“In some countries, the churches took over the place of the castles. In my opinion, these same churches represent the castles. For they have the same wealth like that of the kings.”
― Mwanandeke Kindembo
Update: SBC church membership suffers new historic 1-year decline of more than 400K They will blame this on everything but themselves.
Kate Shellnut, writing for Christianity Today posted: Southern Baptist Church Planting Up in 2020, But Baptisms Plunge by Half I think you will find the following numbers quite interesting. Before I begin, let me remind you that since I began this blog, I have been reporting that the current numbers of membership are problematic. It is widely whispered that even the current declining membership numbers are way too high.
This post is going to be short because I want you to concentrate on just a few numbers found in this article. iI 2005, I remember reading about the young Calvinists in 2005 in the article written by Collin Hansen. Christianity Today wrote about it here. They were going to change the church. And they did. Today, the SBC has significantly tilted toward a Reformed view of being a Baptist. This brings me to the above CT article.
The number of SBC members in the US
In the past, when the numbers were up around 16 million, there were some leaders who agreed that it could be half that number, @8,000. This is due to people moving from Baptist church to Baptist church and never being removed from their church roles. When I taught adult Sunday School in an SBC church, we tried to clean up the roles in our class. We were told to leave the names on there so people would feel like they had a home…
The country’s largest Protestant denomination has been getting smaller for 14 years in a row, down to 14 million after losing 436,000 members
The number of new churches in the SBC: Could it be that the SBC won’t tell us the number of failures because it would be embarrassing?
Folks, this is saying that 588 churches started in the US last year. But the number of members in the SBC took a nosedive.
The year 2020 showed promising signs of progress on the mission field, adding 588 new church plants in the US and over 18,000 abroad, both figures up from the year prior.
I have been asking and asking for the numbers of church starts that have failed. Folks, there are a bunch of those out there. There is one in my home state that was started by a well-known church. I was contacted by someone who was part of this disaster. They did the typical thing, sending the pastor out with a bunch of people from the sending church. From what I was told, the first pastor got fired and they sent in pastor #2 who wasn’t much better. I was told that the church was a typical Reformed Baptist church-heavily authoritarian with a distinctly Calvinista flavor.
I heard that a church and two church plants started by an expert on church planting within the SBC failed. Yes, all three of them. But no one will give the names and numbers of the failures and the money spent on keeping the churches propped up/
I have been told that some of the pastors who start a church are actually given a home for their families. If this is true, then church planting is an expensive proposition. Are the returns worth it? The numbers are declining with the more church plants that are established.
Younger adults are just not *into the church.* It’s the older folks who attend and COVID attacked that age group.
Therefore they claim the decline is just related to COVID. I don’t buy it. But, after this generation dies off, can we depend on the young to carry the church? It doesn’t look like it.
Researcher Ryan Burge wrote last year that the generational shift will be the biggest factor accelerating losses in the SBC, as the denomination ages and members die off.
…Losing more of its older members due to COVID-19 is likely one factor in the 2020 drop, according to Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. Membership declined by 2 percent in 2019, the SBC’s biggest drop in a century. Last year—as congregations winnowed inactive members from their rolls and saw fewer people join during shutdowns—the decline was 3 percent.
8,200 churches were planted in the past decade, many of them led by Reformed Baptist young pastors. Yet membership declined despite such effort. It appears they are losing their young people
Southern Baptists have planted 8,200 churches in North America since 2010, a rate that researcher Ed Stetzer says amounts to “replanting the denomination every few decades.”
“Well, the SBC continues its downward trend, for sure, but the church-planting numbers are a reminder that the North American Mission Board plants more than anyone else and that they kept doing it in a remarkably difficult year,” said Stetzer, executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. “If Southern Baptists find a path to a better future, the road goes through church-planting territory.”
The numbers prove that the SBC is in decline. It is also proof that the hardcore, Calvinist, authoritarian behavior on the part of pastors may have also contributed to this decline. They did promise to change the church after all and they did. Things have not gone so well.
Ezell, the head of the NAMB claims that 80% of church plants exist after 4 years which means that the attendance at those 8,200 churches must not be stellar.
Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board, the entity overseeing domestic evangelism and mission, told CT he’s encouraged by their work in 2020 but also looking forward.
“The number I care about most is how many survive after four years. Right now that survival rate hovers around 80 percent, which is incredibly strong,” he said. “But to plant 588 churches during lockdowns and social distancing demonstrates that Southern Baptists have a strong church-planting network and a strong financial commitment that holds up to even the toughest challenges.”
How much money did the SBC spend on each church plant? Is it worth it? Isn’t the idea behind church plants to reach out and get new members?
They give broad numbers which don’t mean much and I suspect that know that.
SBC churches spent $1 billion on missions in 2020.
So what did the addition of 8,200 churches mean for the SBC? Fewer converts are joining the church. So who is going to all of these new church plants? Are people leaving the older churches and going to the new churches. I thought church-hopping was not held in high esteem by the Reformed Baptists.
Frankly, this makes little sense. But the SBC faithful keep giving their money when they should be asking hard questions.
Baptisms have decreased as fewer converts join SBC churches and were put on hold in many churches as a result of the pandemic.
My opinion: The SBC has done a poor job in educating their young and should concentrate spending money on that as opposed to church planting for fewer people. That’s just plain stupid.
Go to the chart in the CT article and see the decline in baptisms. Is it just COVID? Or has the church done an exceedingly poor job in educating their young? Huge climbing walls look cool but the young can get those anywhere. There is only one place they can be taught about the faith. Maybe it’s time to stop spending money to plant churches for a declining population and, instead, reevaluate what they are doing wrong. Why are younger people ditching churches? They better figure it out quickly. The generation of baby boomers is becoming elderly and will soon begin to die. The young people are not taking their places. It’s time to figure out why.
In the next week or so iI will be discussing how seminary students in the SBC are being trained to take over churches.
From the post: “Frankly, this makes little sense. But the SBC faithful keep giving their money when they should be asking hard questions.” Ya think?
Also from the post: “In the next week or so I will be discussing how seminary students in the SBC are being trained to take over churches.” This sounds creepy and totally untoward – not the post but the taking over.
Finally, regarding numbers, has anyone else left a church (for good reason) and asked to be taken off the membership rolls, out of the databases, then told, “We cannot do that.” So, they refused. No covenant involved. So there’s one moot number. Dishonest data. By their choice.
SBC’s church planting program (under New Calvinist leadership) is more about planting reformed theology than Gospel churches.
