Posted on 10/05/2005 7:02:00 PM PDT by sionnsar
Homosexuality and Animal Communion in the Catholic Church. Boy, this sounds familiar: “We have the Pink Mafia under our noses in this entire archdiocese. We need to stop being blind. Good priests are leaving or are so oppressed that they can’t stand it anymore. Their names and what they know will be provided to the Vatican.”
Exodus from the American Baptist Church over homosexuality. Perhaps a preview of Anglican Realignment: “The ABCUSA officially states that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” However, gay-affirming congregations remain affiliated with the denomination. When conservative regions have disfellowshiped such congregations, those congregations have simply affiliated with a more liberal ABCUSA region . . .This summer, conservatives failed to convince the denomination to apply church teaching on homosexuality. The defeat made conservatives despair of making any headway on this issue in the future, says Bill Nicoson, executive director of American Baptist Evangelicals (ABE), a 13-year-old renewal group . . .ABE organized a September meeting at American Baptist-affiliated Northern Baptist Seminary to plan the conservatives’ next steps. Before the meeting, Nicoson said he did not want to form a new denomination. However, ABE president Scott Gibson, professor of preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, adjourned the meeting with plans to create an organization that would provide denominational services. Leaders estimate that this new association might include between 1,500 and 2,000 churches.” Heck, we’ve already seen half of this happen - the forming of a new entity to provide denominational services for Anglicans in North America…hmm.
Hat tip to Transfigurations blog.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. His links won't go (maybe they're overloaded with FReepers?)
Hard for me to say. I've been having troubles with links all evening.
Yeah, sometimes it's me, sometimes it's the internet, and sometimes it's apparently gremlins or solar flares . . .
a "just for an example" ping.
I've never heard of these particular Baptists.
Perhaps you have?
And it's also the legal system. And insurance. And adoption. And so on....
What we often fail to realize is that the homosexual agenda in the ECUSA is merely a rather small front in a very large war. Yeah, we've got to fight it here, but we need to realize that we need to reach out to allies elsewhere. And it also helps to know that we have allies at all.
They are the Northern Baptists from the pre-war split. It's a large denomination, but nothing like the Southern Baptists. The SBC has done a better job of infiltraing the north than the AmBaptists have done in the south.
Here are some numbers:
American Baptists claim about 1.5 million in the US in just over 5800 churches, and about 3.3 million worldwide in 6500 groups.
That's roughly 1/10 the size of the SBC.
Stats are drawn from Adherents.com
Many American Christians that I know who go to the Baptist church admit they have heard of the ABC-USA. When you talk about "American Baptists" they automatically assume you are referring to the American Baptist Association (ABA).
In 1998 it was estimated there are about 29 Baptist organizations in the United States and the SBC is the largest one. Some that are familiar to evangelical Christians but not wider Christendom include General Association of Regular Baptists (GARB), Independent Baptist Fellowship of North America (IBFNA), General Association of General Baptists, etc.
Without going back to look, SBC is by far the largest, then a couple of Black baptist denominations, then American Baptist.
Within the SBC, there are several major 'moderate' groups opposing the conservative leadership. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is probably the largest.
The North Carolina and Texas state conventions of the SBC are controlled by the moderates, with the conservatives being in the minority in those areas.
29 sounds kind of low for the number of Baptist conventions. One night we counted up 13 Presbyterian denominations in the US, and I'm sure we missed some. Complicating the mix for the Baptists is the fact that an individual church can associate with more than one national convention. (For example some black churches may affiliate with their traditional black convention, and also with the SBC). On the other hand, several large Baptist churches, including Thomas Road in Lynchburg, VA (Jerry Falwell), claim to be independent of any convention (although the SBC lists them as a member.)
Nothing like Sola Scriptura at work.
The figure was from Tim LaHaye. He's SBC so I think his figure does have credibility.
And it is true that we have a lot of independent unaffiliated Baptists. In fact this is superior to external organizational unity as in some groups of Christendom because we would know by their teachings which ones are right or wrong. Inner spiritual unity is far more valuable.
Scripture says: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination.
Clearly Sola Scriptura is NOT their problem.
There is actually a subgroup within the SBC that adheres to the Reformed tradition and the Baptist Confession of Faith. If you can get them straight on Baptism, and work a little bit on the other sacrement, they make good Presbyterians.
I certainly don't have a better number, and I'm not really disposed to do heavy research, but if you had been running a contest, I would have guessed much higher.
I will say that I would have significant theological differences with Mr. LaHaye.
Well, we would be happy for the Reformed people to cross over to the Presbyterian side. Nothing against the Presbyterian church: I grew up in an affiliated primary school in HK and it alluded to Covenant theology in Bible lessons (which are legal in HK's education systems), and attended one here in New Zealand. But I do think the Bible teaches the Baptist model of church governance, salvation and election, and eschatology (pre-trib premillennial).
And baptism and the Lord's Supper aren't sacraments. They are ordiances. :-)
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