SBC 2 sell its HQ in Nashville!

They have talked about selling for a decade. Seems like they sold some building a while back....can't remember.

One thing to remember, though, is that the SBC is a convention (the churches are independent and choose to join with other independent churches in a convention). There is no prescribed doctrine.

 

But at the same time it is a church's choice of the curriculum.

The last SBC churches I've been a member of didn't use SBC materials unless a group wanted to use them (seems like it was typically a senior adult class).


That said, I like some of the adult study materials. I taught and was worried when I started because of the material (I assumed it'd be superficial). But it was very good.

 

The SBC closed its Lifeway retail stores in 2019 and sold its headquarters in Nashville in 2021, four years after the new building was completed.

 

Yes. If one is looking for material that reflects one of those camps they need to be picky.

 

Partly. Their facility on Commerse is still there, and open. It's been there long before I was a grad student, but I became familiar with the place when I used the SBC archives.

Financially the SBC should simply move out of Nashville all together. They owned several city blocks.

I'm just not sure the Convention is worth the cost anymore.

 

This has always been an issue to a degree (the first SBC presidents were moderate Calvinists).

But since the SBC is Baptist the churches that participate in the convention typically do not impose their philosophy on the congregation (the term "reformed baptist" is a self contradiction).

Typically there are Calvinists and non-Calvinists in SBC churches.

The concern is that there is a movement to move from "baptist" to Calvinism in doctrine.

 

Two reasons:

1. Many SBC church members who are Calvinists realize that their position is their understanding and as Baptists do not expose their understanding on other Christians. These are Calvinistic Baptists who explain their understanding as "my understanding is...". They look at their non-Calvinistic brothers as equals with different understandings on what is not stated in Scripture.

2. Some SBC Calvinists stay to convert others to their understanding or drive them out. They elevate their understanding to Scripture and themselves to the place of God. These explain their understanding as "I hold the Biblical view, the Christian view, and if you disagree it is because you do not understand the Bible". These people are not true Baptists, but a blend of Presbyterian and Baptist (choosing parts of each but holding neither).

 

He was. But many of the churches at that time were not.

The key is not whether something were Calvinists or opposed to that philosophy. The key is that this was not a point of cooperation between churches.