The SBC and the 21st Century: Reflection, Renewal & Recommitment

By Jason K. Allen

The Southern Baptist Convention is currently facing issues that challenge its identity, heritage, and future. In The SBC and the 21st Century, Revised Edition, key leaders address critical issues such as:

·        Will the SBC grow more unified around shared convictions and mission or will it fragment over secondary concerns and tertiary doctrinal differences?
·        Will the SBC be able to maintain a distinct Baptist identity while engaging and partnering with the broader evangelical community?
·        Will the SBC be willing to reimagine its structures, programs, and efforts to effectively reach the world for Christ or will it risk being a past-tense denomination?

This volume not only promotes meaningful dialogue, it calls leaders throughout the SBC into action. Extensive thought, research, assessment, and wisdom from some of the SBC’s brightest minds have been poured into this volume with the intent of rendering a helpful contribution to SBC life that will propel forward the collective work of Southern Baptists well into the 21st century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BH Publishing Group
• Release date: May 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781535944588

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

A Never-Changing Witness in an Ever-Changing World: The Enduring Southern Baptist Mandate

Jason K. Allen

Radiating the denominational optimism of his era, in 1948 an ebullient Alabama pastor named Levi Elder Barton mused, I am more tremendously convinced than ever that the last hope, the fairest hope, the only hope for evangelizing the world on New Testament principles is the Southern Baptist people represented in that Convention. I mean no unkindness to anybody on earth, but if you call that bigotry then make the most of it. ¹

When Barton penned those words, Southern Baptists were approaching their zenith. The postwar era would be good to Southern Baptists, like most every other Protestant denomination. Numerically the SBC enjoyed dramatic expansion. Denominationally the SBC became more cohesive and organizationally mature. Culturally Southern Baptists neared the apex of their social influence and political clout. Christ appeared to be building his church, and an angel appeared to be riding over the denominational dust cloud.

Nonetheless, in hindsight Barton’s assertion might invite a smile or even a wince. It may appear as denominationally prideful and self-absorbed. But, if one can overlook his apparent hubris, Barton projects a sentiment—an almost romantic desire—which has been the SBC’s unifying theme since 1845 and its primary catalyst into the twenty-first century—fulfilling the Great Commission.

Now, nearly seven decades after Barton’s assertion, the numbers still impress. The Southern Baptist Convention boasts more than 15 million members in nearly 50,000 churches. In the deep South the numbers are even more impressive.

Yet all is not well within the Southern Baptist Zion. Nearly fifty years ago, Dean Kelley’s insightful Why Conservative Churches Are Growing documented the correlation between a denomination’s acceptance of liberal theology and the numerical decline that always followed.² Kelley’s argument was clear enough—if a church does not believe in the full truthfulness of Scripture, the exclusivity of the gospel, and the eternal realities of heaven and hell, it feels no urgency to evangelize. Denominational decline always follows doctrinal compromise.

Similarly, Kelley demonstrated how conservative churches—including Southern Baptist churches—that still held conservative doctrine, tended to grow numerically. Sound doctrine led to evangelistic urgency.

Kelley’s research produced a stark study in contrast, and it served as a causus belli for conservatives during the Southern Baptist Convention’s inerrancy controversy. As a convention of churches most concerned with missions and evangelism, the logic was airtight. The only way to ensure vibrant evangelism and missions, conservatives argued, was to recover their theological foundations.³

Yet for Southern Baptists, past pride in our relative strength contra mainline denominations has given way to the realization that we are currently on a similar but, thankfully, slower path. Southern Baptists are not impervious to the fate of the mainline denominations. Recent denominational statistics have made this clear. However, while trend lines document the past, they do not have to determine the future.

The optimism of previous generations has given way to concern over how well we are reaching the world and what role we will play in it. The deeper into the twenty-first century we go, the more acute our challenges will likely become. Indeed, the decades before us will likely present the SBC with unique, even unprecedented, challenges on most every front.

Denominationally, indicators such as baptisms and giving through the Cooperative Program cause ongoing concern. The near unbounded optimism of previous generations is now buffeted by the realities of declining denominational statistics. These realities force us to confront pressing questions like:

•Will we reimagine our structures, programs, and efforts to most effectively reach the world for Christ, or will we retrench and risk being a past-tense denomination?

•Will we recommit ourselves to funding our collective Great Commission work through the Cooperative Program, or will we choose to endlessly downsize?

•Will we grow more unified around shared convictions and mission, or will we fragment over secondary concerns and tertiary doctrinal differences?

•Will we see the generational transition that is upon us as an opportunity to seize or a change to resist?

