Good things and bad things about IFB churches

I am a member of an Independant Fundamental Baptist Church. I am also a Sunday School teacher at that church. I accepted Christ at the age of 7 so I have been a Christian 20 years(I am 27). Although I accepted Christ when I was 7(and was attending and IFB church) I never really did any "deep" studying until I was 18. I don't know why it took me so long, I loved the Lord, but it was not till I was 18 that I began to question some things and just generally wanted to research my faith.

I studied the "fundamentals" of the faith and came to the conclusion that these were not only completely in line with the Bible, but I believed them with all my heart.

I know people have different lists but these are the ones I came to in a nutshell:

1.The words of the Bible as penned by the prophets and apostles of old are the inerrant and infallible Word of God. All translations of the original languages of the scriptures from the original Greek and Hebrew texts are the Word of God in as much as they adhere to the meaning of the original texts - where they differ(some more and some less) they are not the Word of God but the improvision of men.

2.According to the Bible, Jesus of Nazereth was the Christ(Messiah), being God clothed in human flesh.

3.According to the Bible,There is only one God, and this God is manifested in three persons - God the Father,God the Son(Christ) and God the Holy Spirt and they are one, while all being eternally distinct.

4.According to the Bible,Faith in Jesus Christ shed blood on the cross is man's only way of Salvation - there is no other name under heaven wherebye we must(or can) be saved. One must believe that Jesus Christ died, and was buried(in the tomb) and rose again(bodily)on the third day to pay for their sins. We must accept him as Lord and Savior of our life.

5.According to the Bible, Salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. In other words, it is Christ + nothing, Christ - nothing or it is not the Biblical Gospel. In Paul's words it is "another Gospel".

6.Since the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, it is the only infallible source of truth for the individual believer as well as the church. This means that church leaders are bound by the commands and structure set forth in the New Testament for their Church structure and bylaws.

7.According to the Bible, the World and all that is in it are the Creation of God Almighty. All that is made was made by him.

8.According to the Bible, Man was created in the image of God and fell as result of his sin in the Garden of Eden, after this death passed upon all men and men needed a Savior(who came as Jesus Christ).

I know that was a long introduction - but I felt it was important. From my understanding of the Scriptures the above 8 points are non-negotiables. This means that if you do not believe in any of these 8 points you have no business calling yourself a Christian. These are things the Bible makes very clear - they are not gray areas.

For instance, some may contend with inerrancy and say a Christian does not have to believe the Bible is inerrant to be saved. I say that if a person is saved he will believe the Bible is inerrant, why, because it is the source of truth which brought him to Christ. Everything hangs on Biblical inerrancy - this is perhaps the first and most important foundational belief a believer must have and will have if they are truly saved. We know nothing about God or his will if we have a Bible that errors in its teachings or histories.

On one other point, some may contend that it is possible for a person to be a Christian and not believe in creation. Again the Bible is clear throughout time and time again that God created the world and everthing in it - nothing evolved. God is the source of every living thing on this planet. Certainly there are debates between young earth creationists and old earth creationists - but there can be no debate that God created man and everything else on this planet.

Ok now to IFB churches.

Every IFB church I was in growing up(we moved alot because of my Dad's work) believed vehemetly in the 8 points above. I am glad they preached these important truthes of the Bible.

However where I believe they have gone astray is in adding to those points.

Some while they may not say it in so many words insinuate that if you are not a Baptist there is a good chance you are not a Christian. Only "Baptists" are the "true belivers". This is completely without biblical backing.

Some may not go that far, but they will say other churches do not have the authority to preach the Gospel, baptize or send out missionieries because they are not a Baptist church.(Many fall into this category)

In IFB churches(as well as some others), they will say "a true Christian would never..." and add a list of dos and don'ts that are not found in the scriptures. There is nothing wrong with having personal standards - but when you take your personal application of the scriptures and say all "true Christians" would apply it the way you do - you have stepped outside of scriptual boundries. Think about what you are saying - what is an "untrue Christian" this is someone who is not saved. So in essence, if a person does not believe in your list of standards then they are not saved - this is completly anti-biblical.

