Baptists in the News

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Baptists in the News
by Bud Malmsten

The Baptists have been in the news this summer. At least two Baptist denominations have held national conventions. Let's talk about the Southern Baptists first.

The Southern Baptist Convention [SBC] includes about 16 million people who worship together in about 42,000 congregations worldwide. About 12,000 "messengers" from these churches gathered in Orlando last month to hear reports from the various ministries and to make decisions affecting the future of those ministries.

I hear you: "Hold it right there, Bud. What does this have to do with Intentional Misunderstanding?" Just stay with me a few minutes before you click to some other site. We may be getting to the source of all intentional misunderstanding here.

This group, the SBC, has committed billions [yes, that mean thousands of millions] of dollars to build some of the finest schools and hospitals, as well as starting thousands of churches around the world, all in response to Jesus' directive: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all people." They share this responsibility with all call themselves Christian.

If this makes you nervous, don't be. The good news referenced is that God [yes, the One True God, the Unmoved Mover, the Creator of All that Exists, the Supreme Being,] wants you [Yes, YOU!] to be His friend. No, He will not force you, that would not be friendship.

Just for the record, I am not a Southern Baptist. I belong to another family of churches, the Baptist General Conference. We grew out of an ethnic group of Swedes who came to the United States in the great wave of European immigration during the 1800's. This group was not involved in the controversy that divided the Southern from the Northern Baptists. They just wanted to worship God in their native language and practice speaking American English in a safe group where their accent didn't make people laugh.

Back to the Intentional Misunderstanding: If you heard any newscast during the second week in June, you heard something about the Southern Baptists meeting in Orlando. Every major news organization was there to cover this great gathering.

If they were almost any other business they would be basking in the spotlight. You know, the old "say-anything-you-want-just-spell-my-name-correctly" bunch.

I am not sure they have appreciated the free publicity.

Perhaps it is not surprising that you did not hear about the humanitarian efforts, the schools, churches, and hospitals bringing hope and light to the dark corners of the world. What you did hear was that this group of whackos was considering a policy that in their group, only men should be Pastors! WOW!

What is interesting about this is that in a Baptist fellowship, the national organization is the least powerful decision making entity concerning the workings of any local church. A cardinal doctrine among Baptists is that the local church is "autonomous" [self-ruling].

It was noted at the sessions in Orlando that no church would be required to change its organizational structure because of the decision made in Florida. No woman pastor would be resigning her pulpit. No SBC church would be kept from calling a woman pastor. In other words, this statement represents the opinion and interpretation of the majority of the "messengers" meeting in Orlando this year.

So why all the flack in the national news. I believe that has to do with the deceptive power of the Enemy of the Church. Yeah, I am talking about Satan, the one who has been trying to disrupt the good news ever since it was first mentioned.

By the way, the enemy of the church is also the enemy of all Christians, and the enemy of all non-Christians. We are talking about an equal opportunity enemy who really does not want you to know anything about the aforementioned good news. If there is any way to get your attention diverted to something silly.

Does this mean that the news guys are tools of the devil? Not necessarily. The media did not set the SBC agenda. The time those "messengers" spent discussing the gender of pastors was stolen from time that could have been used to discuss something important.

Remember the equal opportunity diverter of attention.

And remember always, God really does love YOU!