Theologically, the SBC’s doctrinal recovery, as captured and codified in The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, has now been fully implemented in all of the national entities. The Southern Baptist Convention stands in the year 2019 as a tower of theological certainty and convictional clarity. No one wonders what Southern Baptists believe on the big theological and social issues of the day. But this strength invites its own series of questions:

•Can we maintain intergenerational theological faithfulness, successfully projecting these gains deeper into the twenty-first century?

•Will we recover a regenerate church membership, comprised of baptized believers, covenanted together in a disciplined church?

•Will we be able to maintain a distinct Baptist identity while we engage and partner with the broader evangelical community?

•Will the recovery of the doctrine of inerrancy lead to a renewal of biblical authority, sufficiency, and a renewed commitment to biblical exposition?

•Will the theological uniformity of the SBC’s entities lead to more confessionally aware and theologically informed churches?

Culturally, Southern Baptists, especially in the deep South, enjoyed unique influence for more than a century. An uneasy church-state alliance reinforced social and moral expectations and fostered an ambient Christianity. That influence is giving way to mere tolerance, which, in some corners, is morphing into intolerance. Our cultural moment, including real and growing threats to religious liberty, should press Southern Baptist churches closer toward unity in belief and mission. These realities invite still more questions:

•Can we be content as a distinct cultural minority and remain faithful to the dictates of Christ in the face of social marginalization?

•Will we have the courage to hold firm on pressing cultural issues, such as opposition to same-sex marriage, against increased public agitation to the same?

•Will we be content to view ourselves, as Russell Moore has argued, as communitarian instead of majoritarian?

This book’s contributors take up these issues and many more. And it brings me back again to Levi Elder Barton, who was more tremendously convinced than ever that the last hope, the fairest hope, the only hope for evangelizing the world on New Testament principles is the Southern Baptist people represented in that Convention. I mean no unkindness to anybody on earth, but if you call that bigotry then make the most of it.⁴

Nearly seven decades later, Barton’s assertion still rings with a certain element of truth, and I resonate with his hopeful assessment—to a certain degree.

More soberly, though, I am inclined to invert Barton’s words.

As for me, I am now more tremendously convinced than ever that the SBC’s last hope, fairest hope, and only hope is for God to grant us careful reflection, spiritual renewal, and recommitment to the Word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Great Commission. If you call that desperation, then make the most of it.

Though our world is ever changing, one thing is clear—the Southern Baptist witness is never to change. Whether delivered in Galilee by our Lord himself, preached by the apostles in the book of Acts, considered by 309 gathered messengers in Augusta, Georgia, in 1845, flowing from the pen of Levi Elder Barton in 1948, discussed over beignets and coffee at Café du Monde in 1967, affirmed in The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, pondered anew in 2019, or projected deeper into the twenty-first century—Southern Baptists are called to be a people standing on the Word of God and moving forward together to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we do, surely Christ will be pleased to build his Church through us, and an angel will continue to ride over our denominational dust cloud.

May, by God’s grace, the pages that follow further this cause.

¹ Levi Elder Barton, God’s Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention, Alabama Christian Advocate, June 29, 1948, vi.

² Dean Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).

³ Kelley.

⁴ Barton, God’s Last and Only Hope, 2.

PART 1: SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION AND COOPERATION

Chapter 1

How the Cooperative Program Empowers Churches to Gospel Ministry

Robert J. Matz & John Mark Yeats

Consider two missionaries: they have the same education, the same passion for taking the gospel to the unreached, the same mission. One is fully funded; the other is constantly fund-raising. Or think about two seminary students, both called to ministry. Both pursue education at evangelical schools. The first takes out loans, is saddled with debt, and must reject the call of a church because it cannot pay enough for him to service his loans. He never enters the ministry because of the burden his degree imposes. The other receives a scholarship from the Southern Baptist Convention. He completes his schooling in three years without debt and is pastoring today.

THE NEED FOR COOPERATION

Evangelical missionaries, mission societies, seminary students, benevolence ministries, disaster relief organizations, church planters, orphanages and children’s homes, collegiate ministries, and a host of other ministry organizations have long struggled with the questions of funding. Such needs have often overwhelmed churches with requests for help.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was no different in wrestling with these competing needs. The SBC was founded for the purpose of carrying into effect the benevolent intention of our constituents by organizing a plan for eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the denomination for the propagation of the gospel.¹ Yet, how to best elicit, combine, and direct the energies of the churches befuddled Southern Baptists for their first seventy-five years.

