News and Views

“The Baptist State Convention in North Carolina will vote in November on a plan to share power between moderates and conservatives. (“Moderates” reject the infallibility of Scripture and other fundamental doctrines.) The general board has over whelming approved the plan, but delegates must approve it in November. Under the plan, the top vote getter for each office plan will serve on year and the runner-up will serve the following year. The plan will take effect for six trial years, unless messengers make it indefinite. “People in the pew are tired of fighting,” said the Rev. Greg Mathis of Hendersonville, a former convention president and a conservative. The plan’s backers want to avoid a divorce such as those that have torn the Virginia and Texas state conventions into two se parate organisations.”

(Greenville News, 5/20/99)

Pastor’s comments – The Southern Baptist Conventions (SBC) consists of three major groups of people, namely the Liberals, ...

the New evangelicals and the Silent Majority. The first group – “Liberalism or modernism is the theological position which rejects any or all of the Bible as the absolute Word of God; denies the supernatural elements of the Bible; denies the deity and substitutionary atonement of Christ; and perpetuates the anti-scriptural doctrines of universal fatherhood of God, the universal brotherhood of man, and the social gospel as the answer to man’s needs.” The second group – “New Evangelicalism is the religious mood or attitude which advocates dialogue with Liberals and infiltration into apostate institutions.” The third group – “the Silent Majority are the thousands of laymen and pastors who pay the bills.” The news media distorts the picture by classifying the people in the SBC into “moderates” and “conservatives”. They should rightly be called “Liberals” and “New Evangelicals”. The Fundamentalists or Obedient Christians who subscribe to the following definition of Fundamentalism are not found in the SBC. The reason is obvious. If they do stay in the convention, it would be contrary to what they claim to be as a Fundamentalist. “Fundamentalism is historically a movement within orthodox Christianity which accepts the Bible as the inerrant Work of God (as Christians have for two thousand years), defends the doctrines that the Bible teaches, and refuses to work or be identified in any way with those who attack the Bible and its teachings.” We belong to the Fundamentalist’s camp and therefore oppose any who compromise by staying in, working with or contributing to the Southern Baptist Convention. (Definitions of terms are taken from S.B.C House on the Sand? By David O. Beale, pp. 3 - 6.)

(Christ Our Intercessor, Church Anniversary Magazine 5)