by Sandy » Mon Mar 14, 2011 9:39 pm
Well, looking at the SBC and the way that its institutional leadership is chosen these days, I have to wonder about the future of the Cooperative Program. It's not just that some of the institutional leaders are being pulled from the pulpits of churches with an abysmal record of CP support, it's whether or not someone who has done little more than pastor a big church is qualified to manage a denominational entity. In my opinion, they're not, though like Jimmy Draper, they probably set aside a hefty salary to actually hire someone who can manage the business in their name, behind their suit, while they take the golf dates and the speaking engagements. But in the SBC, it's about where you are in the line. And that depends on how loyal you are to the current leadership, and how much influence you pull with the inner circle who calls the shots.
I'm also not so sure any more that the Cooperative Program is the engine that makes Southern Baptist missions the "greatest" and the "biggest" and the "best." Proportionately, the Christian and Missionary Alliance supports an international missions effort that is ten times the size of its domestic membership, and larger in terms of total churches and members abroad than the SBC's international effort. The SBC's wrestling with its provincial, backward way of doing business is a hindrance to its effectiveness, and until it sheds that Southern provincialism and backwardness, it will have problems.