While, as you know, I am not Southern Baptist, I believe this comment below by Malcolm Yarnell is worthwhile for general instruction for all of us who are Baptists. Many Baptists seem to think they are just evangelicals, but there are reasonable reasons to understand that we actually are not.
“...Southern Baptists must never compromise those beliefs which have made us Baptists: specifically, the drive for a regenerate New Testament church membership, founded upon the biblical and historical doctrine of the divine–human covenant, evidenced at first in the ordinance of believers-only baptism by immersion, continually expressed in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, lovingly maintained by the practice of local church discipline, and fervently expanded by the expository proclamation of the Word of God. Southern Baptists will endeavour to speak these and other non-negotiable truths in love, inviting evangelicals inter alia to join us in becoming consistent with Scripture, not only theologically but ecclesiologically.”“Are Southern Baptists Evangelicals? A Second Decadal Reassessment,” Malcolm Yarnell III, Ecclesiology 2.2 (2005) SAGE Publications, page 212
inter alia: (adverb) among other things.
3 comments:
That was well said. As an outsider to the SBC, I am surprised that folks who believe such things as non-negotiables still stay in such a mixed multitude as the SBC is.
E. T. Chapman
Yes, that has been a source of confusion to me as well.
This is like ice complaining that water is made of H2O. To be a SB, is to be a new evangelical. The main tenet of new evangelicalism is the refusal to separate from heretical, or fully apostate groups.
There last president was pro gay, pro trans, etc. This is clearly a come out from among them issue.
Jim
Post a Comment