Veteran of Southern Baptist Calvinist ‘reformation’ reflects

[Rvaughn]

[William Thornton]

Yeah. I saw that. Ed especially will appreciate what is said about Mohler.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

Keith, your understanding of Calvinism is too sterile and removed from present reality in regard to the SBC. I don't know by what measure one would say the SBC has been weakened by it. It has been a mixed bag.

[KeithE]

[Jon Estes]

[William Thornton]

Lots of words and charts to end with "cannot prove" and "something."

Much of the growth in numbers of churches is suspected to be due to new churches started by Calvinistic church planters. No data on that because it is too controversial. Southern seminary (decidedly Calvinistic) displaced the formerly mammoth Southwestern (non-Calvinistic) as the largest SBC seminary long ago.

I've been in pretty close touch with the SBC Cal/Trad wars for a long time. The SBC may be weakened by the conflict down the road. No hard evidence yet.

[Dave Roberts]

I can only see anecdotal evidence in my area. Young pastors coming from Southern and Southeastern have come to churches in this area and told a number of folks in those churches that they did not show evidence of being among God's elect. Usually, this resulted in either a split or the sudden departure of the pastor. Having a background in my mother's family of Primitive Baptists, the true Baptist Calvinists, I see nothing but trouble in the hard turn to Calvinism. The Abstract of Principles at SBTS was drafted in a far different era when the words were applied differently to promote the missionary endeavor of the church. What I see as causing the greatest difficulty is the undermining of the missionary impetus. As one individual put it to me: "Why should I give to Lottie and Annie if God will save his chosen anyway?" I think his question reflects the harder question for the Calvinists.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

I don't say this to be argumentative but I don't think either Dave or Keith are in touch on this. Dave has anecdotes on cal church exploders. I do too. These should be exposed and churches warned. I've never heard or read an SBC cal speak like Dave describes although I mound be interested to hear from some of these folks directly, or indirectly through Dave if he knows some.

[Rvaughn]

[Rvaughn]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

[Haruo]

Membership drops may be due to an increased willingness to purge the rolls (which may be either ideologically or realistically motivated), or due to a decreased emphasis on encouraging newcomers to actually *join* the church, or due to population declines in areas replete with SBC churches, or due to a number of other factors I can imagine and probably many I can't, and/or to any combination of these. Other denominations that have not seen an increase in Calvinism have also experienced similar drops of late. So I'm not sure how much concern one ought to have, or where any vengeful impulses ought to be directed.

And of course while Calvinism may seem to remove the impetus to evangelism, it may be that if one is predestined from before the foundation of the world to be evangelically inclined, one will be so, regardless of one's theology.

[William Thornton]

Counting membership is difficult and there is some inconsistency among SBC churches. Some make a guess, some just carry over last year's numbers, some periodically 'clean' or update their rolls, some don't have formal membership. My speculation is that in the last decade or so the SBC has seen more churches update their rolls, usually with a considerable loss of numerical members. I've done this two or three times. What there is no confusion about is weekly worship average attendance. Although self reported and not strictly verifiable (churches can lie on this, but mostly don't), it has consistently declined. No disguising that.

The average SBC church weekly worship attendance is 125; the median is 70.

[Haruo]

This probably means there are quite a few churches that are well below 50. I went to the Japanese language service at JBC yesterday, and I think the attendance was right around 25, which I think is the best of any of Seattle's Japanese-language Christian church services. Japanese Congregational (UCC) gets that or less for their combined service (I would say the English service at JBC was probably 75 or 80, maybe even more yesterday. Fremont tends to hover around 25. JBC's English attendance has dropped quite a bit in the last decade, but the Japanese attendance has stayed pretty steady.

[Stephen Fox]

not well versed in Marilynne Robinson's take on John Calvin and Calvinism to paraphrase Randy Newman in the song about Dick Cavett and Lester Maddox, don't know their hiney from a Hole in the Ground. Language softened for Sunday School teachers.

Givenness of Things is a good start for Ascol, Mohler and Thornton.

[Stephen Fox]

isn't that his last name. What does he make of all this Calvinism revisited from the Capitol Church in DC Devers stuff? Just curious

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

We all decide who to count and why, and how long. It's a howler that your former church picked a cutoff birth date 100 years previous.

For all the SBC talk about regenerate church membership it looks to me like formal membership policies are declining.

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

The best membership policy I have run across came from Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in Fayetteville, NC. They decided that if someone no longer lived in the community, had not attended for at least five years, had not given for at least five years, and the church could obtain no current address, these folks would be placed in a hold file. They would no longer be counted in the church membership, but if their letter should ever be requested, the church would issue a statement that "___________ was a member of this church from ______ to _________. On that basis, we hereby honor your request." That would eliminate the problems of fake Baptist membership.

[Tim Bonney]