“In the past, when the numbers were up around 16 million, there were some leaders who agreed that it could be half that number, @8,000.” (Dee)
For most of the 70+ years in which I was a card-carrying Southern Baptist, SBC reported 16 million members. Given the way local churches keep members on church rolls – even after some of them have moved from their communities, dropped out of church altogether, died, etc. – the actual number is probably closer to 8 million members. However, only about half of those attend somewhat regularly, so the ‘real’ membership would be around 4 million on any given Sunday.
Last time I looked at budgets for SBC’s North American Board, they were spending $60 million per year in their church planting program, with a goal to plant 1,000 churches annually.
My guess is that no one is bothering to track this because (a) it would open a can of worms and (b) it would be super complicated.
To elaborate… what defines a “success” and what defines a “fail”?
We used to belong to a church plant. It survived past the 10-year mark (which is apparently when most new plants will fail by). Success! It survived for over a year after the founding pastor moved on. Success! But then closed its doors during covid. Fail? Partial fail, because of extenuating circumstances?
Knew of another recent plant by one denomination where the pastor decided to take it to a different denomination. So… failure for one denomination and success for another? It got so small it ended up merging with a different local church (also a plant). Failure, or not quite? The newly merged church(es) survived for a few years, then closed its (their) doors. Does that count as one failure, or two?
The academic department I worked in tried to track student success in its classes for a while. Turns out what the Records office thought of as success/fail wasn’t necessarily what the professor thought of as success/fail wasn’t necessarily what the student thought of as success/fail… I get the idea church plant data tracking would be similar.
Would be a fascinating side project. Particularly if it came with a six-figure stipend and a house.
I joined an SBC church when I was 13 years old — before the “conservative resurgence, and before the stealth takeovers. Since then, I have transferred membership to 3 other SBC churches. Only 2 of those 4 churches are evenly remotely interested in what goes on in the SBC entities, or at the conventions.
***One of those interested churches simply sends messengers to the convention ….. the end. I was the “kitchen committee leader there for 4 years…. I missed a lot of good singings and good programs because of that. It was a lot of work, too.
***The other church just fusses when some deacon hears something about “private prayer language” and David Platt —or uppity women preachers. No discussions about funds, salaries, church planting, calvinism vs. traditionalism, etc. I don’t know if they send messengers or not. The men make all of the decisions in the monthly “men’s meeting”, and the agendas are not openly discussed amongst the wimminfolk. At this church, the pastor’s daughter (whom I graduated from high school with) works hard ….. she earns money …… yet, she asks her husband’s permission before she so much as buys herself a new pair of crew socks. (Yeah, that’s my current church —— of which I haven’t darkened the doors since Feb. 2016. Over 5 years, and they haven’t kicked me out, yet.)
They worry about reaching the young people??? Ha, ha, ha! At one of those churches, a Sunday school teaching deacon decided to spend almost 4 months worth of Sundays teaching the older teenagers and early 20-somethings the BF&M 2000. We had several young people drop out that first month.
Hmmmm, what’s wrong with the SBC.
Max is right. Most pew sitters have no clue what’s going on. They just keep throwing money in the plates and enjoying those fellowship meals.
I had recently heard of a couple (I think they were in their 30s) in an older SBC church with long-time support of the cooperative program leaving it to go to another one in the same area. Did a little research, and what I found about the church they reportedly joined — Waterfront Church DC — falls directly into this discussion.
Last I looked, the website for Waterfront Church DC showed lots of spiffily-attired youthful gringos smiling in the currently-fashionable Nationals Park neighborhood, a baseball’s throw away from a Thabiti Anyabwile church plant in an area similarly experiencing investment and measures of gentrification. However, the website did not have a ton of info as far as affiliations. The only gray hairs I recall seeing were in a small section of the beard of the Lead Pastor, Zack Randles. As he is taking classes for his Masters of Divinity at Southwestern Seminary, it was unsurprising that despite the absence of any apparent website reference whatsoever to affiliation, it’s a church plant of the SBC of Virginia:
https://www.sbcv.org/zack-randles/
Randles actually went into further detail on the church planning aspect in an interview related to the New City Network. The interviewer is Clint Clifton, who “leads the church planting efforts of New City Network in addition to serving with the North American Mission Board’s Send Network.” Also, “New City Network was established in 2016 as the church planting ministry of McLean Bible Church in an effort to carry out the vision of “multiplying churches among all nations beginning in greater Washington, DC.”” The timeline would potentially also tie this to the IMB and David Platt:
https://newcityplanting.org/who-we-are/
From the church planting podcast transcript:
https://www.churchplantingpodcast.org/new-city-network/zack-randles-hustle-in-church-planting-part-1
Clint Clifton (NAMB church planter) on Randles: “He’s refused to leave that community neighborhood and he’s dug his heels in there and the church launched a couple of years ago and then grew pretty quickly and they’ve been really… in our network, they’ve been the fastest growing church in DC, I think. He was just texting with me the other day and he had 700 or so in his worship services last week and 2 weekends ago; so, just proud of the guy.”
(Refused to leave one of the most increasingly yuppified areas of the country? That might be akin to saying “Randy refused to leave Georgetown, he dug in his heels there…”)
Zack Randles: “Part of what helped us with that is the clientele, like you talked about here at the church. Our target zone is right in between some of the wealthiest people in the entire world, if you go half a mile up the road at Capitol Hill, and then we are also positioned right on the other side, about a half mile on the other side of some of the most impoverished people in all of North America in Anacostia. And so, we came into it in the beginning and said, “What is the bridge between politics and poverty? It’s the message of Jesus Christ.” And so, we’ve really gotten to watch that, part of what we did in the beginning is we pulled up the census.gov stats and we drew up specifically economically, racially, and age-wise, who made up our community. And I’ll never forget one of our first core team meetings, I drew that sense of information on a white board and said, “This is what I want our church plant to look like. This is our community and this is who we want to reach.”
Clint Clifton: “And when you surveyed the scene in just brass tax (sp) like what the Lord has done, you guys have 4 services, you’re in a building that you full control over that’s blocks from that stadium and some of the most expensive real estate in the country.”
(Full control is neat; full control of really expensive real estate is neater. If anyone wants to match this up with a pattern of “planting“ in other cases, let me know. That also goes for matching up church planting funding and those cooperative fund donations that make it possible.)
Doing the zip code thing is evidently a practice of some church planter groups, as reportedly, it often appears to be a race to be the first in the gentrified area or an exurb getting new money. Zack says the following on the church site:
https://www.waterfrontchurchdc.com/our-story
“In 2006, I was a 24-year-old student minister planning my first mission trip. … That trip was my first time visiting Washington, and over the next several years we ended up coming for three more mission trips and at least six vacations. It became abundantly clear to me the Lord had big things in store for the DC area south of the interstate between the Anacostia and Potomac rivers.”
