Baptists Put An End To Tolerance

The fundanazis in charge of various southern baptist organizations continue to demonstrate that lack of concern for historic baptist distinctives. Among the things that baptists of the sbc type have claimed as deeply held spiritucal convictions is the idea of the autonomy of the local church. The moderates who were run out of the sbc over the past few years were always strong supporters of this doctrine even when it led to them being verbally abused by those who felt called to judge the behavior and belief of some congregation other than their own. Among the big issues back in the 70s that got the moderates in trouble, was allowing churches that practiced the more controversial spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues, to remain members in good standing. But the current leadership has consistently just given lip service to this historic baptist doctrine. This is nowhere more apparent than in today's press release from the Associated Baptist Press, an alternative to the sbc's official mouth organ, the baptist press. The first article which demonstrated this lack of concern for local church autonomy was about NC baptists who will no longer allow cooperating churches to funnel their gifts through the convention to anyone but "approved" baptist concerns. Particularly targeted with the gifts to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a splinter group formed by some of the aforementioned moderates. The statement which reveals the somewhat lack of Christ-like spirit from those opposed to the open giving plan came from Eric Page, pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Columbus, who said "that refusing
to take a strong stand would promote "tolerance" of a group with which most North Carolina Baptists disagree. (We certainly wouldn't want any church to promote tolerance now would we?)
Page illustrated his point by saying the cartoon character Popeye took abuse only so long before he "popped out" a can of spinach and put an end to it."

Are you ready for this line?!?!

"It's time for us to pop out a can of spinach and put an end to tolerance," he said.

Farther down in the same ABP release we find baptists isolating themselves even more.

"On Nov. 12, in a front-page story, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution broke the news that the Georgia Baptist Convention has approved a new policy giving GBC executives the freedom to refuse donations from churches it finds to be out of step with Southern Baptist beliefs. The policy move is aimed (for now) at First Baptist Church Decatur, because it called a woman, Julie Pennington-Russell, to serve as pastor."

So now Georgia baptists don't even have to vote on it. Their executives can decide for them which churches are "out of step." This is even more tragic when you consider the number of times Georgia baptists and other "good" southerners refused to censure churches for blatant racism because of local church autonomy. If you want a a good example of this just google "racism beyond the grave."

You people out there who have remained in your southern baptist church with its connection to the sbc better be aware. It is only a matter of time before "they" find some reason to come after you.