In these early years, various missions and ministries sent out agents to churches seeking funding. This methodology bogged down ministry.

It was inefficient, with costs of raising the funds sometimes amounting to almost half the amount raised. The agents also created problems for the churches, often one or more of them showing up unannounced and expecting pulpit time to make an appeal for his cause, a pattern disruptive and often demoralizing to pastor and people alike. The method also led to imbalance. The boards which got to the churches first with the best speakers raised the most money; those caught by bad weather or bad roads, or who followed hard on the heels of others, raised less money, however worthy their cause. By raising its own funds, each board was practically independent and the convention itself more an observer than a determiner of Baptist ministries.²

The solution? In 1919, Southern Baptists launched the Seventy-Five Million Campaign to raise $75 million for Southern Baptist causes. All Southern Baptist ministries worked together to raise funds. They would then divide them according to a formula determined by the state conventions and the Executive Committee.³ No longer would every ministry, missionary, and minister be competing for limited church funds. Now all ministries would work together to support their respective needs. While partially derailed by a depression in 1920, the Seventy-Five Million Campaign provided a new model for ministry funding.⁴ This one-time offering became the foundation for a new method of ministry support: the Cooperative Program.

Since then, the Cooperative Program has served Southern Baptists as a unified plan of giving through which Southern Baptist churches give a portion of their undesignated receipts to support the missions and ministries of both their respective state conventions and of the SBC.⁵ As a result, Southern Baptist missionaries, seminary students, church planters, children’s homes, college ministries, and a host of other ministries are freed to do the work of ministry.

SHOULD CHURCHES WORK TOGETHER? A RATIONALE FOR THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM

In the Baptist Faith and Message, Southern Baptists assert their belief in the independence of each local congregation stating that a New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation.⁶ This Baptist principle of autonomy means that churches embrace the priority of the local church through our ecclesiology. Yet, as one considers both the Scriptures and the realities of ministry, one sees a compelling biblical and practical rationale for cooperative ministry.

Biblical Reasons

In several places in Scripture independent churches are shown to be working together.

First, consider the church council, recorded in Acts 15, as the early churches in Antioch and Jerusalem worked together toward doctrinal refinement that resulted in them sending out gospel missionaries. Acts 15:1–3 tells of the initial dispute in Antioch. Jewish Christians argued that the new Gentile converts to Christianity needed to keep the Jewish law to be saved. Specifically the Gentile men needed to be circumcised. Paul and Barnabas objected. To obtain the apostles’ input, the Antiochian church as a whole appointed a group to go to Jerusalem.⁷

When the group arrived in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church (v. 4). After a discussion, a decision was reached by the whole church (v. 22)⁸ that the gospel was for everyone—both Jews and Gentiles. As a result, the Gentiles did not need to be circumcised.

Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch where the whole church assembly celebrated the news from Jerusalem (vv. 30–31). A few verses later, Luke recounted the result of this message. Paul and Barnabas were each sent out from the existing churches with this message, that the gospel is for both the Jew and the Gentile (16:4–5). The rest of Acts outlines how new churches were started and how many more people became Christians.⁹ When these early churches worked together to understand God’s plan, they sent out people who shared the gospel, saw people converted, and started new churches. As Scott Hildreth notes of this chapter, these churches became partners in the mission of proclaiming the gospel to the unreached.¹⁰

A second way that biblical churches cooperated with one another is found in Acts 11:27–30. The Antiochian church had learned that a famine would soon strike Judea and Jerusalem. They knew the believers there would be adversely affected. As a result, they collectively decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters who lived in Judea (v. 29 CSB). Paul and Barnabas then took their gifts to those in Judea and Jerusalem.

When churches come together around New Testament doctrine, they work together to reach the lost, to plant churches that proclaim the gospel message, and to meet the needs of those in crisis. We are on mission together, not merely because it seems to work better, but because we are one church serving the same mission.¹¹

Practical Reasons

Ministry is often lonely.¹² Pastors can feel isolated and churches can often seem disconnected from one another. The SBC is a platform that combats this loneliness both personally and corporately. Cooperating churches are never alone. The Cooperative Program (CP) serves as a powerful, collaborative tool that enables Southern Baptist congregations to stand together in advancing the cause of Christ. Because of the CP, church size is irrelevant. Multicampus churches, rural congregations, suburban megachurches, and new urban plants all partner in sharing the love of Jesus with the lost.

Some question the benefit of cooperative funding for missions, preferring a more direct system, which they believe has greater accountability for the missionary or organization. But there are limitations to what a single congregation can do. For example, some large congregations may be able to fund mission ventures on their own, but this type of direct funding model is not fully scalable to smaller congregations. And the budget for even larger congregations goes only so far. No church can reach every people group. Only in partnering together can churches reach everyone with the gospel.

