A Baptist’s Views

by   T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                                                 Vol. XVIII, No. 2, February 2005

Recently I received an email from a gentleman here in Virginia sending me his new address and phone number. Having done that, he included some interesting comments about Southern Baptist shortcomings, which I quote below for your consideration.

“There is a real lack of courage in the convention which, I believe if not dealt with, will result in the same kind of backsliding we saw in years past. I already see a startling gap between preaching and practice even in so-called conservative SBC churches. We preach against the world but allow the youth to dress, act, and talk like the world. We preach on modesty and allow fashion in church which would have been seen as harlot-like only 40 years ago. We preach on teen purity but encourage romper-room dating practices which are sure to tempt our youth to failure. We preach against the flesh and the world but promote Christian musicians and music which are clearly doing everything they can to look, sound, and act like the world. We proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture as one of our fundamentals of the faith but most “conservative” pastors I know are silent on specifics in many of these areas – to include education.

“I fear that we are still so busy trying to remind ourselves and the world of our victory over the liberal slide and saving the convention that we are missing the fact that the same thing is happening again.”