UPDATE: Dr. George has an article at Christianity Today this week: What Baptists Can Learn From Calvin.

As a student at Southern Seminary in the early 80’s, I was blessed beyond measure to have a young, brilliant and engaging church history professor named Dr. Timothy George. I’ve long admired Dr. George and his teaching on the Reformation ranks as some of the most formative teaching I ever received. His books and talks bear all the marks of a true Christian statesman, scholar and ecumenist. He ranks among the foremost Baptist historians in the world.

Today Dr. George continues to serve as the founding dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham and a senior editor of Christianity Today. He is a participant in the project known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together and also serves on the International Baptist-Catholic Dialogue team.

I recently wrote Dr. George and asked for his comments on this question: “How can Baptists respond to Catholic and Orthodox Christians who challenge our view of the Lord’s Supper as having no deeper historical/Biblical roots than Zwingli?”

Dr. George was kind enough to send along this reply. I’m deeply appreciative of his generosity. [Continue reading]

Communion (Really) from Russell Moore on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Other IM posts on this topic: Baptist Reasons For Not Celebrating the LS, Confessional Resources, Discerning the Presence of Christ, Intro to the Baptist Way. LOTS of links to Baptist material on the supper in this posts, especially the last one. If you want to study our view from the best sources, I’ve brought together a lot of material here.

A commenter in the previous post asks,

For those of us who live in pretty close knit baptist circles, give us a short run down – playing devil’s advocate- of the weaknesses you mention in the Baptist view…Other than the whole “real presence” argument, I’m not aware of any other complaints or criticisms.

This gives me an excuse to write about the Baptist and evangelical situation involving the Lord’s Supper, which I’m always glad to do. [Continue reading]

Good, solid, simple, basic Baptist teaching on the Lord’s Supper is remarkably hard to come by. David Chanski from Trinity Baptist in Montvale, N.J. takes care of business in less than 40 minutes. It’s Sermonaudio and requires a two line registration, but if you don’t know the Baptist view, have never heard it presented intelligently and winsomely or if you want to shore up your own understanding of the Baptist view, this is very good work.

Chanski doesn’t make the Lord’s Supper-Passover connection, which I think is absolutely essential to rightly understanding our view. Understanding that the Lord’s Supper is a Passover meal given a new focus is quite important. We also don’t get much of the Anabaptist emphasis on covenant community, which is also important to see how Baptists understand the supper in reference to the church.

I’m turning off comments so we don’t have a debate. I know we disagree on this. I am simply making available a resource that gives the Baptist view in the hope of greater understanding and more reasonable discussion when it occurs. [Continue reading]

Southeastern Theological Seminary President Danny Akin on Mark Driscoll:

I appreciate Mark Driscoll and Acts 29. Southeastern has no formal relationship with either, but I am thankful for many aspects of both ministries. I think there is much that our students can learn from them. Mark and I have become good friends, but I do not agree with everything Mark says or does. In particular, I disagree with some of the language he has used in the pulpit in the past (though not in several years!) and I am uncomfortable with his position on beverage alcohol. I do appreciate his courage to tackle the difficult book The Song of Solomon and to address sexual issues with the adults in his congregation who have serious and important questions needing answers. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: Justin D. Barnard at Mere Comments has a much more useful and on point critique of Driscoll here.

First of all, let me thank Frank for the opportunity to have a good discussion about the issue of pastoral accountability in the internet age (a very important topic) and for having such a constructive and positive dialog. Though I expect to be denounced to the lower reaches of the pit by a couple of commenters at his place, Frank’s been a first class conversation partner, and has said nice things about another post of mine to boot.

I have very little to say in response to Frank’s SECOND POST, available now at his blog, but I will say a bit.

Frank’s conception of a “global pulpit” or “addressing the global church” is a slippery, ultimately subjective concept that primarily seems to be meaningful in the minds of a small group of theo-bloggers. I think that a room full of non-internet using Christians, even conservative ones, would need considerable help working with Frank’s idea that the orthodoxy of the “global church” is presided over by an unelected jury of successful pastors such as John Macarthur and C.J. Mahaney. [Continue reading]

Last night I had the opportunity to talk to a group of about 20 longtime SBCers on recent events in the SBC. These are folks who work with me at a ministry that is partially (6%) funded by Cooperative Program funds, so there is some interest. Many, not all, are older and had a lot of sympathies with the moderates in the conservative resurgence.