I am very leary of using the word true when it comes to Christians or Churches. Like saying a person "a true Christian would never..." or a "true church would never" because this is inaccurate. The words I might use is "a mature or obedient Christian would not..." or a "obedient church would never ...".

Let's face it, all individual Christians as well as Churches are disobedient to God's Word in one way or the other. Some are more disobedient than others though.

I believe in the Baptist distintives. While I think IFB churches error in some doctrines and some practices I think they are a solid church to be a part of. I would probably never be a member of a non-IFB church.

Having said that, do I believe that a Southern Baptist Church is not a "true" church - off course not! I may believe they are disobedient to the scriptures in some of their practices and teachings but they teach and believe the fundamentals of the faith.

I will go a step further now and will raddle the cages of some of my Baptist brothers - I believe a Prebyterian Church or a Methodist Church is a true church if they believe and preach the fundamentals of the faith. Do I believe they are disobedient to the scriptures in some of their practices and in error on some doctrines- absolutely!

Now, do I believe a Catholic Church is a true church - NO! Why - because they teach a different Gospel - a grace + works gospel. They teach that the Bible is not the only infallible source of truth for the believer or the church! These are fundamental truths of the Christians faith!

Sure are they right on the Trinity - yes, but that is only one fundamental truth.

Back to IFB churches,

Another area of reform needed in IFB churches(as well as some others) is the inbalance when it comes to missions. I support missions, but this is not the only aspect of the local church. We are also called to worship God and one of the ways we do this is by helping our poor brethren. How much emphasis do we put in IFB churches on charity programs? In most it is next to nothing. Yet in the New Testament you find time and time again the Apostles concern for the poor. Christ said when we do something for the least of "these" - poor brethren we are doing it for him. In most IFB churches they will only apply these passages to Missionaries and full time ministers. That is not the full application of these passages. We critize liberal churches for having all these "social" programs and not preaching the Gospel or evangelizing - we are right about that - but we are wrong in we do almost nothing for the needy in our midst.

If you give $10,000 a year to worldwide missions through your local church and do nothing for the poor family in the pew next to you do you think God is pleased with that?

Another area is hobby horse preachers - ones who get an a hobby horse either about prophesy or bible versions or music or some other gray area. Some IFB preachers preach a KJB-Only message every week, or some IFB preachers preach against CCM music every week, some IFB preachers only preach prophesy. There needs to be balance - and also the ability to distinguish between four important areas:

Fundamentals of the Faith
Baptist Distinctives
Independent Distinctives
Personal Standards

In many IFB churches the lines are blurred between these areas and this is where the problems begin. We have many new converts in IFB churches that have the impression from their Pastor's sermons that unless you have accepted Christ as your savior, AND have believer's baptism AND go to an Independent Church AND don't go to movie theaters you are probably not saved. The preachers may not believe this way, but this is the impression they give their congregations. They need to to distinguish in these areas.

The last point is on the altar call. This is not unique to IFB churches but it is a problem. In many churches the members are given the impression that they have to walk down the aisle to be saved. "Come down this aisle to receive the salvation of God" - this is spouted in many churches across the World each Sunday. Or "If you want your decision to really count, come down this aisle..." We have given people the impression that the altar call is a necessity in the church. While there are many good intentioned Pastors who have altar calls each week, I believe they do not realize the hinderence to many this causes. Here is a shy person in the pew, but he is held back from receiving the Gospel because he is afraid to walk down the aisle. Or Someone else wants to re-commit their life to Christ, they think it only counts if they walk the aisle -what heresey!

Many in Baptist Churches do not realize this practice started in the mid 1800's with Charles Finney - a borderline heretic who denied the doctrine of original sin.

Charles Spurgeon - the Prince of Baptist preachers as he was called - refused to have an altar call in his church(although it began gaining popularity during his time) - instead he called on people to accept Christ right in their pews.

The last point with IFB churches is on prophecy.