What became clear to them — especially if his church-planting pastor father (per the interview) was involved with those trips and vacations — might have been what was becoming clear to many locals like myself. Amidst all of the prep work discussed, they might’ve ascertained that due to post-September 11th military base realignments and consolidations, the Navy Yard was filling up with personnel, the Department of Transportation was relocating there, and – – oh yeah – – a new ballpark was being built right there.
And because there was not much of anything directly south of M St. on the South Capitol Street side but a rock quarry, warehouses and clubs set to be demolished, there were not a lot of competing churches right there (especially for the demographics that would be moving in en masse evidently for the first time since the postwar era). Also, most of the impoverished were on the other side of the river and some distance from the ongoing gentrification, which the census.gov map might have indicated. Thus, goals of appearing socially and ideologically relevant while keeping revenue streams maximized might have seemed to have made this an ideal spot for a “target zone”.
Finding revenue sources with which to properly finance careers of those seminarians being churned out of SBC seminaries appears to remain a top priority. Besides good publicity and imaging of relevance for the current crop of churches, such priorities could arguably lead to the targeting of traditionally committed demographic groups that in large measure have churches as a key part of their culture.
Nothing is wrong with maximizing location advantages in and of itself. However, one of the chief issues with mega churches in general and the church planting/re-planting push by the SBC and others isn’t that they start a new church and bring in new members, but that they tend to cannibalize members of existing congregations in significant numbers. And the cooperative program has reportedly shifted significant revenue into that, much of which some have indicated has been culled from international missions.
Another trend that seems to happen is the priority for some groups to find strategic positions of power and influence for someone coming out of seminary – – notably, often the son of a pastor. How that can tie into coalition building down the road within conventions and parachurch movements is a worthwhile conversation as well. As an apparent reward (often cast as the leading of God, whether or not that is accurate), the young seminarians can get a paid position right off the bat and authority even without the experience that appears beneficial and befitting the responsibilities.
And who exactly is going to be in place and empowered to exert transparency, accountability and oversight to check those who would not be suited to be given those positions? Their seminary connections? Their dad?
One more thing on SBC Virginia’s Waterfront Church DC church plant; looks like one can take the SBC out of the name, but some things seem to linger. Apparently, they may be amongst those focused on bring American church groups into the confines of a domestic city —rather than abroad where there may not be a church every couple of blocks. Notice how many “plan(s) to serve” center around promoting the church (all with an ask for each mission trip to give the church $1000):
https://www.servethedistrict.com/plan-to-serve#plantoserve
“Local restroom cleaning for area businesses” sounds extremely worth going on a long trip and giving this church $1000, no? Also:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5829a6adf7e0ab81d3f92492/t/591bb179ebbd1a2f89c96952/1494987129746/Participant_Instructions.pdf
“MAKE LIST OF DC CONNECTIONS
“As discussed in the intro, we are also requesting that each group member put together a list of friends, family members, and other connections he or she may have in Washington, D.C. More than half of the people in this city have relocated here from another area. Have your group members schedule opportunities to meet these people when you come up to serve in the city.”
And from the above SBCV link:
* Spring Break—we are looking for teams to blitz the area with Waterfront publications, hand out water promoting the church, and help with various community outreach projects.
* Summer 2017—we are booking teams to hold sports camps, Vacation Bible Schools, promote Waterfront, and partner with several DC non-profits.
Secular initiatives with limited to no evangelism aspects are listed, along with volunteer work centering around the church building and activities. No matter the merits of the secular initiatives, don’t forget that what have been strongly highlighted to those contributing to the Cooperative Program and to North American Mission Board church planting priorities are the evangelical and missional aspects. There may be hopes amongst the contributors that such efforts will trend strongly the evangelical way, but we’ve seen how things can go with evangelism as a fungible or even disposable priority compared to other priorities and promotions.
My hunch is that the number of baptisms is inflated too, since they require those baptized as children to be baptized as adults. Do they count these baptisms as conversions? In my former church world, those leaving “liberal” mainline denominations and joining our church were listed as making a “profession of faith”, which is counted in the conversions category… even though they were already believers. It was a pretty big church (500+ attendees), yet I saw only one or two adult converts be baptized in my four years on staff there.
I left my SBC church 19 years ago. Before I joined another church I asked to be taken of the rolls. I was told by the pastor he could not do that without me joining another church. About a year later I joined a PCUSA church. They asked for my letter but it was never received. The same was true for my wife. Probably the same for my two adult children who have never joined another church.
I’m not SB, but when I’ve seen church plants it is usually a young dynamic junior pastor in a church leaving to start the plant. Perhaps the church plants are as much a result of ambitious youth wanting a quicker promotion to “senior” pastorship?
The average Southern Baptist has no idea that a percentage of the money they toss in the plate is financing the takeover of the SBC by New Calvinists. When a local church sends funds to the “Cooperative Program” and Christmas/Easter offerings, they are blindly supporting the Calvinization of their denomination. All SBC entities are now firmly under control by the NeoCals … the church planting program is planting reformed theology across America … whosoever-will-may-come evangelism (SBC’s one-time mantle) is largely non-existent on home and foreign mission fields … SBC Sunday School literature is subtly indoctrinating folks with reformed theology … seminaries are cranking out new reformers by the thousands … Mr. SBC Calvinist himself (Al Mohler) will be crowned SBC President next month … etc. Yep, mainline (non-Calvinist) Southern Baptists are either uninformed, misinformed, or willingly ignorant about this. God help those who fit the latter category, who fund aberrant belief and practice as long as the fun and fellowship still continue at their church.
Young SBC church planters assume the title of “Lead Pastor” fresh out of seminary without having any pastoral experience in most cases! Their first task is to appoint like-minded (New Calvinist) “elders” of same age. Good Lord, the youth group is running the church!
Ahhh yes, the SBC “letter”. If that ever gets lost, you want make it to Heaven you know.
In the early church (the real one), the primary focus was the Great Commission … believers (in both pulpit and pew) were active in reaching the known world with the Gospel (the real one). Sadly, that is no longer the primary mission of most local churches.
I believe that in retail, “total sales up, same store sales down, increased total sales due to opening stores at new locations” is not considered a sign of an enterprise with bright long-term prospects…
And SBC’s “total sales” aren’t up.
And corporate SBC will never tell you that; that information is not recorded. The only churches growing in my area are SBC church plants and NeoCal takeovers, as members (primarily 20-40 years old) float from one church to another. Free coffee/pastries in the foyer, cool preacher, loud band, outstanding audio/visual effects, “praise & worship” singers in tight pants are just too much competition for the old fuddy-duddy churches where Jesus is still proclaimed.
