SBC President Johnny Hunt recently released a declaration calling for a “Great Commission Resurgence” among Southern Baptists. The 10-point GCR declaration calls for:
The 10-point declaration calls for 1) A Commitment to Christ’s Lordship; 2) A Commitment to Gospel-Centeredness; 3) A Commitment to the Great Commandments; 4) A Commitment to Biblical Inerrancy and Sufficiency; 5) A Commitment to a Healthy Confessional Center; 6) A Commitment to Biblically Healthy Churches; 7) A Commitment to Sound Biblical Preaching;
A Commitment to a Methodological Diversity that is Biblically Informed; 9) A Commitment to a More Effective Convention Structure; and 10) A Commitment to Distinctively Christian Families. (Citation, Baptist Press)
According to Baptist Press, Hunt plans to present the GCR Declaration at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville. Hunt “will ask messengers to consider appointing a task force to study the document and bring back appropriate recommendations on it.”
Posted on the new website - www.greatcommissionresurgence.com - the GCR Declaration, which was commissioned by Hunt, has been endorsed by over 1,300 Southern Baptists. Many of the signatories are prominent Southern Baptist pastors and denominational employees. Big names in Southern Baptist life like Al Mohler, Richard Land, Danny Aikin, Jimmy Draper, Jack Graham, O.S. Hawkins, Jim Henry, Jeff Iorg, James Merritt, Frank Page, and Jerry Rankin are among those endorsing this Great Commission Resurgence declaration.
Conspicuously absent from the list of signatories is Paige Patterson.
Paige Patterson has not endorsed the declaration nor has any member of his official Administration at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth. In addition, not one of the many “Deans” at Southwestern have affixed their name to the document.
Thus far, the only real public opposition to the popular declaration has come from Bart Barber, a Southwestern alum and occasional adjunct professor for the school. Barber is opposed to the declaration’s ninth axiom which calls upon all Southern Baptists “to rethink our Convention structure and priorities so that we can maximize our energy and resources for the health of our local churches and the fulfilling of the Great Commission.”
Only one non-SBCer has weighed in on the GCR declaration. Baptists Today editor John Pierce published a strong and humorous critique of the GCR declaration.
Pierce believes that this GCR declaration “has something to do with the dipping statistics about dipping new believers.” I suspect that’s true. Although, the dipping stats does not fully explain the impetus for this Great Commission Resurgence declaration.
It appears that there is an internal cold war of sorts being waged between the more fundamentalist-wing of the SBC with its headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas at Southwestern Seminary and the more cooperative, conservative evangelical camp whose headquarters seems to be Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. In a sense, it’s a battle between old fundmentalists with their Landmarkist tendencies and “younger” conservative evangelicals, many of whom have a penchant for Reformed theology.
The future of the Southern Baptist Convention is on the line and there are powerful, competing camps within the Southern Baptist Convention which have different visions for the future. It doesn’t seem that the older fundamentalists who helped rescue their beloved Convention from the grips of liberalism, bla bla bla bla bla, are comfortable passing the torch to a younger generation that lacks their militant culture warrior mentality and pals around with baby-baptizers and is influenced by a potty-mouthed pastor whose sermons are on occasion a little dirty.
History tells us that Southern Baptists know how to beat up on one another. The absence of Paige Patterson’s name on this very popular Southern Baptist declaration signals that all is not well in the Southern Baptist Convention. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before someone takes the fight out to the streetz and the cold war ends. Eventually the poop will hit the fan - it always does.
When it does, hold your nose and watch closely.
Fighting is what Baptists - at least the more conservative variety - do best.
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I guess it does look like I’m the opposition, but that’s only by comparison. In a crowd of people yelling, “Yeah! Yeah! Let’s DO IT!” being the one saying, “Are we sure this is what we want to do?” is indeed a sort of public opposition.
He’s not necessarily opposed to the idea; he’s undecided. He’s just opposed to going forward with it until he knows enough about it to be comfortable with it.
Same thing with me. There are forms of reorganization I would support. There are forms of reorganization I would oppose. None of it would, in my estimation, make much difference in creating any sort of momentum for the Great Commission. But I could support some forms of reorganization for the other, non-Great-Commission-related, positive accomplishments that they might bring forward.
But boy, howdy! I DO like to know what kind of reorganization we’re talking about before I get on the bandwagon. That’s my dilemma: Sign on without all of the information and hope it turns out well, or stay off and become known to the world as the only public opponent of the Great Commission.
Moron that I am, I have chosen the latter for the time being.
You know, BDW, for someone who is not a Southern Baptist, you spend a lot of time reporting on the SBC. I understand that sometimes the SBC is so big that it affects other Baptists and even the rest of culture, but is that normally the case?
This is one reason why those of us in the Alliance of Baptists refused simply to merge with the CBF, though some of our churches are dually-aligned; we think many CBF types are obsessed with the SBC in a kind of unhealthy co-dependence.
Try ignoring them most of the time. It’s healthier.
The difference here, Michael, is that I’m training to be an historian - a Baptist historian - and you are not. I write about all Baptists not merely as an interested layperson but as someone who hopes to one day to research and publish on Baptists for a living.
