The perception of many is that the Southern Baptist Convention took a big step backward in recent weeks. No specific example was given for the justification of the decision made at the convention to prohibit women from serving as pastors. Even though the media reported thousands voted to ban women from serving as pastors at the annual meeting, the vote is not binding for churches who are members of the convention.
This article is not about how I feel about the issue of women preachers, the passage of the statement last year about Disney having “gay-friendly” policies or the 1998 statement about wives obeying their husbands. It is about the image we portray to outsiders that we might hope to bring to a belief that there is one God and Jesus Christ was His Son and died to save a lost world.
Misplaced focus
I have been a Southern Baptist all my life and am proud to be one, but I find myself embarrassed at times by the issues that have stolen the headlines in the past five years. There is so much good done that the outside world never hears about. We seem to focus and capture the headlines on issues that would separate us as a denomination and our voices in turn carry no weight for the unbeliever.
Someone gave me a copy of a book, “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. This past week I especially gleaned truths that I feel apply to the controversial matters that should be discussed within the ranks of a denomination in private and not blurted out and misunderstood by the whole world.
In the book “Mere Christianity,” he writes: “There is no mystery about my position. I am a very ordinary layman of the Church of England, not especially high or especially low nor especially anything else. But in this book I am not trying to convert anyone to my own position. Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only service I could do for my unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times. I had more than one reason for thinking this. In the first place, the questions which divide Christians from one another often involve points of high theology or even of ecclesiastical history which ought never be treated except by real experts.”
Lewis continues: “And secondly, I think that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own.”
I concur with C.S. Lewis. Being silent does not mean one is sitting on the fence. There are many questions and issues that I know I do not have the answers to. There are some that I will never know and until eternity within the ranks of the denominations people will be fighting. As of late it seems that every year we provide negative images.
There are issues that should be left up to the local church, and I am glad in our denomination we do that. I am still proud to be a Southern Baptist, but I do think we should talk less and show others what we believe by our individual lives.
Share with others: