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BWA Withdrawal Part of
Southern Baptist Leaders’ Anti-Baptist Political Agenda
By Bruce Gourley
January 26, 2004
In October, the
fundamentalist leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention quietly
decided to pull the SBC out of the Baptist World Alliance. In
December, they made their decision public, citing liberalism within
the BWA. The BWA promptly refuted the charge of liberalism, exposing
the lies of Southern Baptist leaders. By the end of January, Baptist
leaders from Russia, Poland, Romania, Great
Britain, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Germany,
France, Bulgaria, South Africa, Ukraine, Italy, Sri Lanka, Malaysia,
India, Bangladesh, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and other
Latin American nations (as reported by the
Fort Worth Star Telegram), not to mention the United States, had
publicly criticized the Southern Baptist Convention.
To longtime observers of the 25 year fundamentalist
makeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, the departure from the
BWA comes as no surprise. Southern Baptists’ fundamentalist leaders
have long been marching the SBC out the door of Baptist life and onto
the threshold of their own little kingdom. Core Baptist principles
are systematically being discarded in place of policies designed to
shore up the new fundamentalist order. The Priesthood of all
Believers has been dismantled and replaced with strict pastoral
authority. Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State have
been jettisoned in favor of the myth of America as a Christian
nation. The Authority of Scripture has been buried under layers of
creedalism, of which the frosting on the cake is the Baptist Faith and
Message 2000. Faith in Christ alone now plays second fiddle to homage
to that same BF&M 2000. Local Church Autonomy has been rejected in
favor of Roman Catholic-like, hierarchical conformity.
In short, Southern Baptists’ fundamentalist leaders have
been intentionally dismantling the “Baptist” in Southern Baptist
Convention for more than two decades. In its place they have been
crafting a southern coalition of inerrantist-spouting, Republican
Party-loyal evangelicals which now reaches throughout the nation.
This far-reaching coalition which the SBC is morphing into has one
central goal: to save the world by regulating family life and
purifying doctrine, an agenda outlined last summer in the
Empowering Kingdom Growth initiative. Read the EKG materials
closely on the website, and you will notice that it is a global,
non-denominational initiative designed to lead theologically and
politically conservative evangelicals in creating a male-dominated
fundamentalist Christian world order. In light of EKG, there simply
is no place at the table for the diverse, spiritually-minded,
servant-oriented Baptist World Alliance.
Ironically, fundamentalist Southern Baptist leaders seem
oblivious to the sins and dangers of the ever-increasing (and
well-documented) web of lies and deception they have so freely spun in
their ongoing efforts to save the world. Apparently, they are under
the impression that God has exempted them from obedience to the Ten
Commandments in their tireless efforts to force their kingdom vision
upon the world.
Then again, fundamentalist Southern Baptist leaders have
no interest in being “Baptist.” Their commitment is to their own
agenda, their loyalty to their own kingdom. And although the BWA will
be better off without the dictatorial SBC leadership, millions of
Southern Baptists in the pews, deceived by the lies of their leaders,
are blindly being led away from the Baptist faith into
religious-political legalism. It is only right that Baptists
throughout the world stand up in protest of the lies and deception.
But in the end, it is only biblical that the Baptist World Alliance
refuse to betray the legacy of Baptists by embracing the false gospel
of legalism preached by fundamentalist SBC leaders. |