With no accountability, except the yes-men elders they appoint. The old model of a graduate fresh out SBC seminary being mentored in an associate role under a seasoned pastor has been replaced by inexperienced “Lead Pastors” with theology planting on their mind, rather than preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
SCIENTOLOGY is also well-known for such membership inflation.
Deep Throat Driscoll has even dispensed with that in his new startup.
“The Emperor has dissolved the Imperial Senate.”
— Grand Moff Tarkin, Death Star command briefing room
Because there are only so many stores you can open before they start interfering with each other. Starbucks can get away with one-on-every-block saturation, but Starbucks are not big-box WalMarts or Home Depots. Imagine WalMart opening a big box on every block like Starbucks. At which point, you’re not expanding, you’re metastasizing like cancer.
The smaller the pond, the bigger the fish.
Or the bigger the Yertle the Turtle.
i.e. MULTIPLE WalMarts per block…
Oh yeah, he learned NO accountability is much better than yes-men who turned on him.
See update at beginning of the post. The SBC lost 400,000 members last year!!!!
In all honesty, and with no sarcasm whatsoever, it’s really hard to fathom that there are still folks who believe that this is what the Bible teaches.
Why doesn’t just declare himself Emperor?
…he just declare…
I suspect ease of self-removal may be correlated to how much power an average member has. Another correlation may be whether an individual church has to contribute to the denomination’s coffers depending on how many members they’ve got. The risk with the latter is churches removing people who still want to participate but can’t afford to give (however if individual members have power that risk is lowered).
Southern Baptist history should be designated “BCT/ACT”; “Before Conservative Takeover/After Conservative Takeover.” BCT – SBC churches were different in their own way; from very Fundamentalist to very liberal, every church had its own distinctives. It was easier during those times to find a church that “fit.” These were the days in which church growth was maintaining itself on an upward trend.
ACT – After Conservative Takeover – there is little difference in individual churches now. The primacy for the pastor is no longer shepherding the flock, it’s PREACHING! And we know what ACT preaching consists of: (insert name of favorite Neo-Cal theologian here).
From distinctively different to “cookie cutter” – who really wants to go? Except those who have already been there for a thousand years?
Dr. Mohler has been the unofficial Emperor of SBC New Calvinism for several years. Crowning him at SBC-Nashville next month will just sanction that office for all the world to see how important he is. Something will probably be said during the coronation by one of the Mohlerites about how big his stack of books is, thus justifying his selection as intellectual King of the SBC Mountain.
Good summary of SBC state-of-the-onion. You have nailed it on the head. Sad to witness a once-great evangelistic denomination slip into obscurity over the wrangling for control of it by misdirected men.
And they will still report 16 million strong! (that number has moved for decades)
Also with no sarcasm, it infantilizes women, so they can be in perpetual childhood and give up responsibility for decision-making to their husbands. Some women willingly choose this and willingly absolve themselves of the adult responsibility of owning their own decisions in the name of “submission.” They never put on their “big girl panties,” so to speak.
To be fair, some men also choose perpetual childhood over having to put on their “big-boy britches.” And then they get enabled by wives who choose submission to their husband’s immaturity or irresponsibility over standing up to said immaturity or irresponsibility. It’s a vicious cycle, all in the name of “Biblical manhood and womanhood.”
meant to say “hasn’t” moved
I tutored an eleven year old girl in algebra and geometry who can think rings around him.
re: the concealment of the cost per and failure rate of starter churches, the SBC PTB must have accurate information on the size distribution of affiliated congregations, and how that has been changing.
~4M attending members spread across 40K congregations is only ~100 average attendance per congregation. But the dispersion in the size distribution means that there are a lot of small congregations which may be barely hanging on.
—
I’m ambivalent about the consensus view that the problem is “de-emphasis of the Great Commission”. Perhaps that is a consequence of something else that is also driving the loss of the allegiance of the young and the attending membership declines.
If the churches cannot maintain the allegiance of their own people, it’s hard to see how increased recruitment of outsiders can be a viable solution.
I have more questions than answers, but I suspect that there is something different in the internal culture of these groups compared to eras in which the churches flourished in spite of hardships.
dee,
Dee, I know you are always busy. On May 23 I emailed you info about how to report Gungor to the DoD, in case you are still interested in doing that.
How much time during an SBC church Sunday service is actually spent worshipping God??? For the most part, the kids go to Sunday school class to color, play games, and watch veggie tales. For the most part, the adults go to Sunday school class to listen to the Sunday school teacher preach. Then it’s out to the auditorium/sanctuary to sing 3 or 4 songs and then listen to the pastor for an hour …… or more. No worship, no discussion, no debate…..anywhere. Yyaaawwnnnnnn.
Unless, of course, it’s a special day with a fellowship meal ……. most of the women spend those “worship services” prepping for the meal in the fellowship hall, and then spending an hour afterward doing clean up. When I was kitchen committee leader, I didn’t even have time to sit down and eat. No big deal, right? …. The men enjoyed the day.
And, at our current church, women are not allowed to speak in mixed gender classes or in business meetings, or teach children’s mixed gender classes above 5th grade level. I was so done 51/2 years ago. If I didn’t live in a rural area that’s 20 years behind on everything, I would have been done 15 years ago.
Totally off topic, but I figure fellow commentators can make application to organizations like SBC. When someone shortens one of those to a “denom” I always read it as”demon”.
Just now I heard a ghost hunter on a TV show ask a spirit “Are you a demon? Yes or No!” Immediately, in a creepy voice, came the answer “Nooo…”
So glad it cleared that up for us! Totally believe you! ROFL
Yikes! I’ll stop doing that.
Friend,
It’s probably like a Freudian slip on my part.
Aww, I kind-of liked veggie tales, e.g. the choir singing to Jonah inside the whale’s belly.
Don’t forget his “Stable GENIUS(TM)”.
Easy to be a GENIUS – the Smartest Man in the Room – when you’ve lobotomized everyone else.
And immediately after disbands the Imperial Senate.
“There Can Be Only ONE.”
“Update: SBC church membership suffers new historic 1-year decline of more than 400K. They will blame this on everything but themselves.” (Dee)
A Gallup poll blames declining church membership on “much lower levels of religiosity and church membership among younger versus older generations of adults.”
https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx
Soooo … SBC church planters go after young folks (not old folks) with free coffee, cool preachers who live no better than them, loud bands, etc.
I’ve also sometimes misread “denom” as “demon” (and usually had a not-bad-chuckle at myself over my misreading….I thought I was the only one misreading. 🙂 )
And using the shorter “denom” does save you a lot of extra typing, Friend. 🙂
I spent 70+ years in SBC life, sitting through thousands of “worship services” … I didn’t observe much of what I would call worshipping God. On any given Sunday in America, you will have a hard time finding a church where folks are worshipping in the true sense of that word. You’ll find a LOT of religious folks, but not many spiritual ones. There is more church than Church going on in America.
