Posted on 04/22/2024 5:32:26 AM PDT by Morgana
No wonder the denomination is in such shambles and on the brink of irrelevancy and death. In a recent report released by Lifeway Research and conducted by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS), a staggering 26 percent of Southern Baptists are registered as Democrats, which signals a drastic ideological shift within a denomination formerly known for its conservative theological and political beliefs.
This startling statistic from the SWBTS’s recent report demonstrates a critical and expanding fault line within the SBC, marking a drift towards the very liberalism the denomination fought hard to purge during the “conservative resurgence” of the 1980s.
This resurgence, which once seemed to fortify the SBC against secular influences and liberal theology, is now unraveling. The past decade, under leaders like Russell Moore, a former Democrat staffer who once headed the denomination’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), has witnessed a gradual but increasingly unmistakable erosion of the SBC’s conservative values. Moore’s tenure and influence reflect a broader acceptance of progressive ideologies that are opposed to the SBC’s historical commitments to biblical inerrancy and orthodox Christian doctrines.
Thanks to weak-minded men and limp-wristed leaders—leaders like David Platt, Russell Moore, and others, who promote ideological pluralism in the Church rather than being of one accord, as the Scriptures command—today’s SBC, despite a majority that still professes conservative values, is increasingly lenient towards aberrant political and theological views. This has allowed progressive philosophies to take root and flourish within the denomination, subtly undermining its doctrinal integrity. Movements like “Racial Reconciliation” and “Living Out” have introduced and normalized ideas that are more closely aligned with secular or liberal Christian movements than with Scripture.
The acceptance of Democrat-aligned members into the SBC not only contradicts the denomination’s longstanding conservative ethos but also raises alarms about its future direction. The Bible’s teachings are clear and non-negotiable on issues central to the Democrat agenda, such as the push to increase access to abortion, the redefinition of marriage and sexual indoctrination of children, including the push for sex changes for elementary-aged children, and the role of personal responsibility in societal structure. Yet, these biblical truths are being overshadowed by a rising tide of leftist ideologies that compromise the very core of Southern Baptist identity.
The implications of this shift are grave—the SBC risks following the path of the mainline Protestant denominations that have abandoned Scripture and embraced leftism to become increasingly irrelevant—or worse, completely apostate. The infiltration of progressivism into the SBC threatens not just the theological purity but also the cultural and social impact of the Southern Baptist Convention.
But what else should we expect when the denominational leadership focuses more on what the world thinks of them than they are about being obedient and true to God’s word?
There is a constant battle within the Southern Baptists of right and left fighting for leadership but the great majority vote conservative.
While the Democrats largely depend on the Catholic vote which is the primary reason JFK wanted to import them with his immigration law, the SBs go strong right.
“constant battle within the Southern Baptists of right and left”
That’s true. Many years ago I read the book, “A Hill On Which To Die”, which was pretty good touching on this subject. SBC “swings like a pendulum do”.
Here is an example of what religion meant to Los Angeles and what led to the total collapse of California and its transfer to the left.
“During the 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles was a bastion of Anglo Protestantism, reflecting the values of Midwestern parishioners who had been carried to the Southland on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Well into the 1970s, Protestant denominational leaders enjoyed comfortable, influential ties with the city’s still-strong “downtown business
establishment,” which itself was largely Protestant.
The Immigration Act of 1965, however, created the condition for a radically different religious future for the City of Angels-a future that would anoint Roman Catholicism as the area’s dominant religious group. Today Roman Catholicism is the single largest faith tradition in Los Angeles County, with 294 parishes and 3,631,368 adherents.
Among Christians, 71% are Catholics. Between 1980 and 1997, Roman Catholicism experienced a 36% growth.”
Could it be that SBC is concentrated in the same states with large black populations, hence...
SBC isn’t heavily black membership.
Either this article or a related one mentions that a number of formerly independent black churches have recently joined the SBC.
*****
Almost 1-in-4 (22.3%) Southern Baptist congregations are non-Anglo or ethnic minority congregations. In contrast, in 1990 only 8.4% of SBC congregations were non-Anglo or ethnic minority congregations.
https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/how-racially-diverse-is-the-sbc/
Interesting -- a number that closely corresponds to the 26% Democrat statistic in the headline.
Then throw in those whites who are registered dims.
Toward the republicans. Because it used to be at least 50%.
Seems to me back in the 1980's this would have been unheard of.
I have known and worked with Southern Baptist since the 80s.
There was always a large number of democrats in the ranks.
Mega-churches have to fill their pews and cannot be particular with whom. And while mega-churches are a minority of actual congregations in the SBC, they are the bulk of the membership AND, sad to say, the source (and it seems the QUALIFICATION) for “SBC Leaders”.
Pastor Jack Graham endorses David Allen for SBC president
Who is Jack Graham? He heads Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, “with a membership of over 45,000 and a weekly attendance of around 17,000”.
David Allen? Allen became the first dean of the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary’s School of Preaching in 2016, serving until 2022, when he became the leader of the Adrian Rogers Center for Biblical Preaching at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee.
Yeah...and the SBC seminaries have been such paragon’s of good teaching and behavior the last 20 years...
In the South, it could be a habit or a “family tradition” for white voters to register Democrat, but the South’s voting pattern has been trending red among the white population.
I registered Democrat while living in a large Democrat city in the north and being in business for myself. It was a way to make contacts. But I voted Republican!
Revealing, and it is was not so much the the Immigration Act of 1965, but the welfare state war on poverty that induced dependence on government and thus voting for those who use this to obtain and maintain power.
Millions of em'.
Good point, and it’s the one everyone who thinks the dems can just snap their fingers and steal elections should ponder.
Catholics, Jews and immigrants from 1965 seem to be more affected by welfare then than Protestants.
It was that 1965 law that killed America, without that law the democrats would have been dead in the water long ago.
If Cubans would have voted Democrat then they would have made it easier for them to migrate.
Meanwhile, from what I see, the GOP made and make relative little effort to "evangelize" the new southern immigrants - and youth of the US - using graphics etc. to illustrate the trajectory of short-term gain, long term loss, toward making the US increasingly like the socialist "paradises" they fled from.
But it mainly was a failure of the evangelical church to overcome prosperity, the test that most all people and nations fail after overcoming adversity and affliction, and so it is today.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. (Matthew 5:13)Understood in the progressive state.
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