As I look at my life in the future I challenged myself to assess the future, not only in the SBC, but in my personal life and church life. Therefore, I want to examine, from my personal point of view, what I believe the SBC will look like in the year 2025. Mind you this is not an academically researched piece and it does not involve any trends seen in any current factual statistics. It is merely the musings of a pastor who has seen, and been in the background of, the SBC’s transition over the past 20 years. A disclaimer that I must make is a recent wrong assumption concerning the republican nomination race. I predicted, after Huckabee announced he would not seek to run for POTUS, that he was positioning himself for a vice-presidential ticket with Donald Trump. Of course Trump killed that prediction for me just two days later. Thus, I have been wrong before and I could be wrong with this outlook. However, in this first part of a two part opinion, there is no conspiracy theory just the notation of some odd alignments. One of our leaders may even term these notations mere myths.
Seminaries
It seems that a trend is beginning to develop across the land of the SBC that merging groups make them more effective. One can see it in the trend of church planting. It seems that many churches are beginning to “take over” other smaller traditional churches and calling it “reviving traditional churches.” Problem is there is nothing reviving about it other than a mere decision on the part of a mega-church pastor to “help” the smaller church only to end up sending people over there to vote for merging with the mega-church. Do not get me wrong. Smaller churches that have needed to merge due to economic necessity does not a trend make. However at a recent conference here in North Carolina an independent group had a session on restoring dying churches. While that is a great undertaking, there is only one question that begs an answer. Who determines if a church is dying?
Well there seems to be a trend that will call our seminaries to either merge together making them regional in their reach or for the purposes of the economy some will merge. We see the seminaries already expanding their campuses to other major cities and this will continue. In a time we read about seminaries laying off staff and becoming leaner due to the down turn of the economy we still seem some opening new campuses. As a result the question has to be raised concerning the economic value of laying off professors and staff in one area but extending the footprint of the seminary. Thus, hiring new professors and staff to man the satellite campus.
Therefore, I envision that by 2025 we will have only three of our six seminaries. Why? Each seminary will have such a large footprint with the various cities it will reach absurdity as seminaries will be walking on each other in these major cities. For example, already there is a seminary extension of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia. New Orleans also enjoys a similar extension in Jacksonville, and also Atlanta. Before someone asks, I have not included the other seminaries because I have not researched their satellite campuses. The question will eventually be raised concerning the use of CP funds by these seminaries to have footprints in the same metro area.
ERLC and Executive Committee
This will eventually become a no-brainer. Why do we have two entities when we could be served as well by one? Look for Dr. Land to retire and when that happens it will open this discussion. The discussion will bring this to the point of questioning the ERLC as an individual entity. Could it better serve Southern Baptist to move the ERLC under the auspices of the Executive Committee? I do not know.
Also, look for the name to no longer be “Southern Baptist Convention.” Who knows what the name will be in the future, but there is one thing I have serious concerns over when it comes to this debate. If the name change for the convention goes the way of other name changes, “Baptist” will become memory of a by-gone era. Something the convention, as a whole, will look back on with only a fond memory. Already we have a leading evangelical advocating that “Christendom” is in the past. Not only are we now living in a post-modern era but we are now in the post-Christendom era. Thus, we will see “Baptist” left out completely of the new name. Many may cry foul here but their voices will be nothing more than a muffled gurgle. The argument will be that we changed the name of “Baptist Book Store” to “Lifeway Christian Bookstores.” Remember the purpose we did this? It was in order to reach out with our doctrine into a much more diverse evangelical world. This same argument will be used when it comes to the name change of the SBC. One will hear that people cannot witness to people because they are from a Southern Baptist church. However, we need to remember what has happened with Lifeway? Walk into any Lifeway Christian Bookstore and you will note the evangelical world has their diversity splattered on the eye-level shelves. Instead of making an impact in the evangelical world with solid biblical baptistic doctrine we will have evangelical ecumenism change us from Baptist by conviction to Baptist for convenience. When all of this takes place one will better understand the concern of Dr. Morris Chapman in last years debate about the GCR. Look for many of the younger, restless and reformed to be leading in these changes and combined entities
Doctrine
The Doctrine of the SBC in 2025 will have moved to a point that leaders will once again include, if not fully embrace, the Moderate views. We will have to endure another Conservative Resurgence due to the inclusiveness of any view regardless of its doctrinal weakness. Evangelical apologist, Dr. Norman Giesler, has said that all institutions veer to the left and one must maintain a constant resolve to conservative doctrine to maintain a conservative course. Thus, SBC Conservatives must clearly understand the definition of a Moderate and Conservative in Southern Baptist life.