Most IFB churches are dispensational in their prophecy teachings. I believe they need to leave room for dialog in the area of prophecy. Many act like you are a heretic if you are not a dispensationalist(which I am not). Luckily my Pastor does not treat me that way. Again many Baptists do not realize how recent the dispensational theogical system is(John Darby in the mid 1800's).

My Pastor(while he leans toward dispensational theology)sees Godly, conservative men on both sides of the prophesy issues.

(By the way, I am not a dispensational premillenialist, I am a historic premillenialist(like Spurgeon) - buts thats for another discussion)

But in many IFB churches I would be treated as a heretic for my beliefs on eschatology.

I think the problem could be summed up like this:

In most IFB churches the pastors feel they have to take a hard position on everything from clothing to music, to what color tee shirts you buy or how you comb your hair. There is no distinguishing between the fundamentals, and other areas of Christian faith. There is no room for debate or discussion or difference.

Boy - ain't I long winded huh?

Well I aired my feelings and I hope you will respond with yours as well.

Thanks

IFBreformer

[ October 24, 2002, 11:51 AM: Message edited by: IfbReformer ]

 

While I do not have the couple of hours it would take to read your entire post , I did pick up on this statement while glancing through.

I would simply say that if such is the case, you have just written out of the Book of Life many great Christian leaders (such as FF Bruce, CS Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, etc.). Don't get me wrong. I am a complete inerrantist and spend time debating vehemently for inerrancy, but such a broad stroke is not fair. Just a thought. </font>[/QUOTE]SBCbyGrace,

I appreciate your response. I have struggled with this issue for sometime and I understand where you are coming from. I would be interested in quotes from FF Bruce(who I have read some from) CS Lewis and Schaeffer on inerrancy. I think it depends on your definition. Also depends on what you have at the time. "To whom much is given, much is required". Many people could not read for centuries, and in the early church it took a while for all 27 books of the New Testament to spread throughout the known world.

Maybe I am wrong, but I don't see how someone could say a historical account in the bible is flawed or say that a biblical command or principle is flawed and be a Christian. I would like to see what these men you are talking about said.

Let me know.

Thanks

 

Joe,

First all I did mention which Bible, I said the Bible that was penned by the apostles and prophets of old. I did not mention however, a particular translation of that Bible. There are over 5000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. There are thousands of vernacular translations of the Bible including the King James Version. I will not take one translation, even the King James, and judge all others before it and after it by it. I am glad that all scholars on both sides of the texual and translation debate agree that the manuscripts agree 95 to 97% making the Bible the best preservered ancient book on the planet. I will not engage in setting a new standard which the King James translators would oppose(base on their own writings) of making the King James Bible the standard by which all other translations before it and after it are judged. You have made yourself the final authority by taking the 9th translation of the Bible in the English language(the KJV) and making it the standard for all translations in world.

Joe,

There is a difference between dispensational theology and "dispensations". I and others who disagree with the dispensational theological system agree that there were different periods of time in the Bible in which God dealt with man and had different rules.

Example, in the begining with Adam and Eve, God allowed their sons and daughters to marry - they had to. Later in the Mosaic Law God made the practice of sybling marriage a sin.

Some would call these dispensations "covenants" the New Testament talks about the New Covenant and the Old Covenent which was obsolete and passing away. I am not a Covenant theologian but I do agree with them on some points.

Charles Spurgeon had much greater than a "third grade" education and he found many flaws with the new theogical system of John Nelson Darby later called "Dispensational Theology". He called it "obsurd" to seperate the church in the Old Testament from the church in the New Testament. He said it was silly to say that David and Isaiah and all the greats of the Old Testament where not a part of the same body as we are.

I am trying to be nice here and I am picking up a tone from you that is not "speaking the truth in love".

Now where the divisions are between covenant or dispensations is debated by conservative, Bible believing Christians on both sides of the issues.

Joe,

Yes the Bible does teach more than the Fundamentals - this is the milk of the Word. One Christian writer in the late 1800's said the fundamentals are "minimal Christianity". They are not maximum Christianity. But we must also agree to disagree on certain issues, while we take our stand we must realize there are "in-house" debates within conservative, bible-believing circles.