I made a list of factors that I saw as significant in bringing the SBC to its current situation. I am just going to list them without extensive commentary. If you aren’t Southern Baptist, feel free to ask a question, and I’ll try to give you a brief answer. If you are Southern Baptist, I’d like to hear your responses. [Continue reading]

A special message from Michael to all Southern Baptists in the IM audience: Let’s send an offering to our mission boards and lead the way in showing what Gospel centered sacrifice looks like.

SBC International Mission Board Give now to the Lottie Moon Offering.
SBC North American Mission Board. Give to the Annie Armstrong Offering.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

1. Those of you who have various versions of autocratic church governments that never give the ordinary hoi polloi the microphone may look down your noses at allowing people to make motions to ban books, adopt flags and boycott Pepsi, but our circus has a lot to commend it over your imitation of the Vatican. Public perception has to go out the window, but meaning what you say about congregationalism, messenger representation and cooperation from the ground up outweighs the spectacle. No one will ever stand up in most of your churches and say something really stupid, and that’s a shame, because the pastor shouldn’t be the only one who gets to have fun.

2. The younger leaders of the SBC are taking on power in a denomination that has been, for the most part, attempting to lock the doors and hope they would go away. Well, they didn’t. They came to the convention and voted in a mechanism to take an urgent look at what we are doing for the one thing that holds us together: a commitment to carry out the Great Commission. What you saw today was a serious changing of the power grid in the SBC. The vast numbers of obedient old-guard messengers are never again going to show up and make the SBC into a wholly owned subsidiary of the culture war or the Jerry Vines version of the SBC. This is now a denomination that has given itself clear and simple instructions: Get to the task of world missions, not the task of building a denominational culture. [Continue reading]

Dr. Chuck Kelley at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary spoke this week on the problems with Southern Baptist Evangelism and our churches in general. It’s a heartfelt, quite moving and well-thought out talk; a mixture of our revivalistic side and the scholarly, historical side. You can and should listen here. The message starts after the music (maybe ten minutes) but the music’s great.

(My comments should be understood as the positive engagement of one Southern Baptist, and nothing more.)

I appreciate Dr. Kelley’s passionate engagement with the issues that are troubling Southern Baptists right now. He represents a constructive voice and I would encourage other Southern Baptists to listen to him.

I agree with some of what Dr. Kelley is saying in this message.

1) I agree that the SBC is in decline. By his own numbers 89% of our churches are not growing. Most of those churches are facing a generational horizon and many are not going to see 2025.

2) The task of growth by conversion evangelism and new church planting is paramount. It must be a priority at every level of Southern Baptist life. [Continue reading]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

An IM reader sent along this piece from the Nashville Tennessean newspaper on the current decline of the Southern Baptist Convention. There’s some rare honesty in this piece, and I hope SBC leaders are listening.

For example, Bill Leonard, one of my favorite professors from seminary days, talks about the SBC’s changing demographics. This really is the key to a lot of the story of post-war SBC numerical growth, and Southern Baptists need to stop avoiding this simple truth. I’ve never been a part of an SBC church whose primary source of baptism was anything other than the families of their own members. [Continue reading]

Rebaptism: How Did We Get here? and Rebaptism: What is it?

This last post in the Rebaptism series deals with what can be done in the present situation. Once again, I want to address these issues related to rebaptism with my own Southern Baptist context primarily in mind. I realize the issue changes a bit in each communion that considers it.

As Southern Baptists, we have reached a low point in regard to our own practice of baptism, and we should admit this as the first step in recovery. SBC leaders routinely baptize children who are 5 or even younger, and state evangelism directors defend- even promote- the practice. Our own international mission board and many churches insist on what can only be called “Baptist” baptism, which amounts to a rejection of believer’s baptism, over secondary issues.

