Feeding Sheep

by    T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                                                            Vol. IV, No. 4, May 1991

The Banner wants to thank The Religious Herald for printing in its 2 May issue the list of 105 Virginia churches which reported at least 25 baptisms during 1990. Saving souls (and discipling new believers) is what we should all be about, and the Herald has done a service in spotlighting those churches that were successful above the Virginia average last year.

As is often the case with facts and figures, some study and analysis fleshes out their significance. Comparing these 105 churches with my "infamous" computer data shows the following:

– Four of the 105 churches are without pastors, and seven have pastors whose theological and political stance are unknown to me. These 11 churches are not included in computing the percentages below.

– All six of the churches recording over 100 baptisms have pastors who are theologically conservative. Of those six, three pastors are actively supportive of the conservative resurgence within the SBC and Virginia, while the other three neither actively support or oppose it.

– Of the top 25 churches, 19 (79.17%) have theologically conservative pastors; 5 (20.83%) have pastors who oppose the conservative resurgence and whose theology in most cases may be presumed to be moderate to liberal. One pastor's stance is unknown.

– Of the next 25 (numbers 26 - 50), 12 Or 57.14% are theological conservatives; 9 or 42.86% oppose conservative efforts; one is unknown; and one church is open.

– Of churches 51-75, 15 pastors are theologically conservative for 71.43%; 6 (28.57%) are opposed; 2 are unknown; and 2 churches are open.

– Of the final 30 churches, 14 pastors are theologically conservative (53.85%); 12 are presumably moderate to liberal (46.15%); 3 are unknown; and one church is without a pastor.

– Of the total 94 churches which have pastors of known position, 60 or 63.83% are theologically conservative while 34 or 36.17% oppose conservatives.

– Adding the total number of baptisms for (1) all the conservative pastors and (2) all the presumably moderate to liberal pastors gives us 2,796 to 1,200, a grand total of 3,996. Based on total baptisms, conservatives accounted for 69.97%, the others for only 30.03%.

Pastors who preached the Bible as the inerrant, infallible, perfect written Word of God led almost twice the percentage (and more than twice the number) of souls to the Lord as did the others. Actually, the situation may be even more lopsided than these figures indicate. Some of those pastors I record as opposing conservative efforts regarding the controversy may be theologically conservative even though they vote against the conservative resurgence, and so should be included in the first group. But not knowing of which, if any, this may be true, I did not include any allowance for that type of split orientation.

As Nancy Ammerman notes in her book, Baptist Battles, in the pulpit "fundamentalists excelled" (p. 181) and "Moderates ... were less likely to host revivals and evangelistic crusades..." (p. 182). These differences are borne out in the facts presented above.

If the pastor does not believe the Bible is infallible, his imperative to win souls will inevitably wither. It may take years. It may be so gradual that even he doesn't notice for some time, but his outlook will steadily become more expressive of his own experience, his own judgment, and progressively less founded on "thus saith the Lord." He will gradually come to rationalize biblical miracles, and his explanation of salvation will move toward works and social responsibility with less and less teaching about sin, guilt, and grace.

As the above data demonstrate, sheep go where they are fed on the infallible Word of God. As the Southern Baptist Convention continues to move back to its historical belief in and implementation of the Bible as inspired in all it says on any subject, many more lost sheep will be saved and God's name will be glorified in a way not seen in the last fifty years.