Faith Baptist Bible College has removed Saylorville [formerly Baptist] Church from its approved churches list

Why is a school approving churches in the first place? Churches should approve schools, not the other way around.

How disappointing of Faith. I have not seen anything yet that gives the impression Saylorville changed anything except the name. It seems to me they are still a Baptist church in doctrine and practice. Frankly, I have been convinced for sometime that, though I remain Baptistic in belief by biblical conviction, I no longer want to be identified with the label Baptist because of the ridiculous breadth of doctrine held by churches bearing the same. Would you rather be associated with Saylorville Church or Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe AZ or Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS - not to mention all of the Baptist churches who are more liberal than Faith?

OK I’ll say it. I agree with Alex for once, though JVDM has a point. There has to be a way that a school can protect its integrity, without giving the impression the school is the approver of churches.

I am part of a Fellowship where some churches would not have the word “Baptist” in their name even though they are Baptist in their theology s because of the American Baptist Churches in their area.

We have a Baptist church down the road from us that is pro-abortion, and pro-homosexual. They even had a lesbian pastor for a while. There is another Baptist church in our area that does have a lesbian pastor.

It is up to a church to determine their name, not a college. What happens if you graduate from this college and become the Pastor of a Bible church - do they revoke your degree?

@Shaynus- I think you meant Donn Arms, not Alex.

I applaud my alma mater for acting in a way that is consistent with their institutional position, which is clearly articulated in several position statements available for anyone to review here: http://www.faith.edu/about-faith/position-statements

I am sure this was not an easy decision to arrive at. Pat Nemmers, the Saylorville pastor, is a prominent figure in Iowa Regular Baptist circles, and during my time as a student there, was universally lauded and beloved, both for his ability as a communicator and his perseverance through personal trial. Saylorville has been, historically, one of the “default” congregations for students to attend, being, I believe, the second closest Regular Baptist church to the campus for most of the time since it relocated to Ankeny in the late 1960s. Pat’s predecessor, Ralph Turk, was one of my profs at Faith, and Joe Hayes, the current State Representative for the Iowa Association of Regular Baptist Churches, once served as pastor there.

Pat has been progressive in his practice in the last 10-15 years compared to most of the other pastors and churches in the association (which is among the most conservative groups in the GARBC). It is to Faith’s credit, I would argue, that a similar decision to this did not take place much sooner, simply due to competing philosophies of ministry. The differences in practice were certainly there, most prominently seen in music, but I would say not exclusively so.

As the document from Faith indicates, there is much to admire about Pat as well. He is fervent in his efforts to fuel evangelistic outreach. He has been a tremendous model as a father, and was an evident vessel of God’s grace when his first wife died unexpectedly.

But Faith has been one to champion, among other practices, the importance of identifying as “Baptist.” This Faith Pulpit article by George Houghton would articulate that position as well as anything. When I was a student circa 2000, a professor by the name of John Colyer was released mid-semester, because he left his pastoral role (ironically enough, at Saylorville) to take a similar position at a large Des Moines congregation known as Grace Church. So in many ways, this is nothing new or unprecedented.

Whether one agrees with Faith on the reasoning behind the principle, I believe you have to admire them for being consistent with their stated beliefs, even though it will have painful consequences. I think it would be fair to say that Saylorville under Pastor Nemmers is acting consistent with their philosophy and approach to ministry as well, and that they would have also anticipated these kind of consequences for members of their congregation before the decision was proposed.

[Donn R Arms]

Why is a school approving churches in the first place? Churches should approve schools, not the other way around.

I’d encourage everyone to read the full statement.

Approving churches in this case means churches that students and teachers are permitted to attend. It should be pretty easy to imagine reasons why a Bible college would want to do that.

I hope that it all works out well and Faith and IARBC and GARBC can amiably disagree on the point and otherwise work together as before.

I’m supportive of the idea that schools that have historically claimed a particular doctrinal tradition should maintain that tradition in both substance and name, whether it’s Baptist, Presbyterian, Reformed or whatever. These labels have historical significance and if there’s anything we need more of these days (especially in schools) its historical awareness. Not that there isn’t a downside to the labels as well. I’m not sure what the bottom line is. But I have to respect institutions that honor their roots.

It is up to a church to determine their name, not a college. What happens if you graduate from this college and become the Pastor of a Bible church - do they revoke your degree?

I guess I would expect that kind of a comment from a nondenominational institution grad… ;-)

Faith interacts with people other than Baptists. They have had speak on campus, in my own recollection, Paul S. Jones (from Tenth Presbyterian, Philadelphia), Bob Jones III, John Whitcomb, Charles Ryrie… I am sure there are others, but that is just off the top of my head. They also have been a member of the ACCC since the 1940s, I believe.

At the same time, like Jesse said, they exist to train Baptist pastors. They will accept some students in the area from other churches (or did, as I recall) on a limited basis, but by and large, in order to attend, you have to give a credible testimony, not only of salvation, but that you are a member in good standing of a Baptist congregation. Therefore, you also must attend a Baptist congregation while a student.

It is up to a congregation to determine their name, sure. It is up to a church to determine a great many things. If said church elected to practice the baptism of infants, I doubt some of you would have anywhere as near as much a problem if Faith reacted similarly (Donn Arms might, since he works with Jay Adams and all… :-) ). I understand why this issue may not rank high with most of you. It does with Faith, though, and is clearly a part of what makes them the institution they are. I am glad they have made this consistent decision, and I am not ashamed to identify as an alumnus (even if our basketball team did get rung up for 138 points by one guy…).

[Greg Linscott]

If said church elected to practice the baptism of infants, I doubt some of you would have anywhere as near as much a problem if Faith reacted similarly (Donn Arms might, since he works with Jay Adams and all… :-) ).

Hey, give me a little more time, Jay will come around.

So I have a few things I’d like to say but because I love FBBC and several of the leaders connected to it, I’ll need to have some private correspondence before I would say anything in public. I would encourage pastors who have had students at FBBC and S to do the same. I understand that in one sense because this has been made public it would be OK to comment publicly - I still think private correspondence first is the better road. At least for me. I’m trying to be more consistent with this - especially when this is with friends.

Straight Ahead!

jt

I dissent from what seems to be the majority opinion here. What’s the old quote — “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”? I read the entire statement, including the attempt to rationalize that this has always been the school’s position. But the history recited establishes only that the school has always required its students and faculty to attend Baptist churches. Nothing supports the claim that the policy has always been that the church has to not only be Baptist in its doctrine, incorporation, practice, and/or affiliation, but that it also has to have Baptist on the sign. The various comments above that stress that Faith has always been Baptist are missing the point. Saylorville Church is still Baptist, including in its GARBC affiliation and, apparently, in its legal name. Nothing has changed except the signage. (The statement makes no attempt to claim that Saylorville Church dropped Baptist from the name because it isn’t or doesn’t want to be Baptist anymore.) And for that, students and faculty who are part of that body, and have been for any number of years, now have to choose between the college and the church? C’mon, folks. That’s ridiculous. Which degree of separation is it when you separate over nothing other than a name?

The reality is that this situation has been brewing for a while. There are competing approaches to ministry (and have been for quite some time), and this is the place where it was brought to a head. Maybe it’s like Al Capone getting nailed for tax evasion, but there you go. Everyone knew what was coming, on both sides.

Illustration:

Christmas at FBBC:

http://youtu.be/qXJTeCoK8-g

Christmas at Saylorville:

http://youtu.be/fEadG0LQcuE

Greg, your are very right about the significant differences between Faith and Saylorville (as evidenced by their Christmas programs) But FBBC’s main public argument for separating is not because of their differing ministry and music styles, but because Saylorville doesn’t have Baptist on their church sign.

Yes, that is true- and as I observed, that has been an important issue to the school over its history. When I was a student (around 1999-2000), a popular professor by the name of John Colyer was removed from his classes mid-semester because he took a pastoral position in a church that had been founded as Des Moines Baptist, but was by that time known as Grace Church (and had been for quite some time)- and even previous to that, Grace was not on the list of approved churches for students to attend. So the action is not without some precedence.

Within the GARBC context itself, one can look at the history of the transition of Grand Rapids Baptist College to Cornerstone University to see why an issue like this is of concern if a school like Faith has a desire to maintain its institutional distinctives, measures like this seem prudent. A big issue with the Grand Rapids situation at the time of the transition (I lived in GR in those days and was in a GARBC church, though I never attended the school) was the push for students and faculty to be able to attend Calvary Church, pastored at the time by Ed Dobson, and quite literally almost adjacent to the school property.

In this case, the name (and changing the name, especially when one has had it in the title) is often indicative of changing ideas. There are conservative churches that don’t have “Baptist” in the tile and all that. I understand. At the same time, I also understand in their Iowa context, the name “Baptist” does still tend to mean something, and certainly would cause no more of a problem that would, say, “church.” Other preferable labels (say, “Bible Church”) tend to have a different significance in Iowa than they might elsewhere (example- http://www.openbible.org/about_history.aspx).

So, this is not necessarily a policy I would argue for universally for every church in every situation. But for the context of where Faith is- in Iowa, in the GARBC, and so on, it makes sense.

As it was said in an article linked on SI predicting the future of Churches in America [something like] “Baptist” will continue to be a meaningless term since almost any heretical doctrine and practice can be found in churches which call themselves “Baptist.” [Full disclosure: my daughter attended Faith and the Saylorville church a few years ago.]

I especially find this statement to be disingenuous:

We readily recognize Saylorville’s autonomous right to make their own choice to change their name. Our own Definition and Direction Statement celebrates the autonomy of the local church. We freely acknowledge that local churches are at liberty to make their own decisions and only ask that others acknowledge our own freedom to pursue intended consistency when we are faced with new events beyond our control.

However, Faith only exists to serve and promote local churches. But, they are now asking Professors, staff and students who are members at a local church to make a decision: either look for a new job or stick with the church they have served in for many years. If they really believe in the “autonomy of the local church” (one of the Baptist distinctives) and that the Saylorville church has not begun teaching false doctrine they would not ask their staff to make this decision. At worst they should grandfather in anyone who is already a member there and not approve of new memberships in churches that do not have “Baptist” in their name. If all of the Faith people leave Saylorville they probably will gut the leadership of the church. If all of the Saylorville people resign, it will hurt the college. They should have just let sleeping dogs lie.

I don’t know what this really will do to Faith. I am in total agreement with their “historic” position but using the name “baptist” in the name of a church is not a biblical requirement. I would think as long as a church clearly identifies itself as “baptistic” in its documents (and practice), they should accept it. If they don’t reexamine this position they may end up going the way of Pillsbury which narrowed their constituency so much they separated themselves out of existence. I do think a school can require its students (and faculty) to go to certain churches (e.g. I don’t think a prof at Faith should be free to join a RCC church or one of the liberal denominations) but the more tightly they regulate this issue the more they are meddling in the autonomy of the local church.

I just noticed their URL is still http://www.saylorvillebaptist.com/

Doesn’t that count for something? :-D