Of more concern, many churches have completely abandoned any serious theological or confessional consideration of the meaning of Baptism, and therefore “anything goes” as the motive and occasion for baptism. Substantial preaching on baptism is shallow or non-existent. (We need some topical preaching, even in verse by verse churches.) The confessional riches of the Baptist tradition are almost irrelevant to many church growth oriented pastors. [Continue reading]

LINK: John H at Confessing Evangelical is one of six Lutherans in the UK. He comments on some of my advocacy of Wright’s “consensus” position on baptism. In my response to him I reference the document “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” from the WCC. I know, but it’s really excellent.

Just a friendly warning that I am not going to allow a free for all on infant baptism vs believer’s baptism. The post is on rebaptism.

There is one rebaptism in the Bible (Acts 19), and plenty of contention among Christians about exactly what is going on there. Unless Paul’s cryptic mention of “baptism for the dead” is a kind of rebaptism, then the Bible doesn’t speak directly to the topic.

Christians have demonstrated their inability to agree on the meaning of baptism for at least half a millenium. Jesus didn’t invent baptism, and unlike the Lord’s Supper, the Jewish roots of baptism are unclear. Ritual washings, Essene baptisms, Jewish convert baptisms- no one is really confident as to where John received his baptism- including the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. No one is sure what the disciples understood baptism to mean as they performed it during the ministry of Jesus. There is little agreement on why Jesus was baptized, and no agreement on the mode.

Baptism scholars like David Wright do offer up a consensus that has been helpful to me*: the earliest Christians baptized adult converts, almost certainly by immersion, relatively soon after a profession of faith.

The baptism of infants developed quickly, but was not universally normative. Catechetical instruction before baptism changed the way the church treated those coming to profess faith. The mode of baptism quickly became dependent on less water. The recognizable contours of the “Catholic” view of baptism were solidified by the time of Constantine. [Continue reading]

LINK: Read Matt Davis’s take on the 40/40.

Resource: IM lurker Pastor Scott sends along Greg Boyd’s sermon/prayer guide for a current emphasis in his church called “The Great Reversal: The Upside Down Kingdom of God.” Woodland Hills Church media for the series will be here starting Oct. 5.

UPDATE: Read IMB Missionary in the comment threads.

I can’t blog what I want to blog on this post. Wouldn’t be prudent, as George H. W. Bush often said.

I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes looking through this Prayer Guide promoting the current big emphasis in the Southern Baptist Convention, The “40/40″ Prayer emphasis.

The 40/40 Emphasis is for “Personal Revival and National Renewal.” It’s as big a focus on the culture war as I’ve seen in the SBC, straight up. [Continue reading]

To the contrary….my friend Wyman Richardson says it’s a tempest in a teapot.

ONE MORE: A life well lived.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s Beth Moore’s (excellent) website. I don’t see the announcement anywhere that she is a teacher for women only. Looks like she’s a Bible teacher for anyone who wants to be taught.

UPDATE AGAIN: Bill Mackinnon writes “Ten Questions For Complementarians.” I’d like to read some answers. In fact, I wonder where the detailed theological exposition on the Southern Baptist doctrine on authority of men over women is laid out in Southern Baptist theology. Have I missed that one?

UPDATE: Just so you can see what the other side of this issue actually looks like with a human face…Pastor Julie Pennington-Russell is pastor of Decatur First Baptist (CBF, formerly SBC). Atlanta Magazine did a major piece on her and her pastoral ministry. (Please Lifeway, don’t shut down my website!)

Rereading the story of the story of Lifeway Christian stores pulling from sale a magazine with five female pastors on the cover, I was really overwhelmed with the vacuity of evangelicalism.

At what point is someone allowed to say that in those same Lifeway stores, the #1 selling Bible teaching marterials are the resources published by Lifeway by Beth Moore? When are we supposed to notice the dozens and dozens of Beth Moore books and workbooks? The Beth Moore aisle in most Lifeway stores? When are we supposed to notice that Beth Moore’s materials in Lifeway DWARF any male pastor or teacher? When do we get the exercise in pretzel logic that explains there’s no inconsistency in having a female Bible teacher with an audience larger than any pastor in a denomination that opposes women pastors? [Continue reading]