No, it’s not Friday. In case you hadn’t heard, the Executive Board of the Missouri Baptist Convention has taken the controversial decision to withdraw already promised and budgeted funding to church plants affiliated with Acts 29.
At issue? As far as this redactor can tell, it is the secondary issue of Total Abstinence from Alcohol, and that Acts 29 churches are unwilling to preach an unscriptural form of teetotalism.
Southern Seminary bloggers have produced a flurry of blog posts on the topic, and I want to present them here in a special, dedicated edition of the Roundup.
Missouri Baptist Convention rejection of Acts 29
- Steve McCoy links to the story and points out that prominent SBC pastors Darrin Patrick, Ed Stetzer, and Mark Dever are scheduled to speak at the Acts 29 Boot camp in Chicago next month.
- Bryan Lilly has placed helpful links about the controversy on his blog.
- Tom Ascol has conducted an interview with Kevin Larson, one of the axed church planters and a Southern Alumnus.
- Scott Lamb
- calls it Bad News.
- links to Acts 29′s response.
- clarifies his quotation in the post-dispatch.
- Timmy Brister
- thinks that if this is “Baptists Acting Like Baptists” then he is ashamed to be a Baptist.
- wonders why the MBC has suddenly decided to hold accountable Acts 29 churches for their view on a secondary matter, and if they intend to pursue similar accountability for churches on first level matters like regenerate church membership?
- links to an Ascol interview with one of the axed church planters.
- passes the hat asking for dollars and prayers for de-funded churches.
- This is also getting secular press coverage (link fixed 12/18/07)
- New post from Todd Benkert: Toward continued cooperation in missions: Responding to decisions of Baptist decision makers
- Acts 29 Network: A Casualty of ‘the perfect theological storm’
by David Krueger
The world is watching us. What will Southern Baptists do in the face of legalism and cronyism run amok? This upsetting turn of events is yet more evidence that we need a Great Commission Resurgence.
Alcohol schmucahol. Its about getting enough money to rent a hall and sound equipment.
Change the focus social club based meetings to able-to-meet-anywhere organisms and the money trail becomes a non-issue. And hence Acts29 and Missouri won’t have anything to fight about, and the church gets to proclaim Christ as it should.
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As a member of an Acts 29 church plant (Crossing Church), I have to say that this is a sad day in the SBC. However, though Scott was a little harsh in his comments, I can’t say that I totally disagree with his assessment. Acts 29 plants typically do require a lot of money at startup due to the sound equipment, projector , etc. I can’t help but feel at times that Jesus would have given that money away to the poor in His community and used an acoustic guitar for worship. My church does very little of that, but will spend the money to maintain the equipment. Acts 29 (and my own church) is doing some great things, but I think the emphasis on being cool and relevant sometimes distracts from the excellent missional focus of the movement. I would like to see more a more “organic” community as well. However, Acts 29 is a great organization and I’m excited to see Mark Dever speaking at a Boot Camp.
What a shame. This policy should change.
Scott,
Huh?
Sorry for being late to the game, but been holding my precious little boy for the past two days. Thought I’d chime in for what it’s worth . . .
Here’s an observation I recently thought about regarding this issue. The Episcopal church has recently split over crucial issues such as homosexuality, and all the churches which leave the denomination, the $$$ in buildings are in the hands of the denomination; ergo, churches lose assets, buildings, etc.
In the SBC, controversy does not arise over homosexuality (thanks to the Conservative Resurgence) but rather over the unscriptural demand for total abstinence (again thanks to the Conservative Resurgence)–and this over a $200,000 loan for a building!
So on the one hand we have much to be grateful for in that the SBC isn’t being divided over homosexuality.
On the other hand, we have much to lament that we are being divided over alcohol policies.
We have avoided the ditch of liberalism but somehow fell into the ditch of legalism.
Is one ditch worse than the other? Is this what post-1979 SBC has become?