Prayer For Baptist Renewal

"Dear Lord, turn not from the split Baptist flock
In her time of agony and distress;
Keys to the Kingdom pine in idleness,
While leaders plot their brothers to unfrock!
Prick hearts among the distance-holding pew
To see what havoc legalists have spread;
Expose the lies on which members have fed;
Grow resolve their fellowship to renew!
Help the wayward carpers their folly see,
And the damaged flock penitents accept;
Let none avenge; as before, let all be,
And hearts be pure, of agendas bereft!
Let believers hark to the Spirit's voice,
Instead of lockstep voting legalists' choice!"

Praise God, He's given my eyesight back! Yes, your blog writer is back after six weeks of near-complete blindness due to retina surgery. Thanks to the Lord for Sandra Kay, my talented daughter, for filling in for me with tales I have written about the past. Due to your great reaction, I intend to continue the memories interspersed with sonnets and commentaries. There should be something in the blog for everyone to enjoy!

The Southern Baptist Convention, once America's largest Christian convention, has passed through 40 years of internal strife and is now breaking up. Two or three smaller, new conventions may emerge from the havoc. Texas, in particular, seems almost ready to launch its own organization. Fundamentalists, or legalists, led by Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson, devised a scheme for stacking the 10-member church delegations to the annual conventions with pre-instructed voters; in 1979 they achieved complete autonomy over the Presidency, and immediately began appointting like-minded trustees to all the boards of Baptist institutions. The charges are liberalism. They have re=written the Baptist Faith and Message to oppose women pastors, homosexual ministers, making women subservient to men, and required all foreign missionaries, seminary professors, and churches to endorse it.

Since the Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845 on a platform that allowed missionaries to own slaves, it was doomed from the start. God would never let a church of His continue with that creed. However, through its Cooperative Program, the SbC made giant strides in world evangelism. The worldwide church will suffer from the loss of the Cooperative Program.