For instance, many great Christian writers of the past hundreds of years have written volumes expounding on their interpretation of the scriptures in regard to such areas as baptism, church structure, Soveriegn Grace(Calvinism), Free Will(Arminianism), Dispensational Theology, Covenant Theology, Christian Standards, Bible Texts and more recently Christian music and other contemporary issues.

I am not saying any of these issues are not important, but in comparison to the fundamentals they are less important. I believe each of us as individual believers should pray, read our Bibles and search out the truth for ourselves and come to our beliefs in these areas based on the Scriptures.

We should be able to debate these areas amongest ourselves as Bible believing Christians without violating the scriptural mandate to speak the truth in love.

One other note, while I believe the Bible is the only infallible source of truth for the Christian, it is not the only source of truth or history we may glean understanding from. After the Bible was written other histories are recorded of the early church, great Christian men devoted their entire lives to studying God's Word and writing their own thoughts about it down. Their writings are valuable as well. Of course all of their opinions must be taken as the fallible opinions of Godly Christian men and they must be weighed against the scriptures.

Most of us cannot spend 10 to 16 hours a day studying the Bible(like some of them did) and the ancient languages of the Bible like these men did. Their work does have value.

Just a thought

IFBreformer

 

Jessie,

I sympathize with you. Growing up we came across a couple of IFB churches with dictator pastors. The ignore the scriptual exhortations not to "lord" their authority over their congregations but to be a "ensample" to their congregations.

In one church, the Pastor told the women in the church that he was there authority and that if he said to do something and there husbands disagreed God wanted them to disobey their husbands and follow him.

He also would routinely give himself raises and there was little financial accountablity to the congregation.

He also had "paycheck" Sundays - where he would warn his congregation a month or so ahead of time that they should bring their paychecks to church on particular Sunday and sign them over.

Luckily the Pastor at my church is not like that- in fact he invites questions from the congregation. Last night he was speaking on a topic and he said he was going to do a series on it, he invited the congregation to write down questions about it and give it to him after the service. Even if they disagreed with him on it!

I would invite you to look for another solid IFB church in your area, even if it is a bit a drive it will be better for you spiritual health.

I think many IFB churches are ripe to be taken over by dictorial leadership because they have become spiritually lazy. They don't want to search the scriptures and find out what standards and beliefs God want for them and their family, they just want some preach to spout out everything for them so they don't have to study. Some people, just because of their own psyche or personality, cannot take gray areas. They need a preacher to spell everything out for them, tell them where to shop, what to buy, how to live. Instead of turning to God's Word and searching outn the matters for themselves.

I have many IFB friends like this, in fact a friend of mine that I went to Christian School with and is a Pastor of Baptist Church is like that. He can't take gray areas - he needs an answer for everything down to what color shirts you wear. He has a hard time seeing any other point of view on any issue(not fundamental issues). The standards he has are the standards every Christian in the world should have.

The happy news is, not all IFB churches are like the one you describe.

I hope the Lord will lead you to a better church.

IFBreformer

 

I understand that you believe in inerrancy. But I don't know you understand the implications of someone not believing in inerrancy.

Once again I understand your hestency. But Christians like the Jews of old are a "people of the book". Without the Bible we have no solid source of truth. Everything is based on man's changing views of right and wrong.

In the past God spoke through prophets and apostles, but then he gave us the written Word.

You can debate about what a "high view" of scripture is verses verbal-plenary inspiration all day. The fact of the matter is this - if someone says to me that the Bible has man's opinions mixed in with God's Word, in other words the Bible contains the Word of God, but it is not THE Word of God I have a big problem with that person and they definitely don't even have a high view of scripture if they think that way.

This is how Christian cults have formed throughout the centuries - this what helped form the Catholic Church - tradition and feeling verses the written Word of God.

A Christian without the Word of God is like a soldier without his rifle. He is not going to be much a soldier is he?

"Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.""
Matthew 22:29 NIV

Why did they error? because they did not know the scriptures.

In the Old Testament they did not have much of the scriptures - but had the Prophets and when you rejected the Word of the Prophets God's judgement was upon you.