The late Dr. Adrian Rogers left us with a warning in the book finished by his wife, Joyce. The book Love Worth Finding tells us about the life and preaching philosophy of Dr. Rogers. On page 165, Dr. Rogers was asked the question; “What is the impact of the inerrancy of the Word of God upon preaching?” Dr. Rogers launches into a clearly enunciated response that gives great insight into who he was and also who we are as Southern Baptist. In this answer Dr. Rogers deals with the need for a preacher to be able to preach something he has a heart conviction about. The preacher needs to give a sure word not one that expresses doubt concerning his subject matter. In this answer Dr. Rogers expresses the difference in a Liberal Southern Baptist, a Moderate Southern Baptist, and a Conservative.
“A preacher cannot declare to a congregation “this may be true” and engender any real zeal. Without an infallible word from God, we have nothing but a holy hunch, and that will not do.
Liberalism is a relative term, dependent upon where one draws the center line of this thing called Christendom. I’d define “true inspiration” as being convinced that all Scripture is inspired by God.
That said, I’d define a liberal Southern Baptist as a person who does not believe in the veracity, the exactitude, the integrity,the infallibility and inerrancy of the Scripture. Even if he believed that the Word was inspired in its purpose but not in its entirety, he may be right of the center in regard to Christendom but left of the center line in Southern Baptist circles.
The moderate is a person who may believe the Bible to be without error, but who also believes in inclusivism. He is a person who maintains the position of accommodating the liberal view. I believe the moderate to be more inclined to opinions than convictions.” {Bold emphasis mine}
With that said, one can certainly see this shift slowly moving back toward the Moderate view. I believe, we are seeing these steps already revealing themselves in the Southern Baptist Convention. This recent silent announcement slipped under the radar screen of many people within the SBC. The reason I say “silent” has to do with the title of the news release from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS). To Baptist Press’ credit they did present a clear title concerning the article when they picked it up. However, SBTS’s title was innocuous to say the least. Upon reading the article one will find that a chair has been endowed at SBTS in the name of Dr. Duke McCall. Dr. Duke McCall was the moderate leader of the SBC during the Conservative Resurgence. Dr. McCall ran the SBC from the helm of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary during the time Moderates were leading the SBC. This endowed chair of Leadership has with it a required series of Lectures to be given in chapel each year. SBTS establishing an endowed chair in Christian Leadership, complete with lectures, would be akin to Baylor University establishing the Paige Patterson chair in Biblical Hermeneutics along with an annual Lecture Series on Moderate Biblical Interpretation and Why That Dog Will Not Hunt.
While endowing a chair at SBTS in Dr. McCall’s name does not make it moderate it does mean there is an inclusiveness attitude beginning to emerge. Do not get me wrong. Dr. Mohler is a very loud and strong proponent for Biblical inerrancy and I do not see him in any way shape or form allowing anything less than inerrancy to prevail at SBTS. However, with this step in 2011, by 2025 if it is not corrected we will have wholesale Moderates allowing for convoluted views of the Scripture. Southern is the very seminary where neo-orthodoxy entered the SBC. This type of inclusiveness, mind you, is the definition that Dr. Adrian Rogers established in recognizing who were and were not Moderates within the SBC. Am I saying that Dr. Mohler is a moderate? No, I am not!! Am I saying that his inclusiveness of this type of leader will lead the next generation into allowing for the full blown Moderate position? That is exactly what I am saying.
In our next installment this writer will deal with the Mission Boards, Local Associations, and the Cooperative Program in 2025.
