Breaking the Cycle

by    Gary Ledbetter                                                                                                                                      Vol. IV, No. 6, August 1991

A while back I heard someone describe our denomination as "wandering in the wilderness," a reference to the exodus of Israel from Egypt. I suppose the idea was that some felt (and feel) that they had been cast out of one home and had not yet crossed over into the better place. At the time I discounted the analogy as self-indulgent whining and it was that, but I am beginning to see some merit in the analogy as Southern Baptists turn from a transitional era of our history.

The terms "exile" and "wandering" have been used so much in recent years that we first need to be reminded what the exodus actually was. It was foremost a freeing of God's people from slavery. They prayed for deliverance and then were dismayed at the form it took. The wandering aspect of this epoch had to do with the judgment of God on a faithless generation. The wanderers were the ones who grumbled against God until it became clear that they would never be able to make the changeover from slavery to responsibility. The wandering and the exile were both from God. I'm not sure that this is the picture that SBC moderates wanted us to see when they captured the rhetoric of the going out.

If we can continue in this vein, Southern Baptists as a larger body are nearing the end of our time as nomads. Perhaps we have come to the Jordan and are ready to claim the things that God has set aside for us. Our period of slavery came upon us imperceptibly as we tried to be like other denominations or tried to impress those who did not share our vision. We looked around one day and discovered that we were plateaued and didn't know why. We had become more like others in a way that our leaders did not foresee. With the participation of greater numbers of our people things began to change and we headed home. Those who had formerly led still did not understand the change, and they wavered between trying to stay ahead of the group and trying to turn us back to Egypt. Now they have gone marching off into the sunset like a small band of lemmings toward the sea. The struggle between past and future is decided, but the decisions we make will continue to be crucial if we do not want to repeat this cycle with the same predictability that characterized Israel.

One way we might break out of the cycle will be to continue to listen to godly people whom God has touched with effective ministry. These visionaries had the courage to speak the unpopular truth years ago. They may be the very ones who will continue to see the excesses of the new consensus of Southern Baptists. That is not the way we usually work, though. There is a tendency for us to cast off those who have been catalysts of change as too controversial for a kinder, gentler period of growth. If I've heard it once, I've heard twenty times this year that one person or another "carries too much political baggage" or is "too controversial" to be used for anything from pastor of our church to a conference speaker to committee chair. Some of these were board members during days when they were outnumbered and held in contempt. Some got their names in the papers and were accused of all manner of evil. To this day I hear statements made about individuals that are based on rumor and bitterness. Some have followed God at a great price during the last decade. There should not be a system of political rewards in the SBC, but neither should we begin to disrespect and fear the courage that we praised God for only last year. To put it another way, I agree that the time has come to widen the tent of SBC leadership to include more people of good will and sound doctrine. I just don't think that we should cast off those who have been our tentpoles in the process.

Another danger will soon appear if we stay in the habit of fighting. There is incredible diversity among conservative Baptists and among moderate Baptists. There are several variations of eschatological belief, for example. Some beliefs are more common among conservatives, but it's not just one belief. Will we ever come to the point that we must fight or divide over this disagreement? I doubt it, but eschatology is a point at which we must accept diversity. We have got to consider carefully those things that we allow to divide us. In the past we have gone to the extreme of accepting too much and taking too much for granted, and that led us to ruin. I fear that we will make the opposite mistake in trusting no one and accepting no differences. I do not expect that the most harmonious of our conventions will be characterized by unanimous votes. It's not necessary. I don't believe that the soundest of our trustee boards should agree with each other or with the staff they supervise on every matter. But can the majority learn to listen respectfully to other thoughts, and can the minority live with losing some issues without becoming downcast? Some predict, gleefully, the "fundamentalists will always fragment" because they care less about truth than about winning. I don't think it's necessary for us to go that way.

It is also important for us to keep our focus on something bigger than ourselves. Generations after the rebellion of Korah, those whose fathers stood with the Lord that day said "give us a king so that we can be like other nations" and a short time later the kingdom was bitterly divided. They stopped worrying about being the people of God and a nation of priests, and they started worrying about comfort and safety and status. One of the reasons that God has allowed us to keep our convention whole is that some, many, have earnestly sought us to turn back to our devotion to God in prayer. Another is the inseparable emphasis placed on evangelism. Loving God and loving people. We will be tempted again to do only those things we can organize and accomplish. We will begin to fear those who question the status quo. There will be a certain amount of inertia for our body to ease up and be like others. We will not give in to that temptation if we continue to acknowledge the call to prayer and continue to verbally share the gospel with those we meet.

God has done a unique and miraculous thing in sparing our convention for continued usefulness. Other denominations have tried and failed to turn around. The fact that He did this among us leads me to believe that we are not bound or determined to continue in the cycle of obedience-judgment-repentance. We don't have to go back into slavery or wander around until we lose the most recent crop of visionless leaders. We must cross over and claim the land that God has placed before us, but we must also never lose our fear of our lost years in the desert.

[From Indiana Baptist, 4 June 1991, p. 2. Individual subscriptions are $6 per year. Write: Indiana Baptist; P.O. Box 24189; Indianapolis, IN 46221.]