Part of the tension lies in challenges between corporate giving, societal giving, or cooperative giving. Corporate giving allows the individual congregation to fund persons or organizations that they believe best represent the interests of the congregation. Like all ministry budgets, the number of people or organizations are limited to the number of people they can connect with directly.

Societal giving is tightly connected to individual or corporate giving in that the society relies on congregations directly funding the ministry of the society. Frequently the organization will send out representatives into churches to fund-raise for the specific ministries of the society. Prior to the advent of the CP, this was the main model used by the SBC to fund its international and domestic efforts. The key challenges for this model are competition between peer organizations and congregational request fatigue.

In contrast, cooperative giving takes a designated portion of a congregation’s mission budget and combines those resources with other congregations to be used for agreed-upon goals and aims. Through shared work, mutual benefits are realized that dynamically multiply the contributed resources. This cooperative work increases accountability between independent congregations and heightens the expectations placed upon those serving the cooperating churches.

This is a biblical reflection of what we see in the early church. In Acts 4:32–35, the example is given of how the members of the early church cooperatively contributed to meet the needs of people and fund the ministries of the church. The example set for our congregations should be the same. The more we share in the work together, the more we can accomplish.

THE STATE OF THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM TODAY

As of September 30, 2017, Southern Baptists have given more than $18 billion to the Cooperative Program cumulatively since 1930. Of this, nearly $11.5 billion was given to various state convention ministries and just under $7 billion has been distributed to national SBC entities.

In recent years, there has been a move toward increased funding for national ministries. While total CP giving has decreased over the past ten years, the percentage states have forwarded to the national ministries has increased.¹³

In addition to $190.47 million forwarded to the Executive Committee from the state conventions, an additional $5.26 million in direct gifts was part of the 2015–2016 Cooperative Program Allocation Budget. A total of $195.73 million was distributed to the national ministries of the SBC and distributed as follows:¹⁴

As a result of CP giving, Southern Baptists are able to collectively fund a ministry that impacts both every region in North America and every area of the world. Consider the thousands of missionaries the CP supports:¹⁵

Not only does the CP support thousands of missionaries, it also enables tens of thousands of seminary students to attend seminary at a greatly reduced cost, largely to avoid student loan debt. In the 2015–2016 year, more than twenty-one thousand students were trained at the following six SBC seminaries.

The Cooperative Program also empowers the ministries of the state conventions. These conventions in partnership with the national Southern Baptist Convention create a gospel presence on hundreds of college campuses. They also equip and send volunteers to provide relief to those devastated by natural disasters. Additionally, they provide care to thousands of children in need.¹⁶

No one church (no matter how large) can touch every nation. No single minister or volunteer can provide relief when a major crisis strikes a region. Through Cooperative Program giving, Southern Baptists collectively are changing their world through the gospel. Tens of thousands of seminary students are educated. Churches are given a voice within the political sphere. Church planters are deployed to share the gospel across North America. The International Mission Board sends thousands of missionaries all over the world to share the gospel with those who have never heard. Gospel ministries are established on secular college campuses. Children in dire need are cared for. In each ministry, the gospel is proclaimed in both word and deed. Because Southern Baptists give to the Cooperative Program, we are better together in pushing back the darkness.

REASONS FOR CONTINUED PARTICIPATION

Because of its singular focus on reaching and changing the world with the Good News of Christ, the SBC found a way to uniquely share the weight of fulfilling the Great Commission. The Cooperative Program creates the amazing opportunity for independent congregations to participate in the most dynamic mission organizations in the world. Think about it: forty-seven thousand churches funding missionaries and church planters around the world! This is a multiplying force for advancing the kingdom of God!

The North American Mission Board (NAMB) along with the International Mission Board (IMB) keep the priority of our network of churches focused on sharing the gospel in our Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8 CSB). Congregations supply the prayer, personnel, and resources to make the greatest mission-sending force viable. The agencies’ external focus encourages local congregations to remain missions focused for the sake of the lost. This symbiotic relationship keeps the priorities of the gospel in focus.

By resourcing congregations through the state conventions and local associations, congregations are equipped themselves to think like a missionary for their own immediate context. Within this setting, we understand that the central hub of all missionary activity is the local church. The SBC functions most effectively when local congregations are effective embassies of the kingdom of God (2 Cor 5:20).

