Featured Where do we stand today?

Humans will fail. It is a sin nature thing. If you had your eyes open and aware the SBC had and will have glaring bouts of hypocrisy too. I have always been sceptical of the "love my pastor" thing. My dad was a pastor and I have been one for over 30 years. I don't want my people loving me any more than they love the other brothran because that creates a papacy. We had Baptist popes and that is why the IFB movement is totally shattered.
The problem is the human nature thing. It is human nature to want to be part of a herd. Not just a herd but "the best", the biggest, the one that is the "growing" one, the one with the dynamic leader that people are drawn to. IFB doesn't have that going on now. Some are trying to go back to that but we don't have a dynamic leader. We are so fractured into groups we are nervous about the day we will "sit together in heavenly places".
Many of us don't like to be called fundamentalist because we don't want to be lumped together with Hyles and others that did unbiblical and embarrassing things.
As you can see in discussions about doctrine and church policies on this board many people are wrestling with things that were taught as doctrine that they found out later weren't correct. Others here are strongly opinionated that they are right to the point they appear to think all things should flow from them.
"Where do we stand today?" The IFB took a spanking we deserved. Not everyone has learned the lesson from the chastening. Some still think evangelism should be done the same old Hyles/Finney way. Others have jumped ship from the old salesmanship methods to new salesmanship methods. As for me...I want Jesus to come back and put an end to this mess we have created.

 

One thing that is good (and bad) about independents (unaffiliated) Baptists is that they are independent. An independent Baptist might come in many flavors, from extremely hard-line separatist fundamentalist to nearly charismatic. Our church is independent (not affiliated with any association or fellowship) and believe the fundamentals of the faith, but we have walked in different paths from the more "Hyles-Rice" type of independents (and we also respect Rice but not Hyles). Just saying that to say don't let the bad experience scare you away from a possible good church. You seem to have the discernment to see through the preacher-worship and such like that is too often found in some of them.

 

I just saw this. Sorry to be late to the fellowship. I'll post more tomorrow, but for now I'll just say that there are over 10,000 independent Baptist Churches in the US alone, and many different groups and fellowships. And I do appreciate the kind words about my beloved grandfather, John R. Rice.

 

I was an assistant pastor to a KJVO Baptist church in New England a few decades ago.
We ended up cutting all ties apart from a loose one with the IFCA.
We were for the most part exclusionists along with a handful of likeminded churches with whom we would fellowship.

I will occasionally look at their website - not much has changed since those days.

I do miss the spirited camaraderie.

HankD

 

Salty, I don't disagree. My point is not to argue about whether affiliated churches are not independent, but trying to be clear in answering Tennessee Gal that I am talking about independent churches that are not affiliated with any association, conference, convention or fellowship. She is not (if I understand correctly) looking for a debate on church autonomy but the current status of churches that might be designated the "Independent Baptist movement". I never can tell what terms might not suit someone. It's hard when "independent" has a fluidity when talking about Baptist churches.

Hope this helps!

 

What years were you guys there? I graduated from Tenn. Temple in 1976, then spent a semester in the seminary. I attended the seminary in 1986 on our first furlough from Japan, where we spent 33 years. I'm sure we know many of the same people.

This was definitely a problem in fundamental circles in those days. I really don't think it's that much of a problem nowadays. I believe the independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement has greatly matured since then.

I agree that there was manipulation going on in that methodology, and I began to question it myself, changing my approach in Japan. However, I will say that the Romans Road does give the complete Gospel, and that is something to be thankful for, even if motive and/or methods were wrong (Phil. 1:18).

Where I changed my theology from that taught by JRR (my grandfather) is that I believe the primary task for a Christian is not soul-winning but glorifying God (which soul-winning, answers to prayer, testimony, etc. does).

There were many fundamentalist leaders who did not sweep things under the rug, which is why I am still a fundamentalist. I was mentored by men like that: Monroe Parker, Fred Moritz, and the other good men at Baptist World Mission (BWM). Ed Nelson and Wayne Van Gelderen Sr. helped my wife and I get together (incurable match-makers). And there were others.

By the way, I've heard preach and met the new pastor of FBC of Hammond, and he's a low-key, sincere man of God, nothing at all like Hyles and his bombastic style.

Praise the Lord.

Yes, those incidents hurt the cause of Christ and the ind. Bapt. movement, but not permanently. According to Church Still Works, by Paul Chappell and Clayton Reed (2009), there were 13,719 ind. Bapt. churches in 2008 (p. 15), and we sent out 4,876 overseas missionaries, compared to only 3898 SBC missionaries (p. 30).

This is where the IFB movement has matured the most: missions. Last week I was at a conference for IFB Bible translators, and it was very encouraging. I also fellowshipped again with two brilliant young men, graduates of Baptist Bible Translators Institute in TX, who are working on translation in limited access countries.

Also, there are some fairly new and exciting IFB colleges: West Coast, Crown, Baptist College of Ministry. Last week I got to know a young pastor who graduated from Crown, and was very impressed at his preaching and love for the Lord.

 

Hoping not to detract too much from Tennessee Gal's post and question, but...

John, do you know what criteria Chappell and Reed used for identifying Independent Baptists, and how they gathered their data?

Thanks!

 

They partnered with "a well-known Christian research organization" (p. xiv) to develop a survey, then "mailed the survey to 13,719 independent Baptist churches (p. xv), receiving 550 "qualified responses." They rejected other responses which were incomplete. The research organization then analyzed the results and produced about 90 pages of "graphs, information and observation" for Chappell and Reed (ibid).

 

Thanks again. Would you recommend the book?

 

Yes I would. It's invaluable in finding out where the IFB movement is today.

 

Thanks, got it ordered.

Tennessee Gal, sorry for the somewhat off-topic distraction.

 

I got this book in the mail yesterday. I've only looked at the front material. I realize their purpose is not primarily statistics, but I was disappointed that there is no clearer explanation of what comprises an independent Baptist church and what criteria they used to determine these 13,719 churches were independent Baptist. I would love to see more information on this. Perhaps some info will be scattered through the book as I read it. I can add that there would have been 13,720 churches in 2008, because our church did not get a survey from them.

 

Right, the survey was by no means complete. After all, we are independent Baptists. Another area where it is incomplete is in the number of foreign missionaries we have sent out. There are many missionaries out there nowadays who are sent either strictly by their local church, or by a small mission board started by a local church. I know of five such couples on the island of Hokkaido, where we evangelized. That is actually more than the number of missionaries sent out by the traditional boards!

 

Right. That is one reason I was interested in "which" independent Baptists were surveyed.

The missionaries we support are local church missionaries, no boards or sending-agencies involved. I'm sure one of those we support would not be included. He is sent out by a local independent missionary Baptist church hid in the backwoods of East Texas. Although the missionary is more widely known, it is likely that if you are not also in the backwoods of East Texas or one of this missionary's supporting churches, you would not know about this church either. That brings us to 13,721 churches and at least one more missionary.

 

Fortunately, God has it all figured out, amen?