-theological reasons (politics, personalities, etc.) or simply indifferent.

All that said, I do not think the CBF will “return” to the SBC because most of them never left. I do not have the most recent statistics, but a healthy majority of CBF churches are actually Southern Baptist churches that redirect some of their budget to the Fellowship instead of Nashville or the Cooperative Program. In some cases, it is not the budget itself but individual church members who pass on money to CBF. So I think the question is not whether or not CBF churches will return to the SBC, but rather will all those dually aligned CBF churches eventually drop their affiliation with the Fellowship? I don’t know the answer.

On the one hand, I think some CBF churches will eventually drop CBF because they are fundamentally (no pun intended) SBC churches. As the older anti-Convention generation dies out, they will cut ties with the moderates. On the other hand, I think some CBF churches will eventually totally cut ties with the SBC because they are stronger moderates than they are committed Southern Baptists. As the older pro-SBC generation dies out, they will cut ties with the Convention. I think many churches will choose to remain dually aligned out of habit, preference, or both.

As with the SBC, much of the CBF’s institutional future depends upon how much the rising generation of future leaders cares about their (quasi-) denomination. Their young future leaders are also asking questions, some of them similar to the ones ours are asking. And as with us, it remains to be seen if CBF will thrive or decline as Gen-X pastors and other leaders decide if the Fellowship is worthy of their loyalty or if their time and money is better spent in other ways. So I guess we will have to wait and see what happens.