“Divisions in the river of faith that divide us into swirling eddies and tributaries” constitute the most serious plight currently facing the church, Jimmy Carter told delegates attending the BWA Congress.
Carter, who led a joint Bible study July 31, said division is like a cancer that is metastasizing within the body of Christ, presenting a negative image of Christians to the world that is “directly opposite the gentle aspect of the one we have chosen to worship.”
The New Testament churches of Galatia had become divided, as leaders took the clear and adequate gospel of Christ and began adding other requirements for acceptance or fellowship, Carter said. That caused disagreements and acrimony that threatened survival of the early church, he said.
That division in the New Testament is “almost an exact description of what is happening today,” as certain groups use certain elements of belief to divide Christians, he said.
Paul used surprisingly strong language in Galatians 1:6-8, Carter said, indicating that Paul was “astonished” or “disgusted” that the Galatian believers were “so quickly deserting the one who called you.”
The problem, Carter said, is that church leaders were adding requirements for fellowship and salvation, such as adopting Jewish law and being circumcised. Others were imposing a creed concerning the eating of meat sacrificed to idols, requiring people to agree if they were to be accepted.
To redefine the gospel always has been a temptation, Carter said, “either to liberalize and dilute and gospel so it becomes meaningless” or to add to the gospel, constructing creeds and imposing them on others. Baptists have traditionally been averse to creeds, he said. “I have been grieved in the last few years because some differences … have separated us from the Southern Baptist Convention.
“None of these differences are enough to prevent reconciliation,” he said. “I hope and pray we will be reunited with them and with other Baptists,” he said, to applause.
Carter said he does not minimize the importance of controversial questions.
But “Paul made it … clear that applying any of these issues, no matter how important, to salvation,” would hinder the church, Carter said.
“There’s nothing wrong with believing in fundamentals. All of us have fundamental beliefs.” The most important belief, Carter said, is that “we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ.”
(BWA)
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