The Baptist Digest

Is There Still Value In Being A Southern Baptist?

April 2006

Last month, in this column, I asked the question “Is the Cooperative Program (CP) dying?” In thinking about that column over the past few weeks, I realized that the problem with Cooperative Program presupposes another important question: “Is there still value in being a Southern Baptist?”

Traditionally, Southern Baptists have been largely known for our denominational loyalty and our strong commitment to evangelism and missions. CP has been the central process around which we have financed missions.

If church members and leaders still viewed being a Southern Baptist as a valuable thing, wouldn’t CP [the very heart of our missions giving program] be vital and growing? Where are we as Southern Baptists today? Is there still a spiritual glue that holds us together?

A friend suggested that I look at a blog called http://www.jesuscreed.org. One of the essays there by Scot McKnight, a New Testament scholar, suggested that Southern Baptist have happily moved into the evangelical camp. He writes about Southern Baptists, “I am willing to say that [they] are quite happy to call themselves ‘evangelicals’ today, and they are proud of it. Forty years ago they were ‘Southern Baptist.’”

Have we reached the point where many of our leaders and churches don’t see the denominational label as important? Are we content to morph into that more generic label of evangelical that has no denominational and institutional baggage in it for us?

That would seem to be the case. It is well documented that denominational labels among all groups [Southern Baptists included] are not important in the way that they used to be. Even placing the name Southern Baptist on a church building has been seen as a negative in many places.

We know that we have entered into a new era in human history called post-modernism. Have we also entered into a new period that we would call post-Southern Baptist? Since 1925, missions funded by CP have been the spiritual glue bonding us together. Will our leadership be able to reinvest CP with meaning for a younger generation of leaders and the church members that follow them? If not, is there another glue that can continue to produce cooperation for the sake of missions?

Personally, I am glad to be a Southern Baptist. I find great value in identifying myself in that way. It says something about what I believe about the Bible, evangelism, missions and church life. I believe in CP because I know that it is the best plan devised in the history of missions to organize a denomination to fund its mission enterprises.

I fear that where we are headed may prove detrimental to our part in Kingdom growth. We all need to pray for wisdom in our denominational leadership and in our church leadership as a new course is plotted for our future.

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I thought you might like this column I read at baptistdigest.com. "Is There Still Value In Being A Southern Baptist?" Last month, in this column, I asked the question “Is the Cooperative Program (CP) dying?” In thinking about that column over the past few weeks, I realized that the problem with Cooperative Program presupposes another important question: “Is there still value in being a Southern Baptist?” Traditionally, Southern Baptists have been largely known for our denominational loyalty and our strong commitment to evangelism and missions. CP has been the central process around which we have financed missions. You can read the rest here: http://www.baptistdigest.com/archive/column/is_there_still_value_in_being_a_southern_baptist/