Has the SBC outlived it's usefullness

[Jerome]

Seth Dunn for SBC President

I’m appalled to see the direction of my denomination. For far too long it’s been run by a cabal of well-to-do megapreachers from well-to-do megachurches. These mega men, in my opinion, exist to sell their own books, speak at each others’ conferences, and push their unbiblical brand of satellite campus McChurch. I’m tired of it. They don’t represent me and they don’t represent most Southern Baptists.

My church doesn’t give a dime to the Cooperative Program. No church should. Cooperative Program giving puts millions of dollars into the control of layer after layer of state and national convention bureaucrats.

As SBC President, I would call for the end of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission....[and] send ERLC President and former democratic congressional staffer, Russell Moore, packing.

The SBC should be out of the Christian retail business; it’s a dirty one. We should return to the days when LifeWay was “The Sunday School Board.”....As SBC President, there is nothing I’d like to do more than see Thom Rainer and Ed Stetzer sent to the back of the unemployment line.

 

[Darrell C]

If you're talking about the SBC of 2016, yes it has it's benefits even tangential. However, there are those of us who remember the pre-resurgence SBC. So, it's going to take some time.

That is not really relevant to the question.

If they are still producing profitable results in regards to the Kingdom of God, then it would not be logical to state "They have outlived their usefulness."


Mark 9:38-40

King James Version (KJV)

38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.

39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.

40 For he that is not against us is on our part.


Secondly, we might consider why we might think something is "useful" to us, and if it is not, it is not useful to God.


God bless.

 

[DMorgan]

Brother Morgan, I assume in asking whether the SBC has outlived its purpose in the body of your text, and whether it has outlived its usefulness in your title that you intend basically the same thing. In answering, though, I will divide these two.

The purpose of the SBC, according to the preamble of its Constitution is "for the purpose of carrying into effect the benevolent intention of our constituents by organizing a plan for eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the denomination for the propagation of the gospel..." To an extent, I believe the purpose of the SBC has always been off, especially in the sense of "directing the energies of the denomination." The directing should come from the churches up, and not from the convention down. In actual practice it probably works some of both ways.

The usefulness of the Convention, on the other hand, suffers from the problem of all large organizations. First is the growth and weight of the bureaucracy itself. And second is how most organizations grow beyond their purpose of helping to the purpose of self-preservation.

As far as whether each body of believers at the local and state level can do a better job, I would not attempt to answer. "Better" is in the eye of the beholder. I would pose the question rather to what appears to be more scriptural. Rather than building a denominational, institutional or para-church organization, Jesus called believers together in local assemblies. The work should emanate from there.

And i agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. I heard Mark Lowery tell a joke once, " a camel is a horse designed by a committee ". While that seems trivial, it is a fact that when an organization gets too large, it gets to a point where it cannot get out of its own way. I do not disparage the IMB and NAMB victories over the years. But what i see now is a bueacracy that seems too political. Just my opinion.

 

[nodak]

Just my 2 cents, which with inflation is worthless, but yes, the SBC outlived it's usefulness when it started trying to function as a denomination rather than the old rope of sand cooperation of local churches.

Agree completely we need to nix Lifeway. For that matter, I'd nix a whole raft of how to seminars and books and music and the whole business model of church and get back to preaching the gospel.

Not that it will happen as long as the profit motive is driving things.

So there you have it: my cheap non humble nobody really asked me opinion

 

[Smyth]

In the past two decades, it has become a different denomination, for the worse. The total Political Correctness of the Resolutions passed this year reflects the uselessness of the SBC.