If a Christian it is not required to believe the Scriptures(part of which testify of Christ) how could you believe on Christ?

And then even if you did believe on Christ, which one then? the one of the Jehovah's Witnesses that is not part of the trinity?

Before the Bible was complete God sent his prophets and Apostles and we had spoken word and written word at the same time - but they always had guidence.

If we do not accept the entire Bible as God's Word then we are left with man deciding what is the Apostle Paul's opinion and what is God's Word.

Was F.F Bruce a Christian if he believed the Bible contained the Word of God and also human opinion - I don't know.

As soon as you step away from inerrancy you step out on to a sea of uncertainty and you are like a sailor at sea on a ship with no compass.

Just some more thoughts

IFBreformer

[ October 24, 2002, 04:39 PM: Message edited by: IfbReformer ]

 

You are preaching to the choir. I believe in complete inerrancy. I defend it. I have spent a lot of time and energy studying, researching, and promoting it. I am well aware of every argument on all sides of this issue. I have read multitudes of books and articles on the subject matter. I have written papers on the subject and graded hundreds of theology papers on the subject. I have lectured in theology classes on the issue of inerrancy. I have sat down personally with inerrancy's most ardent defenders. So please don't suggest I don't understand the implications of someone not believing the doctrine. You asked for an opinion. I offered it. Trust me, I will not make that mistake twice. Just be careful on who you condemn to Hell and upon what basis you do so. </font>[/QUOTE]SBCbyGRACE,

I apologize if my tone seemed condescending or arrogant. I seek to be different than many IFBs I see on the internet who don't know the first thing about "speaking the truth in love".

I actually gave this a lot thought last night, I even called a Pastor friend of mine and I have actually changed my position on this.

This is why these discussion forums are good - it gives us a chance to air what is on our mind and see if conforms to scripture.

The fact of the matter salvation is by acceptance of Christ's shed blood on the cross and accepting him as Lord and Savior of our life.

But we cannot accept what he did if we do not accept who he was.

I mean a JW thinks he is accepting Christ but he does not accept the same Christ we do - he is not saved.

Maybe a Catholic accepts Christ, but he also believes the Christ's blood atonement was not the total payment - but that he must do good deeds as well - someone who thinks this way is not saved either.

Its Christ(as defined in the Bible) plus nothing Christ - nothing.

As far as inerrancy or creation goes, I don't believe that someone will grow in the Lord as Christian if they do not believe in inerrancy or creation. These will be major road blocks to growth and possible avenues to lead to false teaching and doctrine.

God will judge those who teach, the Bible clearly says the those who teach will be judged more strictly.

As far as CS Lewis or any other Christian "Leader" who doubts inerrancy I would have to see why and what they are talking about.

For instance with CS Lewis, he casted doubt on the Genesis account as mythical along with the Old Testament events.

Luther casted doubt on Hebrews, James , Jude and Revelation but that was out of ignorance. He was reviewing everything the Catholic Church did and was not sure if they had added some books to the cannon to support there own erronous beliefs like the book of James which he called "the epistle of straw". He was zealous for his newly discovered doctrine of justifacation by faith and he saw James as directly contradicting that.

Later in his life he removed these comments from his Bibles has he had the Lord work on his heart and show him more of truths.

CS Lewis's attitude troubles me much more than Luther, he was calling something mythical just because he does not think something is scientifically possible.

CS Lewis was much more of a rationalist than Luther ever could have been.

This is why I am very careful of Lewis's writings.

But as to his being saved if he trusted in the same Christ I have then he was saved. I think he missed out on a great deal by calling the creation account a myth.

 

Dr. Bob,
I was wondering what you mean by the "The 1-2-3-pray-after-me church is NOT ifb." Are you talking about the sinners prayer?
And if so what is wrong with it?

I realize you don't have to pray an exact prayer, but the elements are all necessary aren't they?

You have call on Christ and believe that he was the Son of God, who died for you sins and rose on the third day. Don't you have to repent and ask Christ into your heart?

I am anxious to hear your opinion on this.

Thanks

IFBreformer