Some people, higher up the SBC food chain, are blaming COVID-19 for the decline in membership this past year. You see, the old folks are dying off, and not enough young people are stepping in to replace us.
Yeah, right. 590,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. SBC membership has declined by 435,632 people. What are the odds that even 25% of those people that died from COVID are Southern Baptists?
They actively drive off the old folks too, as we have noted here in the past.
My local crafts store does a better job of attracting people.
The entire premise behind the current SBC church planting movement is complete folly. Often, they go into a town already peppered with Southern Baptist churches and attempt to siphon off people already attending the established churches in order to ‘grow’ a new plant. I’m really bad at math, but I am fairly certain that you can’t multiply churches when you’re also dividing them!
That is NOT new growth, but merely “sheep shuffling” and as Max has already said, a ploy for planting reformed theology as well. The reason behind this is people are now on high alert for renegade YRR pastors attempting to snatch a traditional church out from under them, so the SBC’s solution for that is to ‘plant’ new churches nearby and bleed the others dry.
Traditional church planting used to involve going into a community where there was no Baptist presence and beginning a mission there. The church where I am presently a member was one such plant back in the early 1960s. This year, our church decided not to give to NAMB and the Annie Armstrong Offering, since they already had a cash surplus of over $200 million in the bank! Also, NAMB strong-armed a lot of states (including ours) to seize control of mission and church-planting efforts within the state with ‘their own people’, instead of letting the states control it! I feel like it’s the “Baptist Mafia” sometimes!!! God help us!
Covid should recieve at least a passing mention. Modern estimates of Civil War casualties are 600k-700k. Where at 590k Covid now.
A lot of those deaths where likely elderly church members living in assisted living, or skill nursing facilities.
Wondered if this was about $$$.
(- A new plant with freshly trained leadership to pull more $$$ from the community?
– A new plant in a high-income area targeting big donors while sheep-stealing?
– A new plant with the goal of targeting high income citizens with “church” according to their style or culture?)
dee,
Once again, evidence lights the room. Data. Truth.
From mega to meta(-stasize).
Princesses & their boyz-will-be-boyz. Yuck.
If they were going after the money, they’re certainly going about it all wrong! The young people they are trying to lure into these new plants typically don’t give like the old-guard Baptists do! I’m in my 50s and probably just about the youngest person in my church. But when a collection campaign comes up, we never miss a goal! Even our new addition was paid off more than 20 years early! Which is unfortunately why so many of these ‘new plants’ lick their chops when they see our property. But that’s another takeover horror story altogether!
Which is exactly why the New Calvinists have targeted traditional (non-Calvinist) SBC churches. They want the stuff! So they come in the backdoor through stealth and deception and eventually run the old folks off by changing long-standing Baptist belief and practice, starting first by replacing congregational governance with elder-rule polity. That way the geezers can’t do a darn think about disrupting the church they paid for over the years! It’s as if the young reformed lead pastors are harvesting as many church buildings and assets as they can for the New Calvinist movement. But, after a while, they realize that the old folks were paying all the bills while the younger members don’t give enough to
pay their salaries and utility bills. Consequences.
This is called “sheep rustling”.
A Zero-Sum Game where there are only so many Southern Baptists to go around, so make sure they’re all Tithing to YOUR Church Plant. By any means necessary.
I had a conversation with a long-time Southern Baptist friend who became a victim of a New Calvinist takeover of his traditional (non-Calvinist) church. Following NeoCal modus operandi, a young reformer deceived the pastor search committee about his exact theological leaning. By the time the members figured this out, the “lead pastor” and his band of yes-men elders had conned them out of all their stuff.
Most of the old folks left behind the resources they had paid for over the years and started a new church across town. But my friend stayed and continued to give his tithe there, although he didn’t agree with the theology and change in belief and practice the young folks brought into the church. I asked him why he didn’t leave, why he was financing their rebellion. He said that in his mind he had always given his money with the right heart and if church leaders didn’t use it properly, they would be responsible before God not him. I reminded him that God would hold ‘him’ responsible for sowing into a ministry he didn’t agree with, especially one which had stolen the church from those who had financed it. To continuing giving to a minister and ministry like this would not be a good steward of the finances God had blessed him with. He pondered that and left the church a few months later … to join the sad group who had been forced to leave earlier. Yep, a payday coming someday for the New Calvinists who have behaved like this.
Do tell.
One definition of ‘mafia’ … a closed group of people in a particular field, having a controlling influence.
That would fit New Calvinism!
I have a friend who was excommunicated from his long time SBC church after the new reformers took over. His sin: he attended Sunday School at the church, but went to the worship service at another church across town where friends attended. The new pastor believed he should only attend (and give) at ‘his’ church.
“Truth is unkillable” (Balthasar Hubmaier)
An Anabaptist, Hubmaier was persecuted because of his faith … imprisoned, tortured, executed. He was killed, but Truth wasn’t. Truth is unkillable.
If they lost 400,000 last year, shouldn’t that mean they lose the need for about 1000 pastors? Why are they churning out so many new pastors?
Evidence. More light in the room. The numbers don’t lie. Truth.
More pastors … more control? More putting the squeeze on working people parishioners for their time, resources, $$$?
While there’s been little to no commenting about the loss of the young people, from my observation it is not only Baptists that have the problem. I am a convert from Southern Baptist to Catholicism, and have seen the same thing in my church.
We do not do as good of a job teaching them because we concentrate on First Communion and then as teenagers Confirmation with not much emphasis inbetween. Nor do we have an every adult Bible study.
I see the young ones at their First Communion/Confirmation Masses and don’t see most of them again.
Sadly, the same observation is made with adult converts, most attend regularly during the year of study before entering the church, but soon disappear.
Personally, I think that the younger folks may not come back, ever. They don’t seem to be hungry for what we Christians have to feed them.
Do they return when married & with their own children?
Ava Aaronson,
I haven’t been around a single parish long enough to see, and that is assuming I would recognize them. In the roughly 30 years that I have been Catholic, I’ve been active in 6 different parishes in 5 different states.
To plant reformed theology, of course! As Al Mohler once said “Where else are they going to go?!” SBC seminaries are training thousands of New Calvinists. SBC is making a home for many of them each via its church planting program. While the youngsters are still overflowing with a zeal about their new found faith in Calvin, they have to spill it out somewhere. With 90+% of Christendom worldwide still rejecting the tenets of reformed theology, they just don’t have a lot of ministry options. If they don’t get tapped for a church planting (aka theology planting) job, they have to take over a traditional non-Calvinist church by stealth and deception. They don’t seem to give a big whoop about the damage they have done to traditional SBC life … a once great evangelistic denomination is no more. Why are SBC baptisms down? It might have something to do with a new breed within its ranks preaching another gospel.
