It's not just the SBC we are after..muwhahahahaha

Excellent statement...and the way I see it :thumbs:

 

Exactly. And that is why no C/A discussion will ever be conclusive. We puny humans just don't have the brain power to figure out how God does it. We drag out our various 5 point schemes, salvation orders, etc., and end up still unsure. God is not Someone you can cram into a little human theological system. Though I've gotten good stuff from the systematic theologies, they simply can't contain God.

 

Amen, JoJ.

 

Good statement by both John and Squire.

It's the movement of all humanity to make God totally understandable and therefore predictible. A friend of mine says systematic theology tries to systematize an unsystematic God who constantly crosses us up and does the unexpected.

I like systematic theology and use it at times to teach doctrine, but in the end we must always understand that our eternal God goes eternally beyond out temporal minds.

 

"To many men it might well seem that the Word of God had become petrified, for they receive it as a hard, lifeless creed, a stone upon which to sharpen the daggers of controversy, a stumbling-block for young beginners, a millstone with which to break opponents' heads, after the manner experienced by Abimelech at Thebez. A man must have a stout digestion to feed upon some men's theology—no sap, no sweetness, no life, but all stern accuracy and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without tenderness and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father's table. Teeth are needlessly broken over the grit of systematic theology, while souls are famishing. To turn stones into bread was a temptation of our Master; but how many of His servants yield readily to the far worse temptation to turn bread into stone! Go thy way, metaphysical divine, to the stone-yard, and break granite for McAdam, but stand not in the way of loving spirits who would feed the family of God with living bread. The inspired Word is to us spirit and life, and we cannot afford to have it hardened into a huge monolith or a spiritual Stonehenge--sublime but cold, majestic but lifeless; far rather would we have it as our own household book, our bosom companion, the poor man's counselor and friend."
---Charles Spurgeon, Feathers for Arrows

 

Formula for debate

Yes, leave the person out of it. Address issues, not your opponent's person. Don't question his manhood, his sincerity, his intelligence, his patriotism, his motives, etc. Identify the specific point of disagreement and state it carefully. Be fair to your opponent--do not put words in his mouth or ascribe things to him that he denies. Starting on common ground of demonstrated Biblical principle, use logic and careful reasoning to support your view. Above all, don't despise your opponent even if he is getting the best of the argument and you are frustrated. Love him as a brother.

I am not fully clear on how much we are obligated to defend truth. We stand for truth but are we called upon to defend it? It seems that truth stands on its own or God defends it. Our obligation, IMHO, is to preach the truth and allow God through His Holy Spirit to convict and persaude the hearts of men. Sometimes, our perception of truth is simply that--our perception. Van Til said that our knowledge is only analogical and I tend to somewhat agree.

 

Here is a debate from back in 2007. What I like about this debate are how well the debate issues are described and discussed. This debate certainly has a catching quality to it that we don't see today in the debate forums.

Good Stuff.

...Bob

 

Perhaps you've heard of a man by the name of William Carey? You know the baptist father of the modern missions movement... he was a devout Calvinist.

Time will not permit me to walk you through the prominence of Calvinist evangelists, revivalists and missionaries who have circumnavigated the globe.

I believe it was Colin Hansen's book, Young Restless and Reformed, where I read that Southern Seminary is supplying the lion's share of SBC missionaries these days and MOST of them are thoroughly Calvinistic.

The Southern Baptist Convention did an official study comparing unapologetically Calvinist SBC churches to ones that deny that they are Calvinists and found that the baptism percentage was nearly identical.

This is striking since we tend to not beg and plead with manipulating music in the background for people to walk the aisles and dunk every kid that attends VBS to pump our stats like so many others do.

I attended Jeff Noblit's church in North Alabama a few months back and they are, by themselves sending out missionaries to beat the band. They, of course are THOROUGHLY reformed.

I have baptized ten in a year and a half here in my town which has a population of 1,026 people and is INUNDATED with churches of most stripes. And I hardly give an invitation at all.

Frankly, in this country, the rise to prominence of Arminian leaning Baptists is a hiccup that I sense is coming to an end.

We were here first. We were the predominant viewpoint among baptists for most of the civilized history of this continent. This was so much so that Particular Baptists simply became known as REGULAR Baptists here.

I do not think that Arminianistic type Baptists (those who are for all real practical purposes just four point Arminians) can make a historical case that they have been more effective than those of the Reformed persuasion.

 

Apparently you did not even read my comments in the whole thread. You completely misunderstand my position.

 

No, but I read this:

Well they are pouring into mission fields by the hundreds. Not only are these young, restless and reformed types signing up for the mission field left and right, Calvinists have historically been passionate for missions.

Baptists in this country have historically been Calvinistic until the last 75 years or so- interestingly enough about the time the IFB was born.

It seems that it was these guys who have no systematic theology who came in and "took over" OUR churches. If there are Calvinists turning Baptist churches to the DoG they are doing nothing more than reclaiming what was ours to start with before the nameless theology guys took over OUR churches 75 years ago.

It is my opinion that as SBC became liberal and those who left the SBC tended to be uneducated Calvinism took a furlough in Baptist life.

But it is coming back with great vigor.

But my point is that before 75 years or so ago MOST Baptist missionaries were Calvinists.

BTW, I may be off a decade or two on the 75 year comments, but you get my point.

 

I'm a newbie.....what is the so-called IFBx crowd? Defectors perhaps?

 

This is a term used by some to describe IFB people who are extreme in their beliefs, Ruckmanites and the like.

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

This quote Jerome posted earlier bears repeating-