Trends In American Religion

by Dr. J. Michael Palmer                                                                                                                                                    Vol. IX, No. 8, September 1996

[Mike Palmer is pastor of Green Ridge Baptist Church, Roanoke. This article is reprinted from the September 1996 issue of The Mustard Seed, the newsletter of the Blue Ridge Conservative Fellowship.]

           Did you read the recent Baptist Press release entitled "Trends in American Religion?" I won't address the whole article, but something in it struck me. In the discussion about an increased leadership role for women, Leon McBeth is quoted as saying that a "church or denomination that rejects women from leadership roles will forfeit the future." In the same paragraph McBeth speaks of the practice of Baptist churches "routinely having women deacons in the past." This may be so, but that is not the issue.

           The issue is how are we going to respond to the Bible as the guide for the Church as it attempts to reach society with the Gospel. If you desire to be honest with the Word of God, and yet you desire to reach people, certainly you will be in the vise of the world and the Word. But the question is which one are you going to follow? THE WORD OF GOD! Now I am not suggesting that all would see the question of women serving as pastors and deacons the same way as I do, but the article implies that a church or denomination should compromise their convictions in order to be relevant to the twenty-first century. That's hogwash!

           I would say that any church or denomination that compromises the Word of God will forfeit the future! Certainly we desire to be in touch with people and their needs, but if we compromise the Word of God, we will lose the very message we seek to give!

           Our own Baptist Press folks have [in the past] caricatured the conservative stand on women not serving in pastoral and diaconate roles as being narrow and unrealistic. Yet those who [oppose women in such functions] are simply trying to follow the Bible. We do not have to compromise the Bible in order to reach our friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and a lost world with the Gospel! The commitment to the word of God is what gives the church the compulsion to reach the lost in the twenty-first century. If we forfeit the Bible we will certainly forfeit the future!