Root 66,
Max is right.
Theology is an obsession for those of us obsessive types. But it’s of little interest to normal people. Even if a person is enamored with a peticular entity (TGC for example) could they articulate doctrines, or are they farming out the intellectual brain activity.
Pastors would be the primary way to promote chosen doctrines, and suppress others.
In Reform Theology, God has chosen the vehicle of preaching as his method of salvation. This is codified, not merely common tradition.
Scripture speaks much about the sovereignty of God. Scripture speaks much about the free will of man. It all comes together in salvation in a way that is beyond human comprehension. God chose the vehicle of preaching to proclaim Jesus and Him crucified as His method of salvation … it is written in red, not codified into systematic law.
As O.C. Wallace said in his book “What Baptists Believe” (published by the SBC Sunday School Board, 1934) … “Salvation comes to the soul that comes to salvation. Forgiving Saviour and penitent sinner meet.” That was the whosoever-will-may-come “tradition” preached by Southern Baptists for 150 years before New Calvinism came along to drag SBC back to its pre-Civil War theological (Calvinist) roots without asking millions of non-Calvinist Southern Baptists if they wanted to go there!
Baptism numbers being down make perfect sense when you consider the churches that no longer baptise children.
Nor do they care.
Which is stupid when you (generic you) consider that it’s the older folks (in general) who have the most disposable income.
Also married parents.
Many Christian groups and denominations fawn all over Nuclear Families.
Most sermons and social activities are geared towards married people who still have children living at home.
If you walk into most churches alone (no spouse) and you don’t have kids, you are ‘persona non grata.’
Including a Peculiar Institution involving certain Animate Propety?
Anna A,
The RC have the same problem around “what comes next” as the evangelicals ever had. From infancy I had “assurance of salvation” (by unsensational “degrees of inference” upon what multi-denominational individuals in those days passed on to me from meanings in Scriptures), but now everyone seems to want me to get “more saved” before they will let me in on any of their non-existent secrets.
Understanding of the fivefold Holy Spirit fuelled ministries that we had BETWEEN us, was already disappearing in our young day. It would help me if Christians would model prayer. I knew an evangeliser, and her “new apostolic” church took no notice of the wouldbe newcomers she brought in (no pastoring, and only its version of teaching not tailored to realities).
Prophesying is essentially understanding the past of the church: why the Josiah revival was no good, why the “Make Israel Great Again” movement of Jeroboam II and Jonah was no good (within a few years of which Galilee was the first area to get ethnically cleansed), why it is wrong to overturn the deep teachings on subsidiarity of the Holy Spirit Pope Leo XIII.
As Samuel Conner pointed out 13 days ago, the disciples were out to use power against others – until they had to undergo their ten days of tarrying WITHOUT Jesus around them. You can’t solve button pushing problems within the button pushing system (G⍤del). Roland Barthes lampoons the Jesuits’ mechanisation.
Jesus, Paul and Isaiah, and on a good day David and Abraham, just tell us to pray pray pray. I read somewhere Calvin made more distinction between justification and sanctification, than his followers as early as the 1610s did. Blasphemy against Holy Spirit in others is of itself non-forgiving: what is not of faith is sin, but we have the same advocate for our subsequent sins as for our prior: if we keep choosing.
I know I’ve shared this before, but another way they like to ‘plant’ new churches is to find an existing church building and essentially ask the members to hand them the keys. They come in under the guise of wanting to ‘partner’ with us, but truthfully, they just want the building—for FREE!
Since our church is paid for, we’re a ripe plum to be picked! We have been approached several times by these new works, and we continue to tell them “no thanks!” Our associational missionary even got involved once, and we gave him quite an earful! They honestly don’t give a flying flip about us current members, they only want our building and land!
I hope haven’t drifted too far from the topic, but if the SBC is wondering why membership is taking a nosedive, perhaps it’s because they treat the older congregations like garbage. It’s all very discouraging. ☹️
>> Ezell, the head of the NAMB claims that 80% of church plants exist after 4 years which means that the attendance at those 8,200 churches must not be stellar.
The one here is just stealing members from the much older SBC church next door. Both are New Calvinist, so it’s not over theology. And the plant is telling people that they are nondenom and unaffiliated, so they are just flat-out lying to people. They are members of both the SBC and 9 Marks, as is the older church next door.
So it may be that the new plants might still exist after 4 years, but how are the older churches counted in that?
Yeah, there’s also the “We can share the building and do services at night” tactic, but then they have people join the other church and outvote the membership to gain control over the building.
I think they don’t treat older congregations well because the brainwashing isn’t as effective with that group. It works well on the younger crowd. And a lot of those baby pastors have been carefully trained to follow only the voices they want to be followed.
Churches and church folks which treat others that way are not living in the Kingdom of God on earth, in the here and now. In the Body of Christ, all are precious in His sight … in Christ, there are no ‘persona non grata.’
The Pied Piper’s charm doesn’t work on older folks (at least most of them).
New Calvinism modus operandi.
Sadly, many SBC Associational “missionaries” in my area have become operatives of the New Calvinist movement. They appear to float with the prevailing theology and regime of the moment and do what’s necessary to keep their retirement package. The SBC is a mess on several fronts.
The new reformers enslave women now through the “beauty of complementarity.”
Woe to them that are at ease in Zion.
Whatever Advances Our Predestined HOLY Agenda.
An ironic humor worthy of Vladimir Lenin, who got a kick out of making the Capitalists pay for their own destruction.
Headless Unicorn Guy,
This. Hits it right out of the ball park.
My writing partner (the burned-out country preacher) actually got told to his face:
“You’re only here to Keep Us Comfortable.”
As an old squirrel hunter, I learned a valuable predator vs. prey lesson: if you stop, you’re a target. The SBC has been an easy target for the New Calvinist movement. Southern Baptists stopped caring a long time ago … prayerless and powerless, they have fallen prey to the new reformation. There was a lot wrong with SBC before the young reformed rebels showed up to take their churches away. Baptisms have been in decline for decades due to a lack humility, prayer, repentance and seeking God’s face in countless SBC churches. We need revival and spiritual awakening in the American church, but I don’t see much movement in that direction.
Perhaps church by-laws should be amended to carve certain congregational decisions out from the “one person one vote” principle and weight the vote in terms of “how many years in attendance” (or, more radically, “how much $ contributed since inception of the congregation”). This would weaken the ability of newcomers to take over entities in which they have made no investment.
