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Thursday, January 12, 2006

Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination

I am not posting this to slam Southern Baptists, but rather because I found it an interesting article that addresses the problem of unregenerate church members. Jim Elliff IS a Southern Baptist. He writes this not as a cheering outsider, but as a concerned insider.

Read this not to say, "I am not as this publican," but rather to say, "Lord, have mercy on us all." The clip below is posted to develop a taste for the entire article, which can be found from the link near the end of this blog.

"How are you doing?" "Pretty well, under the circumstances." "What are the circumstances?" "Well, I have a very effective arm. It moves with quite a bit of animation. But then I have my bad leg." "What's wrong with it?" "I guess it's paralyzed. At least it doesn't do much except twitch once a week or so, but that's nothing compared with the rest of me." "What's the problem?" "From all appearances, the rest is dead. At least it stinks and bits of flesh are always falling off. I keep it well covered. About all that's left beyond that is my mouth, which fortunately works just fine. How about you?"... Like the unfortunate person above, the Southern Baptist Convention has a name that it is alive, but is in fact, mostly dead (Rev. 3:1)...Out of Southern Baptist's nearly 15.9 million members, only 5.2 million, or 32.8%, even bother to show up on a given Sunday morning, according to the Strategic Information and Planning department of the Sunday School Board (1997).

Copyright © Jim Elliff 2005 Christian Communicators Worldwide
For the rest of the article, visit Christian Communicators Worldwide:

Southern Baptists, an Unregenerate Denomination

"Tis a point I long to know
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am I his or am I not?" - John Newton

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am Independent Baptist but I have been trying to teach this very thing for a long time. I agree with the article and the recommended cures.