I closed my blog that dealt with SBC issues some time ago. Not wanting to lose all the posts, I’m re-publishing some of them here with the date they were originally posted.
A few days ago I wrote,
“I received an email from a friend who pointed to a couple of SBC churches in Oklahoma that no longer require baptism – of any kind – for church membership. He wanted to know what I thought.
My first thoughts included: They’re heretics; burn them at the stake! Two is not a trend. It depends on what is meant by “membership”.
I probably ought to think about this in the morning rather than at midnight. It’s now the next day and I realize I have some questions; I need more information.”
Let me be clear, in case Pastor Newkirk is reading this, the “heretics” comment was an attempt at self-deprecating humor: it was meant to reflect on my knee-jerk reaction and not what I thought about HHBC.
More recently (in the comment thread at Caught in the Middle) I wrote:
The pastor of HHBC wrote, “Even IF the baptism change was adopted, to be a teacher, deacon, associate pastor, or elder, a person would have to be a BAPTIZED member. Nonmembers can worship, fellowship, learn and be loved.”
It seems to me all HHBC is proposing is the creation of a new class or stage of membership.
One can be a non-member who attends regularly, a member who is regenerate but does not agree with all of the church’s doctrinal statement, or a full-fledged member (my term, not theirs) who is able to teach and/or serve in some leadership capacity.
The more I think about it, the more I like this approach. I suspect that if the proposal was to allow people who have not been baptized to become “affiliate” or “associate” members, they could achieve the same thing (allowing individuals to identify with the church even though they may not have been dunked) without all the hoopla.
For me, the issue is meaningful membership, not a proper view of baptism. I’m not ready to propose to my pastor that our church consider the same thing; neither am I willing to say to another congregation they can’t or shouldn’t.
I’m far more concerned with inflated membership rolls and statements about inactive members being potential converts than this issue.
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