Yep, that was one tactic they used. Another thing they tried was to ask us if we were struggling financially. I wish I would’ve had a camera when our Treasurer sat back in his chair, folded his arms and said, “We’re just fine!” The church planters gave each other a really funny look, wrapped up the conversation, and left rather quickly after that! Priceless! 🙂
I guess they were hoping we were on the mat financially, so that we would just hand over the church to them!
This is exactly what I told the church when we were deciding whether or not to de-fund the Annie Armstrong Offering. I said, “this money goes to plant churches not even a mile from us. So we’re essentially paying the way for our own destruction!” It was a much easier decision for them after that!
The average Southern Baptist is not aware of this. The pew is either uninformed, misinformed or willingly ignorant about the New Calvinist movement sweeping through SBC ranks. But the pastors know! I fault church leaders at 45,000+ SBC churches for not having “family meetings” with congregations to inform and warn them about the NeoCal trend … diminishing long-standing Baptist doctrines of priesthood of the believer and soul competency, complementarity, and change in church governance from congregational polity to elder-rule.
Before I left SBC, I sadly looked at the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offering envelopes in the pew holders … knowing that those funds were no longer used for whosoever-will-may-come evangelism and missions around the world, but financing of the New Calvinist movement … to plant and preach reformed theology.
SBC church “revitalization” is just a fancy word for “takeover.” The New Calvinists either plant new churches or “revitalize” traditional ones to accomplish their deceptive and dastardly mission to Calvinize the denomination by coming in the backdoor.
You’d have to convince the old guard that there’s actually a problem that warrants that first. I have friends still in the SBC who swear up and down that the New Calvinists would never do to their church what I told them was done to mine.
“We wouldn’t let that happen…”
“There aren’t that many Calvinists in the SBC…”
“Pastors don’t lie like that…”
etc etc
And that’s why the SBC was already taken over!
Well, obviously, if your church is not Calvinist, then why would God bless it with stable finances? It’s evil!
Maybe they can give women 3/5 of a vote.
The New Calvinists probably think the wealth of the wicked (non-Calvinists) has been reserved for the righteous (Calvinists) … so they justify taking churches away from them. Since they believe they are the sole keepers of truth, then it’s OK to loot and plunder churches for the good of the movement. (I know this is a stretch, but some of the young reformers sure act that way)
But they probably still use Lifeway Sunday School literature without realizing they are being subtly indoctrinated to reformed theology. Warn your friends next time they are searching for a pastor that is not beyond New Calvinist pastoral candidates to lie about their theological leaning.
I know one church where women are not allowed to vote at all. Only the “head of household” can vote. And you know women can’t be the “head of household”. If they are single, their fathers still are, even if they are in their 70s….
Once said by thousands of Southern Baptists before they realized it happened to them.
There are 3 types of people in the world: those who plan to make things happen, those who make things happen, and those who wonder “What happened?!”
The New Calvinist generals (Mohler et al.) strategically planned to Calvinize the SBC, their lieutenants on the ground (church planters & take over artists) made it happen … while mainline non-Calvinist Southern Baptists looked on in amazement wondering “What happened?!”
Maybe if the SBC got back to simply teaching the whole council in love it wouldn’t be shrinking. As it is, it’s little more than a marriage factory and fertility cult. When you have people like Mohler dehumanizing and demonizing singles and married couples without kids, it can’t help matters.
As noted here before, “love” is not a characteristic of New Calvinism … “arrogance” is the first descriptor that comes to mind. Actually, as I think about it, the SBC has always been known for wrangling within its ranks … such a poor testimony to the world when church folks are always fussing and fighting about something … the battle for theological control is only the latest rift within the denomination. “You will know them by their love” is typically confined to small SBC churches in rural places where they don’t care about anything but each other.
Lot of that going on. From the Mi$$io Alliance website:
“Protestantism in North America:
Various calls for ‘renewal’:
Emergent Village
The Gospel Coalition
Acts 29
Redeemer City to City
Transform Network”
… add to these, of course,
Missio Alliance, as well as others such as:
Sovereign Grace Conglomerati
Desiring God
MoscowWilson et al
WillowCreek et al
Etc.
What about the Bible, prayer, & the internet? All free, all access, 24/7, all lateral, go everywhere.
ishy,
““Pastors don’t lie like that…””
+++++++++++
well, what’s more frightening:
–a person of influence who lies by calculation and calls it biblical, true, and binding?
–a person of influence who is unaware they are purporting two opposite things to be biblical, true, and binding?
in my most recent church (which i consider to be the best and healthiest church i’ve attended), i observed so many things “preached” and taught and encouraged that were in direct contradiction to each other.
I marveled at the doublespeak…. and they were completely unaware. just repeating the program the published by the powerbrokers. (i really don’t intend on aliterating so much…. no time to get edit out, though)
what a religion…. institutionalized lying, doublespeak, hypocrisy…
(and to be clear, christianity is what people make of it, and is wholly separate from Jesus Christ.)
Ava Aaronson,
Yep, as I’ve been saying, the institutional church in America is in a mess. Fortunately, Christ did not come to redeem institutions … He came to redeem individuals. The institution we call church is OK if it is reaching folks for Christ, discipling them in the Word, equipping them for personal ministry, and engaging them in the Great Commission. Anything less than that (planting pet theologies, vying for control, etc.) is doing church without God … and there’s a LOT of that in America.
“The SBC has done a poor job in educating their young”
I think they have done a great job ‘educating’ the young, who want no part of that kind of ‘education.’ They likely prefer a real one.
Based on my evangelical experience, I think people know what they’re getting into & what’s more, they like it.
For years there’s been a strong culture of compliance and after the failure of groups like the moral majority & Christian coalition you’ve got a paranoid population that believes they are persecuted.
A lot folks aren’t interested in living in a theocracy so membership continues to decline. So the leadership doubles on authority and the cycle continues.
This is declining demographic – I believe it’s mostly one ethnic group – that continues to dissociate from the reality of pluralistic society.
Like the Baalim and Asherim that surrounded (and kept corrupting) the ancient Jews?
Wasn’t there a famous novel in the Thirties about the rise of a Fascist dictatorship in the USA titled It Can’t Happen Here?
More like “by any means necessary”.
Because a Cause so Righteous – Justified at the Cosmic Level by by GOD Himself – justifies Any Means Whatsoever to bring it about.
Since the French Revolution is two centuries out of living memory, ask any survivor of Cambodia’s Killing Fields.
Because those pastors are paying good money to get their seminary degrees. It’s their problem if they can’t find a job in their field of study afterwards, not the seminary’s.
To be fair, this is how higher education works, period, not just seminaries. You’re not guaranteed a job, only an education (or at least access to one).
