Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) President Ronnie Floyd called for pastoral leadership in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to seize a “Bonhoeffer moment.” Do this by refusing to be silent in the face of persecution, hold on to the Word of God, take heart and be encouraged, he said.
“The lostness has never been greater in our dangerous and hopeless world,” said Floyd, pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, in his president’s message at the SBC annual meeting June 16 in Columbus, Ohio.
“Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to rise up and lead.”
Punctuated by frequent applause, Floyd’s message, titled “Now Is the Time to Lead,” began with broadcast clips showing how “the alarm clock is going off in our nation and across the world.”
Citing Romans 13:11 to declare it a “kairos” moment, Floyd described a season “fixed by a sovereign God as a true moment of destiny.”
‘Not to act is to act’
From Islamic militants’ savagery and the horrors of human trafficking to the void of religious liberty that wrongly imprisons believers like Saeed Abedini in Iran, Floyd appealed for Christians to heed the warning of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was killed in 1945 for his faith.
Quoting from “The Cost of Discipleship,” Floyd said the opponent of the Nazi movement was right in saying, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
With 153 million orphans worldwide, one-seventh of the world living in extreme poverty, 750 million lacking clean water, continuing natural disasters and the global economy hanging in the balance, Floyd said the world is not only dangerous but living without hope.
He called on Christ-followers to decry all racism and prejudice as well as callousness over the estimated 57 million babies killed since the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on abortion.
“Now we await the outcome of the next possible Supreme Court ruling that could alter our nation’s belief and practice on traditional and biblical marriage but also our historic commitment to religious liberty for all people,” Floyd said, calling it a watershed moment potentially fueling “the already sweeping wildfire of the sexual revolution” beyond “anyone’s control locally, statewide, nationally and globally.”
He appealed to Southern Baptists to love all people “even if they are struggling with same-sex attraction or adultery or anything else,” aware that “we are all sinners in need of the Lord’s help and grace.”
Since neither the Supreme Court nor the culture is the final authority, Floyd insisted that he and thousands of pastors in the nation refuse to officiate any same-sex unions. Advocating freedom of religion, Floyd said Christians in America must stand for that priority, knowing it promotes the common good of the nation and the world.
A few hours after his address, Floyd was reelected without opposition to a second one-year term as SBC president.
Also elected were Steve Dighton, senior pastoral adviser at Lenexa Baptist Church, Lenexa, Kansas, as first vice president and Chad Keck, pastor of First Baptist Church, Kettering, Ohio, as second vice president.
Floyd and the 16 living former SBC presidents also issued a joint statement June 17 declaring they will stand on the biblical truths concerning marriage despite anticipated legal and civil changes to the definition.
(BP, TAB)
Share with others: