The BF&M and Communion

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

But what about the place in the Gospels where Jesus asked everybody but the Twelve to leave so they could have the Last Supper in private?

[Haruo]

I forget which gospel it's in.

[Tim Bonney]

[Dave Roberts]

"There's a wideness in God's mercy,
But no communion in our church....

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

[Big Daddy Weaver]

I've never experienced this closed/close communion thing either, visiting many many rural SBC churches growing up.

However, this issue of closed communion is really a big deal in the blogosphere, debate after debate after debate.

Then again, I've never visited a small to medium sized SBC church with elders. The only SBC church that I've been to with elders was a smallish megachurch in Texas. But apparently, having a couple elders is not entirely uncommon in the SBC?

Now, I have experienced the baptism debate especially in recent years. Is believer's baptism by immersion is a prereq for church membership? My current church answered No about a decade ago and my former church kept the believer's baptism but dropped the immersion requirement about four years ago.

My sense is that this is where the SBC will head in the upcoming years, starting with the megachurches (if some aren't already there now) and trickling down to some of the medium-sized churches.

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

I was in this weekend for a regional Esperanto gathering, and didn't go to church. But I looked around to see if there was one within walking distance of the hotel that had a service at a time that would mesh with my conference participation. There wasn't, really, but the two that came closest were the local Catholic parish (where the main reason I didn't feel like going to mass was the foreknowledge that I was not welcome at their Communion rail) and something called Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, which sounds like it might be Reformed Baptist, or SBC of a Mohlerish sort, or IFB of some sort, but in any case I thought they were unlikely to have Communion on the last Sunday of the month, but if they did I thought there was a good chance they might have excluded me one way or another...

[Tim Bonney]

[Neil Heath]

I think the elder question deserves its own topic. I see multiple posts coming on this one.

[Tom Parker]

BDW: You said:"However, this issue of closed communion is really a big deal in the blogosphere, debate after debate after debate."

I can almost guarantee you that in the future this item will be used to exclude other SB churches. For me it allows someones to decide who gets to be a member of the club and who does not. It is that continuing TAKEOVER mentality. A mindset that never has an END.

[Sandy]

[Stephen Fox]

This is interesting but you fellows are missing the point. Read Dan Williams Gods Own Party for the Big Picture. Presslers dream was never about the first eleven chapters of Genesis or Closed and Open communities in Rural churches. It was about figuring out a way with Karl Rove to find new base for the Birch Society right wing once Martin Luther King and Clarence Jordan had messed up their Race card. So it has now evolved into Kris Kobach Immigration game and DOM's who are convinced Obama is a Muslim and all the Baptist preachers who not only believe he is, They Quote KNOW, Obama is a Muslim

Check out the state of Alabama now as a Case Study

[Tim Bonney]

[Tom Parker]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tom Parker]

Lesson learned from the SBC prior to 1979. Talk about exclusion and elite "clubs"! They were the champions of that mentality, and apparently some of them, along with their supporters, even in old age, are still frumped up because someone came along and broke up their little club, and messed up their favor granting fiefdom.[/quote]

And you don't think the Takeover crowd is a "favor granting fiefdom?" Even twenty years out of the SBC I see the same names pop up in leadership position in the SBC that were part of the very same crowd that pushed the takeover. Are you sure you aren't looking at the current leadership with a backwards mirror?[/quote]


Tom Parker writes; Sandy, I keep saying it because maybe it will eventually get through to you--Your just dreaming up all this stuff you keep writing here. You would make a very good Fiction writer. [/quote]

[Tim Bonney]

[David Flick]

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Good to hear form our friend David Flick. He has some good questions for Sandy. Right now i have to get to SS an we have a full day with a quarterly Business meeting and a Community playhouse Production directed by one of our members this afternoon. May be Tuesday before I get back to this.

[Tom Parker]

David Flick:

It absolutely amazes me when people like Sandy sugar coat the horrendous TAKEOVER of the SBC convention. The effects continue to this very moment. Some just refuse to be honest what has happened from 1979 until now.

[Sandy]

It is simply not possible to "take over" an organization that utilizes a wide open messenger registration system and that has as broad a constituency as the SBC, with 90% of its churches having the ability to elect 10 messengers apiece to the convention. Nothing was standing in the way of the pre-1979 convention leadership with regard to organizing counter-efforts to get the SBC back into their hands. But convention majorities repeatedly voted the other way. That's how it works. The charge that the series of presidents elected from 1979 onward "appointed like minded individuals to the committees and boards" is true. But who, among those who had served before, hadn't done the same? If the pre-1979 leadership broadly represented all of the constituencies of the SBC, then why couldn't they get those constituencies to support them at the convention? Because they were too narrow and exclusive to have the kind of broad support they needed to maintain control of the convention.

[Tom Parker]

Sandy:

It is more than obvious that you don't get IT and do not want to get IT. It is sad to watch you twist in the wind as you post such silly responses to serious posts about the TAKEOVER.