Wild Honey,
“Because those pastors are paying good money to get their seminary degrees. It’s their problem if they can’t find a job in their field of study afterwards, not the seminary’s.”
+++++++++++++++
in my view, this is part of the reason why the trend in church leadership is toward preservation of power and wealth over what is ethical, moral, & simply right, and why the brass tacks-real mission of a church is preservation of itself.
I didn’t see this earlier, but it may be that their focus on elder structure is really about this and not “because Bible”. A lot of churches had multiple pastors before, but the elder structure usually has more paid clergy per church than more traditional models. And much more $$ goes to elder/pastor pay in New Calvinist churches than in traditional Baptist churches, which often dedicated a good bit to missions and outreach and programs. Pastor/elders are always the center of the New Calvinist budget.
When planting theology is the mission rather than the Great Commission, you direct available funds to preach/teach reformed theology, rather than evangelism, community outreach, and missions.
Just like the Communists of the last century.
Hello. I’m anxious to see your thoughts on the SBC seminaries. Specifically, is there ONE REMAINING SBC seminary that does NOT lean toward reformed theology???
It still makes no sense in their system.
The primary purpose of a church plant is to reach people with the Gospel. But in Reformed theology, evangelism is meaningless: if you aren’t part of “the elect” you won’t be saved even if you do believe, and if you are part of “the elect” you will be saved even if you don’t believe. Calvinists call that “hyper-Calvinism”; David Cloud and Dave Hunt both consider “hyper-Calvinism” to be the only honest form.
They use Spurgeon as their example of why they do what they do, but even he wasn’t consistent in his Calvinistic beliefs (Dave Hunt’s book What Love Is This? is an excellent source to understand the flaws in the TULIP).
I moved from one SBC church to another. Because the former church doesn’t have “Baptist” in its name, the latter thinks I came from a non-denominational church (even though I explained that was not the case) so I was “accepted by statement of faith”. Thus I’m a member of two different SBC churches. (At least. The former one may never have contacted the one before that. But only three since the one where I grew up has long been closed.)
Surprised they asked the non-Baptist church for a letter. In the church where I grew up, we had a latter from a Methodist church outside our area informing us that two non-resident (translated: inactive) members joined. But since our church neither accepted, nor granted, letters involving a non-Baptist church, they stayed on our rolls.
I had a somewhat similar experience in attempted “building theft”.
Church where I grew up had a split, left us with a small number.
1) Larger church in area asks if we would rent them space for a Hispanic mission at $300/month, we agree (since it would keep us afloat).
2) Larger church then says they have a young man who is looking to pastor his first church, would we be interested, we agree.
3) New pastor then lets financial secretary not reconcile the bank statements. For 18 months.
4) New pastor also hides monthly donation of older gentleman, gets mad when I find it on his desk and chastises me for “going through his mail” (the envelope was addressed to the church, not the pastor).
5) Larger church stops paying rent for six months, new pastor never does anything about it.
Only when the church treasurer finds out what is happening do things change:
1) Treasurer announces she will be taking over financial duties and that I would assist her.
2) Pastor is upset but can’t do anything about it; secretary quits and goes to another church.
3) Bank statements finally reconciled (there was no known embezzlement, the secretary never handled deposits).
4) Pastor is told to tell his former church that they either pay up or find another home for their mission. They pay all back amounts (plus extra).
I eventually had enough and left, my parents did also.
It was obvious that the larger church was hoping that we would get in such a bind that they could come in with “an offer they can’t refuse”: merge with them so they could get the building for free.
Well, that’s the way it is supposed to work. However, in the NeoCal movement, Gospel = Calvinism. The goal is to reach folks with reformed theology, not Christ … to plant theology, not true Gospel churches … heck, the new reformers don’t even talk about Jesus much.
Yes. I highly recommend it to Wartburgers.
The pastor handles the money?
That doesn’t seem right.
Preaching (paid for by tithes) vs. portioning tithes, two completely different arenas; conflict of interests?
Pastors who neglect to stay in their lane.
“Hide” or “POCKET”?
“Embezzlement, Embezzlement,
God Shed His Grace on MEEEE!”
There’s one left? Is that Gateway (formerly Golden Gate)? I thought they had all gone New Cal at this point.
The seminaries are heavily invested in brainwashing students with Calvinism. They don’t have to work too hard, though, because I saw few students questioning it when I was in seminary, and it was still very much in process then. The “it’s more biblical” argument didn’t even have to be explained for people to accept it. It puzzled me to no end as a student.
ishy,
“The “it’s more biblical” argument didn’t even have to be explained for people to accept it.”
+++++++++++++
i’m curious to know what’s wrong with partially biblical.
(although you and i know biblical is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak)
i mean, what’s going to happen if i’m not “more biblical”? The sky’s going to fall? My name will be erased so hard out of the lamb’s book of life it will leave smudges and put a hole in the page?
LOL! Right? But I don’t think it’s really about that at all. I think it’s about power. Saying you are more biblical than someone else in their camp means “I have more power than you.”
Everything and everyone is hierarchical in their view. And that theology attracts men who want to be on the top of the pyramid. Women can’t be on the top of the pyramid, so many of the women I know in that camp either live in denial over what they really believe or they have been so badly abused, they don’t think they deserve to even be in charge of their own lives.
I noticed men in that group talk about themselves A LOT. I don’t even know why they bother with a theology of God when they really view themselves as gods. Deifying themselves makes much more sense in terms of their real belief system.
He didn’t handle the money. That was two men in the church.
But the financial secretary was highly supportive of him becoming the pastor, so she poisoned the well by saying our family was the problem. So whenever I (or anyone else) mentioned it, he ignored it thinking we were causing dissension.
He physically hid it under a pile of junk mail. It wasn’t “diverted”. But he knew that if this check was lost, the person wouldn’t send in another one (or any further ones). Thus decreasing our monthly income, making us closer to financial ruin.
The Great Chain of Being, from God to worms in the dirt.
Kiss Up, Kick Down.
Hold the Whip or Feel the Whip.
Compounded by “Evanescent Grace”, where God sens the Reprobate (non-Elect) a FALSE Assurance of Election that lasts right up until the Great White Throne:
“BEGONE FROM ME, YE CURSED, INTO EVERLASTING FIRE! JOIN THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS!”
Only Calvinists possess ‘real’ Grace. ALL non-Calvinists (there have been billions of them over the last 2,000 years) have been condemned before they ever drew breath … even if they heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, responded in faith to believe it, repented, turned from their sins, lived Godly lives, and were engaged in the Great Commission. The whosoever-wills just won’t make it … only the predestined reformed. The “We alone hold truth” is arrogance supreme!!