I believe southern baptist churches, and the church as a whole are embracing a candied form of liberalism. This particular strain of liberalism is known as pragmatism. Like candy, it is appealing to the eyes and sweet to the taste; however, like candy, it rots that which is more precious for a mere satisfaction of the senses. What good is it friend if you’ve got a 10,000 person church, but the King of glory doesn’t view you as a church, you aren’t guiding the saints to maturity, and no lost person can tell where his conduct ends and yours begins? For the sake of numbers, prestige, popularity, plaques, and applause churches are rotting from the inside out only to satisfy their carnal senses, rather than the holy senses of a righteous God.
Is the Scripture sufficient… a pragmatist would tell you it is… so, let me rephrase my question. Are the methods that the prophets, apostles, and Jesus used sufficient for saving the lost? A pragmatist would tell you “yes”, but then deny this very reply and seek another method. It is the same as the liberalism we battled up to the conservative resurgence. At least, however, the liberals admitted their denial of sola scriptura, for the pragmatists say they believe the Bible is inerrant, and then deny it through their actions. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a sugar-filled candy with a proclamation of being sugarless, a prostitute of another state claiming to be a virgin in yours. It is despicable and wretched. It is a hypocritical approach to ministry.
I fear not the liberals due to their outright denial of the inerrancy of Scripture. What I fear is those who deceive with their lips, and then outright deny by their actions. Which is true? The sufficiency of Scripture or that God didn’t give us all that we need for worship, and the salvation, and maturing of souls? It can’t be both. Stand with me friend, for we all know that if our churches simply were pursuing the knowledge of the full counsel of God, and applying that knowledge, then we would see revival. And, this revival would be true revival, not the fake stuff, not the stuff that claims to be revial today; on the contrary, it would be by God’s power, and not by man’s innovation. The end result of pragmatism is the rejection of sola scriptura, unmatured saints, and a blurred line between Satan’s kingdom and God’s. Let us seek to bring the church’s purpose back to God’s standard one verse at a time.
Tags: baptist, christian, liberalism, Pragmatism
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Amen brother! This is exactly why we stopped doing altar calls. They are a made up way to get people saved (started in the 1820′s) with no biblical basis whatsoever.
People don’t realize that many of the practices we take for granted are merely the leftover vestiges of previous generation’s church marketing schemes.