Many Southern Baptists actually do read this blog. And I enjoy my dialogue with them here and over at other Baptist blogs. As someone who has published on Southern Baptists and is planning to write a dissertation that deals with Southern Baptists (among other types of Baptists), I think it’s rather important that I stay informed. I’d say that any Baptist historian who stays intentionally uninformed on the happenings of the largest Baptist group in the world is likely not all that committed to the study of Baptist history and current Baptist life.
As my readers know, I do cover news pertaining to other Baptist groups when there is news.
To ignore Southern Baptists in the context of my blog on all things Baptist-related would be akin to you ignoring the Republican Party in your regular analysis of contemporary political events. Or you ignoring the warmongerers in your peacemaking pursuits. That would be kinda odd to say the least, huh? However, I don’t think Democrats/progressives who offer regular crititques of the GOP and the Religious Right are “obsessed.” Far from it.
As a side note,the alliance did not refuse to merge with the Cbf. It was the cbf that broke off merger negotiations with the alliance after both sides had come to an agreement on a Covenant.
Sent from iPhone
Looking back at my comment, I notice an ambiguity. The rather strange “He” in my second paragraph was a reference to the hypothetical person who wanted more information posited in my first paragraph.
Given the title of the post, one could draw the conclusion that I was talking about Paige Patterson. But I have no idea why Dr. Patterson has not signed the GCR. I only know why I have not.
Aaron, sorry. I didn’t know you were training to be a Baptist historian. I thought you were getting your Ph.D. in Church-State studies to compliment your background in poli-sci. My mistake.
About the Alliance/CBF thing, I think we’re talking about two different sets of talks, but since I am only going by memory, I could easily be wrong.
Back to the SBC: I do think that many Baptist histories still give it far too much space in relation to other Baptist groups–especially is this the case with McBeth’s huge textbook–about 50% of which is focused on the SBC. (McBeth’s Sourcebook is somewhat more balanced.) So, in your writings, could you do me and other non-SBC Baptists a favor and try to have a more global perspective on Baptist life than is usual?
For example, I’d like to see a sequel to Brackney’s Genetic History of Baptist Thought that focused on Baptist theology OUTSIDE the UK, Canada, and the U.S. Baptists have been global since the 19th C., so it’s time we pay attention to the theologians produced in these sister bodies, too, no?
Best of luck on your doctoral work, upcoming marriage, etc.
To clarify a bit for those who I know regularly read this blog but rarely, if ever, comment:
I’m enrolled in an interdisciplinary doctoral program in “Religion, Politics & Society.”
Though I have a Poli Sci background, I consider myself more a historian (who writes religious history) than a Political Scientist or Sociologist. Although, it is an interdisciplinary degree and I took courses from the Religion and History department this semester and next semester (my last semester of coursework!) will take courses from a Political Scientist (on the Just War Tradition), Sociologist (Peter Berger) and Historian (Thomas Kidd, former student of George Marsden).
I don’t intend to limit myself just to Baptist issues. But at the moment, my handful of publications and future publications are all Baptist-related. Not a great deal of Baptist job opportunities out there. So, when my doctoral work is done and the job-hunt begins, I’ll be relying on my M.A. and doctoral work in the broader areas of American religion, public policy and church-state issues.
I do plan to continue writing (and hopefully publishing) on Baptist topics as a Baptist historian for the foreseeable future. And I agree that too much focus is put on the SBC in history texts. The SBC is not the center of the Baptist universe but historians should not ignore Southern Baptist affairs either. And to be honest, Southern Baptists (much like Republican politicians) tend to be quite interesting because of their penchant for making controversial statements. I am - for many reasons - fascinated by fundamentalism. My fascination long ago ceased being “personal” but American evangelicalism and fundamentalism is a great academic interest of mine.
I do plan though - as I’ve done on my blog and in my research papers - to publish in the future on Baptist groups that have been largely neglected especially African-American Baptists. My dissertation will hopefully cover the role of African-American Baptists in the Environmental Justice Movement which I will argue is an extension of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. I’ve already written a paper on this topic and will post it soon on this blog.
And of course, writing about Southern Baptists has not hurt my various academic pursuits.
Fair enough. Good luck.
I’m all for Baptists carrying out the Great Commission. I support stopping the dip in number of new believers dipped.
Interesting thoughts. However, your proposal that this is “a battle between old fundmentalists with their Landmarkist tendencies and “younger” conservative evangelicals, many of whom have a penchant for Reformed theology” has some problems. First off, the GCR declaration was written by two guys who are very much NOT Reformed. In fact, Hunt is boldly anti-calvinist. Also, many of those who have signed were a key part of the Conservative Resurgence. I’m not sure it is helpful to use old battle lines as a way to identify who is for or against this document. I think it is a bold document and lots of people are waiting to make sure they know what it is saying before deciding to sign off on it.
There is a reason why Patterson and those who are deans did not sign and when he did sign, he did so with “caveats”. Thank you for reporting on this. While I may not agree with some of your conclusions, I do appreciate your work at bringing this to light.