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Southern Baptists must change or die
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The largest Protestant body of churches in the United States is at a crossroads. Southern Baptists, who claim nearly three thousand churches and missions with over one million members in Florida, are going through something of an identity crisis. According to Al Mohler, one of their most recognized and eloquent spokesmen, if a serious course correction is not made soon, Southern Baptists may face an increasingly irrelevant future.
As president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, Mohler gave an opening semester address to students today on "The Future of the SBC." Comparing the SBC to General Motors, Mohler warned that if Southern Baptists are unwilling to reexamine their principles and priorities in order to become more faithful to the message and mission of Jesus Christ, they may well find themselves, like the giant auto maker, with a more glorious history than hopeful future.
At their annual meeting in June of this year, SBC President, Johnny Hunt, appointed a "Great Commission Task Force" to study the current state of the convention and bring back recommendations for next year's meeting in Orlando. Many are already looking to that report as a harbinger for the kind of future that awaits Southern Baptists. As Mohler articulated the issue today, will Southern Baptists become more committed to Jesus Christ and his mission or continue to cling to old tribal and bureaucratic ways that served fairly well for most of the twentieth century?
Younger leaders, who have become increasingly dissatisfied with the denominational status quo, are counting on the task force to cast a vision that is clearly in line with the former. Doing so will be costly because religious bureaucracies are not immune to bureaucratic inertia and fear of change. Failure to do so, however, could result in a denominational death wish. If the task force does not bring back honest evaluations and substantive proposals that are clearly more concerned with advancing the kingdom of God than promoting the SBC brand, then the exodus of younger Southern Baptists that began more than a decade ago will only intensify.
Five of the twenty-three members appointed by Hunt are Floridians with two, Ken Whitten, Senior Pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz and Tom Biles, Executive Director of the Tampa Bay Baptist Association, residing in the Tampa area. Al Mohler is also on the task force. If his analysis of the Southern Baptist Convention is representative of the whole task force, then real change could be in the air for the sixteen million member denomination.
For more info:
Profiles of the Great Commission Task Force of the SBC
Al Mohler's address to students at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
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