Posted on 05/26/2006 1:54:33 PM PDT by WKB
WASHINGTON - A neo-Calvinist may face an evangelist for first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) this summer - in addition to the meeting's contested presidential race.
Mark Dever, pastor of the Washington's Capitol Hill Baptist Church and a popular leader among SBC Calvinists, acknowledged May 24 that he would allow himself to be nominated for the post. Several members of a group of leaders concerned over the denomination's direction have been mentioning Dever's name for several weeks as a potential nominee for SBC office.
Dever's acknowledgement came two days after the denomination's official news service reported that a Georgia evangelist would also be nominated for the post.
Keith Fordham, an evangelist from Fayetteville, Ga., will run for the slot, according to a May 22 Baptist Press report. Fordham is the immediate past president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists. The organization's current president, Bill Britt, made the announcement and said he would nominate his colleague.
"Dr. Fordham is a dynamic and deeply spiritual evangelist who has been used mightily of God to impact our convention through his preaching and leadership," Britt, a fellow evangelist who lives in Gallatin, Tenn., reportedly said.
According to the news release, Fordham said he would focus on evangelism as an SBC officer. "Of all the denominations on earth, none has a greater opportunity of fulfilling the Great Commission than Southern Baptists. It is in our grasp," he said. "We must all work together in the 'unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace'. Let Southern Baptists join Jesus in an all-out effort to seek and save those who are lost."
Dever said he has indicated to several inquirers his willingness to allow his name to be placed in nomination, although none of them has promised that they will, in fact, nominate him. "I'm quite happy to turn up at the convention in Greensboro [N.C., where the denomination will meet in June] and not be nominated; that's actually my preference," Dever told an Associated Baptist Press reporter. "But if it's helpful and doesn't take a major time commitment," he said, he will allow himself to be nominated.
Dever said "a number of people" had approached him about being nominated for the VP office - which is largely ceremonial in the SBC - as well as the presidential nomination. He said the time commitment associated with the SBC presidency would cause him to decline a nomination for that position, but that he would serve in the vice-presidential slot.
Dever said he could not characterize those who inquired about nominating him as coming from any particular ideological niche or constituency within Southern Baptist life, but that there were "a bunch of people" who asked him, and that "some of them were definitely not Calvinists."
If he is nominated, Dever will be among a group of candidates for office in what will likely amount to the most contentious SBC annual meeting since fundamentalists solidified their control of the denomination in the early 1990s.
Already, two nominees for the presidential post have been announced. Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., is widely believed to be the favored candidate of the denomination's conservative power structure. His opponent, Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., will likely be favored by a broad coalition of SBC conservatives who are concerned about the denomination's direction and its inclusiveness of supporters not in the inner circle of powerful conservative megachurch pastors.
Dever said that he is only responding to requests from other Southern Baptist leaders. "I don't really keep up with denominational politics; I want to see Capitol Hill evangelized," he said. "We like the SBC, and we want to give them money...but I like to stay focused on the local church."
Dever's historic congregation, which dates from the 1870s and is located just five blocks from the United States Capitol, currently has 533 members, according to Dever's assistant, Mike Law. However, unlike the vast majority of Southern Baptist churches, its average Sunday-morning attendance exceeds membership. The congregation requires members to attend regularly, contribute and meet certain doctrinal standards to remain in good standing, Law and Dever said. Because of its location, near the homes of many transient young congressional staffers, Capitol Hill Baptist also regularly gets hundreds of Sunday-morning visitors.
Dever said his church had about $1.9 million in undesignated receipts in 2005 and forwarded $150,500, or 7.5 percent of that total, to the Southern Baptist Convention. The church stopped contributing to the national denomination through the District of Columbia Baptist Convention after the SBC's North American Mission Board de-funded the convention in 2002. According to multiple DCBC sources, Capitol Hill was one of two member churches whose leaders raised concerns with SBC officials about alleged liberalism in the small regional convention.
Dever said Capitol Hill Baptist sends its SBC budget giving directly to the denomination's Executive Committee and doesn't pass it through any other state convention to the SBC's Cooperative Program unified budget.
Fordham, meanwhile, is a member of Harp's Crossing Baptist Church in Fayetteville. The congregation, which listed an average Sunday-morning attendance of 870 in 2005, reported $1.57 million in undesignated receipts that year and forwarded $157,813, or 10 percent, to the Cooperative Program. It also gave $48,265 for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions and $26,994 for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.
If the right questions are asked, the numbers would probably be a lot higher. there may be a lot of "but..but... how did you get in here?" going on.
What happened to the "some day", before there?
5 SOLAS INDEED!
In his widely-used 1987 text, The Baptist Heritage, Leon McBeth noted the development of a "new Calvinism" among Southern Baptists. (4) Calvinist Southern Baptists, however, argued that their Reformed theology was simply a renewal and recovery of the original theological perspective that dominated the formative years of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in the mid-nineteenth century. They noted that the key leaders and theologians, such as James Boyce, John Broadus, John L. Dagg, and Jesse Mercer were Calvinists. Modern Calvinists also argued that the The Abstract of Principles, the confessional statement of Southern Baptist's first seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, affirmed key Reformed concepts such as total depravity, perseverance of the saints, and unconditional election for a limited number of persons chosen by God. (5) Many local churches and associations in the nineteenth century also adopted Calvinist confessions of faith. (6) According to Calvinist interpreters, however, a defection from Reformed roots occurred in the twentieth century, most likely as a result of the experiential theology of E. Y. Mullins, professor of theology and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (1899-1928). (7)
We're coming back. Be afraid...be very afraid...
"We're coming back. Be afraid...be very afraid..."
I JUST MIGHT WATCH THIS FOR A TIME,THE LORD HAS A GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR!
"BTW our fellow baptist "full court" has been banned or suspended."
Let's start a petition or a sit in or something. This has to be a first. A Baptist arguing over doctrine. What is the world coming to?
Sounds like one of those dreaded business meetings:')
Those Business meeting are not much worse than what goes on
here between Baptists. :>)
I have always had the sneaky feeing that Baptists were just dipping Presbyterians.
We like them dipped in chocolate.
Mark 1:23 And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with you, you Jesus of Nazareth? are you come to destroy us? I know you who you are, the Holy One of God. 5:6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him. 5:7 Then he cried out with a loud voice, “Leave me alone, Jesus, Son of the Most High God! I implore you by God – do not torment me!” 5:8 (For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of that man, you unclean spirit!”) 5:9 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 5:10 He begged Jesus repeatedly not to send them out of the region. 5:11 There on the hillside, a great herd of pigs was feeding. 5:12 And the demonic spirits begged him, “Send us into the pigs. Let us enter them.” 5:13 Jesus gave them permission. So the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs. Then the herd rushed down the steep slope into the lake, and about two thousand were drowned in the lake.
Your are talking of "faith alone" needed to receive grace alone, like the Conversion of Saul in Acts 9?
Or could it be that man has little to do with his own salvation?
John 6:37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." 44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." 66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
It kind of reads like the Holy Ghost may have a hand in our salvation "true saving knowledge."
Romans 10:9-18
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
11 For the Scripture says, "WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED."
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him;
13 for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED."
14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?
15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!"
16 However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, "LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?"
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
18 But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; ")THEIR VOICE HAS GONE OUT INTO ALL THE EARTH, AND THEIR WORDS TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD."
So true! And it is obviously the reason for the great commission. But as it is pointed out in verse 15 "How will they preach unless they are sent?" Faults teachers do not have the Holy Ghost, nor can someone hear, as Christ said, "unless the Father has enabled him."
Mark 4:10 When he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. 4:11 He said to them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those outside, everything is in parables, 4:12 so that although they look they may look but not see, and although they hear they may hear but not understand, so they may not repent and be forgiven.”
Christ was referring to Isaiah’s Commission:
Isaiah 6:8 I heard the voice of the sovereign master say, “Whom will I send? Who will go on our behalf?” I answered, “Here I am, send me!” 6:9 He said, “Go and tell these people: ‘Listen continually, but don’t understand! Look continually, but don’t perceive!’ 6:10 Make the hearts of these people calloused; make their ears deaf and their eyes blind! Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.”
So it does appear that the Father is selective on whom He enables to hear the knowledge you speak of. So why would He do that? I can not answer questions of the Spirit but maybe Paul gives us a hint:
Rom 9:10 Not only that, but when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our ancestor Isaac – 9:11 even before they were born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose in election would stand, not by works but by his calling) 9:12 it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger,” 9:13 just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
I do believe that His calling is done by the Holy Spirit and not by a preacherman and no man can convict himself of his sins without the help of the Holy Spirit. God left man with his total freewill from the time of Adam until the time of the flood. He looked down and: Gen 6:6 The Lord regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was highly offended. After the flood He promised us no more floods and His whole approach on how He deals with man changed.
Rom 9:16 So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.
God bless and have a good Memorial Day weekend.
Presbyterians prefer chocolate sprinkles. 8~)
but was he predestined to win???
As a Calvinist, he's already elected.
8-)
A TULIP bttt.
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