Whenever I travel around the country, I’m asked by people, “What is going on in the SBC?” It’s always a hard question to answer, mainly because I’m always wondering what people mean when they say “the SBC.”
Are you referring to the conversations of a few people on a media platform most of the world ignores?
Are you talking about news stories about a particular denominational leader?
Are you talking about resolutions at a particular convention in a particular year?
The truth is, “the SBC” is none of these things entirely. Sure, we have well known figures and important leaders. Yes, there are difficult news stories and issues the convention and her various institutions must deal with at the national level. But the Southern Baptist Convention really is 45,000 or so churches who agree to partner together for the sake of mission.
The Southern Baptist Convention is the faithful First Baptist Church in your town, whose community outreach and gospel witness is making a significant difference. It’s the church plant meeting in a school in an unchurched part of the country. It’s the yellow-shirted volunteers digging people out of disasters from coast to coast. It’s the young couple who leaves the comfort of their suburban community to take the gospel to a closed country.
As someone privileged enough to work for an SBC entity, I see myself as a servant of the very reality that allows me to do what I do: thousands of churches pooling together resources for the training and equipping the next generation for gospel work. There is no “the SBC” without the churches who decide to partner for mission.
It may be hard to see all of this through the fog of the last few difficult years, where headline after headline seems to indicate only failure and where cynics like to describe our convention in the worst possible ways. We have endured difficulties (some of our own making and some we could not help). Yet we must not grow weary in doing good.
Across the country, SBC churches big and small, in rural and urban settings, are sharing the good news of the gospel. This weekend, thousands will get baptized in our congregations as more souls are added to the family of God. Churches are contributing precious resources toward missions, toward advocacy in Washington, D.C., toward theological education, toward disaster relief, and so many other kingdom-building, gospel-centered ministries.
Our system, though imperfect and always in need of reform, is unlike any other in the evangelical world. Our missionaries are fully funded. Our students study at world-class institutions at a fraction of the real-world cost. Our communities are met by compassion and hope from an army of volunteers. And every one of our institutions is not only committed to theological faithfulness and biblical inerrancy, but proudly and joyfully champions the truth.
We are far from the only Christian denomination or network God is using around the world. We are but one of many whom God is using in the beautiful mosaic of the body of Christ. Yet what we are doing is not insignificant. It’s a stewardship he has graciously given us.
If we are not careful, we could let our fellowship of churches atrophy. Christ will indeed build his church, but he could easily do the work he is doing among us with some other cohort.
Three Temptations to Guard Against
As I see it, there are three temptations that could steal us away from faithfulness as a family of churches.
We should be wary of complacency.
1 Corinthians 16:13 tells the people of God to “Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong.” It might be easy for us to take for granted the current theological faithfulness of our institutions and the health of most of our churches. We might assume that this just happened by chance. We might forget the hard work of those on whose shoulders we stand. We might not see the necessity of renewing, reforming, and strengthening SBC institutions so they exist for the benefit of the next generation. This requires vigilance and commitment on our part in a deeply anti-institutional age. It demands that we see SBC institutions not as vehicles for our own advancement but as sacred treasures to guard and keep.
I also think of some of Pauls’ final words of admonition to his protégé Timothy: “Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who lives in us (2 Timothy 1:13-14).”
I’ll never forget the words of D.A. Carson, who issued a warning some years ago:
One generation . . . believed the gospel and held as well that there were certain social, economic, and political entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel. The following generation denied the gospel.
It is up to our generation to be good stewards of the deposit of Baptist faith bequeathed to us, to fiercely guard sound teaching in a world of confusion and compromise. We do this not merely by protecting against institutional drift in our entities and churches, but by joyfully teaching gospel truth and Baptist doctrine to another generation, not assuming those who sit in our pews know what to believe. And we should actively engage in the ongoing operations and leadership at the local, state, and national level to ensure efficient, innovative, and ethical practice.
We should be wary of cynicism.
We live in a deeply cynical age. If we are not careful, we’ll be catechized by bad headlines, social media narratives, and self-righteousness. I’m reminded of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, who, fresh after his heroic battle with the pagan prophets on Mt. Carmel, finds himself despondent in the wilderness. He insists that he’s the only one standing for truth, that everyone, everywhere is compromised. God gently rebukes his cynicism by reminding him that there were thousands of others who had not bowed the knee to Baal. And then God commands him to go anoint his successor, Elisha, who will be an even better prophet than he. A humbling experience.
We are similarly tempted. If all we believe about the SBC is what we read in headlines or in bestselling jeremiads about the evangelical movement, we’ll miss what God is doing among us, in our churches and institutions. We should not be naive about scandal, nor should we close our eyes to bad reports and misdeeds. But if bad news is all that we consume, we’ll convince ourselves that God’s best days are behind him, that the Holy Spirit is not actively at work regenerating hearts, and that Christ is not building his church. Cynicism sells these days, but we don’t have to be a customer.
We should be wary of contentiousness.
As a family of diverse churches with a democratic polity, we’ll always have conflict among ourselves. Conflict is not always bad. There are often important matters of faith and practice to be hashed out and discussed. Robust arguments and discussions in public are not always a bad thing. However, there is a kind of sinful confrontation that Scripture prohibits. In that same final letter to Timothy, Paul says that God’s servants should avoid “being quarrelsome and be kind to everyone (2 Timothy 2:24).” We should remember, even in the heat of important discussions, that we are arguing with brothers and sisters in the Lord, whom we owe love and respect (1 Corinthians 13).” This is harder to do in a digital age where so many of our conversations are mediated through screens and on platforms.
Some battles are worth waging. Paul urges Timothy to “Fight the good fight of faith” (1 Timothy 6:12), yet also cautions him away from “stupid and foolish arguments” (2 Timothy 2:23). If we were to be honest with ourselves, many of our public conflicts are not battles over orthodoxy, but skirmishes fueled by pride and resentment. James understands this when he pinpoints the source of much Christian conflict:
What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures (James 4:1-3).
Everyone of us should periodically self-evaluate and ask, Are my motives in this conflict pure and God-honoring? Or do they come from selfish ambition, from unresolved bitterness, from envy or jealousy? If so, we should repent and refrain from foolish quarrels.
Why is it so important to prioritize our passions? Because if we devote too much time to “stupid and foolish” arguments, we’ll not have energy and time for “the good fight of faith.” And in doing so, we are in danger of squandering the stewardship God has so graciously given us as a convention of churches.
Daniel Darling
Dan Darling is the director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a regular columnist for World and a contributor to USA Today. He is the author of several books, including The Characters of Christmas, The Dignity Revolution, and A Way With Words. Daniel and his wife, Angela, have four children. You can follow him on Twitter and find his work on his website.