Our cooperative work together enables churches to engage big picture items. Whether through disaster relief, orphan care, or by investing in international missions, churches working together make the difference. In reaching the lost, the focus never shifts from the big picture. Congregations committed to thinking like missionaries not only engage their local context but invest globally in what God is doing. Whether working with NAMB to plant a church across the country or adopting an unreached people group in Southeast Asia, congregations find their best expression of Jesus’s command to Go into all the world (Mark 16:15 CSB) by thinking beyond their local congregation.

In addition to deploying the greatest missionizing force, our convention of churches works together to impact their local cultures. Through the work of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), our congregations speak prophetically to cultural power structures by advocating for biblical values and religious liberty. They do this despite the complexity of many modern issues and concerns and also do so in love and charity with the hope of winning many to the gospel. As churches, we are not left alone to drown in the overwhelming ocean of culture; together as a convention, we can accomplish much for the kingdom of God.

But our investment in cultural change pushes beyond the ERLC. Consider the impact made through our superb seminaries. Through the Cooperative Program, our network of churches supports the work of six seminaries, training 25,037 for future kingdom service.¹⁷ In many of our state conventions, investment is made in our Baptist colleges and universities as we help a new generation engage the workplace with a Christian perspective. For training in our local church, LifeWay Christian Resources produces essential materials to train the local church to think through life from a biblical perspective.¹⁸

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul mediates a dispute between church members by using an illustration of the human body. Despite the many parts of the body, it is designed to work as a unified whole. This has amazing implications for the local church and also for our cooperative work together. As a convention of churches, we need one another to function in the manner God calls us as representatives of Christ. Large or small, rural or urban, traditional or contemporary—as the body of Christ, we work together. In the process, we show the amazing power of the gospel of Jesus.

Together, we do more.

Leading toward the Future

As the SBC continues to mature, the Cooperative Program provides an essential touchstone for the outworking of our shared partnership for the sake of the gospel. Through local congregations and the leadership at the helm in our national organizations, we see trends that set the tone for future engagement of our congregations:

Missions Motivates—Southern Baptists are a missions-driven people. From our shared doctrinal foundation, nothing motivates our congregations like the shared mission of the Great Commission. Whether in personal evangelism, church planting, or international missions, the SBC continues to pursue reaching the lost for Christ. Each generation claims this mantle in a new way, but this core essential of our identity never changes.

Biblical Diversity Is Increasing—Today ethnic minority congregations comprise more than 21 percent of all SBC congregations and continue to grow at a rate that is faster than any other denomination.¹⁹ The work on this issue is not yet done, but by God’s grace, the SBC is on a trajectory to continue to reflect the beauty of the gospel through the church as revealed in Eph 2:13–16:

But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility . . . so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace. He did this so that he might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death.

Local Life Matters—In SBC life, the dynamism of the church is always found at the local level. Congregations are seeing their state conventions and local associations as mobilizing forces for the expansion of the kingdom of God. As we work together, the model of working globally by starting locally makes more sense in church planting, social ministries, and evangelism.

Engagement Secures the Future—As pastors and congregations engage the processes of the convention at all levels, our convention blossoms. By sending messengers to annual meetings, by carrying the reports back to local churches, by encouraging our brothers and sisters to engage in the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, congregations connect and engage in what God is doing globally.

Giving Changes Everything—What began as an idea for a unified budget for channeling the resources of the SBC became the largest mission sending force globally. The genius of the Cooperative Program enables congregations of all sizes to participate fully in the work of the ministry. Through voluntarily designating a portion of congregational receipts, churches of every type cooperate to ensure that the work of the ministry continues. What one congregation could never do alone, we can accomplish together.

CONCLUSION

The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest missions-sending force in the world. Because of Cooperative Program giving, thousands of missionaries and church planters are sharing the gospel in every corner of the globe. For the past hundred years, the Cooperative Program has been used of God to fund and support this work. The challenge for Southern Baptists today is to continue to rediscover the power of joining the noble work of reaching people from every nation. We do it together through the Cooperative Program.

¹ Southern Baptist Convention, Legal Authorities, Constitution, accessed September 28, 2018, http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/legal/constitution.asp.

² Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman, 1987), 617.

³ McBeth, 618.

⁴ Chad Brand and David E. Hankins, One Sacred Effort: The Cooperative Program of Southern Baptists (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005), 94.

⁵ Southern Baptist Convention, The Cooperative Program, accessed September 28, 2018, http://www.sbc.net/cp/default.asp.

⁶ Baptist Faith and Message 2000, Article VI.

⁷ As John Polhill notes, The Antioch church appointed them as its official delegates to the meeting.