Minnesota Baptist Association Board Withdraws Approval from NIU

[Jim]

Seems like a weird way for the MBA to issue a news item … via the Religious Affections site. Is R/A the “the official organ” of the MBA?

Also … so easy to be misunderstood.

Comments?

Kevin reported on his own. We haven’t issued anything official publicly. Kevin didn’t do anything inappropriate, but I suppose no one in the MBA leadership (President, State Missionary) found the matter significant enough to intentionally publicize the decision online.

If anyone cares, we also started funding a church planter (Steve Gilbertson- http://www.pouredoutforhim.org/about/the-gilbertsons/). This is somewhat significant because he was originally sent out from a Regular Baptist congregation and still has Regular Baptist connections (http://marbc.org/church-planters.html), though he now has transferred his membership to an MBA church.

We also have a state missionary who has expressed his desire to retire. Oh, and two new pastors of MBA congregations were introduced. One isn’t even a Central grad. :)

But there you go.

RE the significance/insignificance question concerning the MBA Board decision not to approve NIU, I would agree with mmartin and Don Johnson that there is significance here. On the surface there would appear to be some inconsistency or discrepancy especially, as Johnson says, some of the men on the board approved Phil Johnson for the men’s fellowship group. I realize that Phil would “be a blessing” to the men, but undoubtedly so also would NIU be to its students, if receiving a blessing is the criterion. It was once held in Minnesota that the MBA, Pillsbury College and Central Seminary were somewhat the “three-fold cord that was not easily broken” (Ecc 4:12). Obviously it has been broken, perhaps not always easily, given its long history of activity, standing resolutions and the like. I confess that it has been personally painful for me to watch the fragmentation of the “cord.”

As Greg L explained above:

• The MBA really doesn’t approve schools (my comment about approved schools being on their website … and Greg L’s comment that the concept has a “short shelf life”
• The MBA really doesn’t give scholarships - again Greg L: “the Annual Ladies Fellowship has for years taken an offering for a scholarship awarded to one or two (I forget) young women.” Conclusion: not significant
• Not an action by the messengers but a board decision to deal with a specific situation with probably a small amount of money
• Not announced by the MBA. Indeed it strikes me that some in the MBA surprised it was even announced at all.
• You could just as well spin this as “The MBA board chooses NOT to approve of BJU”!

It’s a non-story!

The MBA and educational institutions …. the Pillsbury debacle (my characterization).

Why did you post the link?

[Don Johnson]

Why did you post the link?

Why is it so important to you to be a “story”?

[Rolland McCune]

I realize that Phil would “be a blessing” to the men, but undoubtedly so also would NIU be to its students, if receiving a blessing is the criterion.

Dr. McCune,

That is an intentional oversight- mentioning only one portion of a larger statement. It would be just as easy to read some kind of negative inference into the “somewhat” comment in this sentence:

It was once held in Minnesota that the MBA, Pillsbury College and Central Seminary were somewhat the “three-fold cord that was not easily broken” (Ecc 4:12).

I choose to read it charitably, though, because I respect you and your contribution to the cause of Christ. If you choose not to read mine in kind, that is fine.

It seems to me, though, when people express concern with the decision/invitation, it boils down to the associations of John MacArthur. An example of documented reasoning goes something like this (from John Ashbrook’s The New Neutralism II):

John MacArthur’s contribution to new evangelicalism is to cross all barriers and bridge all gaps in diverse fellowship. He has spoken in Southern Baptist circles at such places as Memphis’ Bellevue Baptist Church with Dr. Adrian Rogers and in the First Baptist Church of Atlanta with Dr. Charles Stanley, He was a Pastors’ Conference speaker prior to the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans, He serves on the Board of Moody Bible Institute and has been a frequent speaker at Moody Founder’s Week and Pastors’ Conference. He has spoken for R.C. Sproul, Jerry Falwell and various General Association of Regular Baptist Churches. He has been a featured speaker at Wheaton College, Cedarville College, Dallas Theological Seminary, California Graduate School of Theology, Word of Life, Tennessee Temple University and the National Fellowship of Conservative Baptists. I list these names to show that his speaking engagements range from supposed fundamentalists to confessed new evangelicals.

In some ways, I understand the concern. At the same time, my understanding is JMC is on record saying he will speak the truth anywhere. I can understand the discomfort some have- but at the same time, speaking does not mean you endorse everything an institution stand for. I have heard you speak, for example, at an ACCC meeting- and I was blessed by what I heard. I didn’t assume, however, that you endorsed the variant positions on eschatology and baptism held by some in the room.

In the quote from Dr. Ashbrook above, JMC speaking in “various” GARBC venues is mentioned as a concern. Yet, less than a month ago, Inter-City was hosting the National Talents for Christ GARBC event, and Dave Doran is a headline speaker at the National Conference in Dearborn. Is that “cord” unraveling as well?

It seems to me that we can recognize that we may not parse separation out as precisely alike as the other, while still appreciating and benefiting from the contributions they might have (especially in a conference kind of setting). To argue that JMC and those who identify with the congregation and schools he serves in ought to be dismissed as being in the same broad, compromising category as Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer is just bad reasoning. It’s akin to saying that Dave Doran and Fred Phelps are both Fundamental Baptists.

MacArthur and company have been about as outspoken on defending important aspects of the faith as anyone could be in our setting over the last 20-30 years- issues like Charismatic/cessationist theology (recent case in point), Young earth Creationism, Biblical Counseling, Expository Preaching (who has championed it more, I ask you?), dispensational eschatology… and that’s just a start to the list.

In a broad movement that has room under the tent for variant positions on Baptism, Soteriology, Bibliology (just to name a few), I find it confusing that we demand so much consistency and adherence to how separation is applied to determine who is “in” the movement. At the end of the day, I don’t know how comfortable I would be at Grace Community Church. I am reasonably certain, however, that I would be more comfortable there than at a church like Danny Sweatt’s, let’s say.

Separation is an important issue- but the application of it is complicated.

I agree that separation is an important issue. It’s just that when I read statements like John Ashbrook’s I find myself asking which kind of separation? Statements like that seem to strongly suggest that separation from “disorderly” brethren is just as important as separation from apostasy. I would hope not, but I’ve seen certain separatists apparently make no difference between JMac and Joel Osteen.

[Don Johnson]

Why did you post the link?

Why? Courtesy to Don Johnson who submitted it

Seemed like something but upon further review it is insignificant

[Jim]

[Don Johnson]

Why did you post the link?

Why? Courtesy to Don Johnson who submitted it

Seemed like something but upon further review it is insignificant

LOL. Now this makes more sense. I did not realize that Don Johnson himself had submitted this “story.”

Submission:

Fundamentalism by blunt instrument, indeed.

Of course, Don’s already gone on record as telling people not to send their kids to Northland, so this story/nonstory was probably welcome news to him at the time.

Jim, if you had put an HT to me at the beginning or not, it doesn’t matter. It really isn’t important who called the matter to your attention. I am sure that many of your Filings items are brought to your attention by others.

And it may be that this story isn’t that important in the overall scheme of things. It may not be a big story. But to call it a non-story?

KTB thought it was a story, he posted the link to it on Religious Affections. I think there is something to it. I posted a link to KTB’s post on P&D and forwarded it on to you.

I’ll admit that I didn’t notice it directly, someone forwarded the link on to me. Doesn’t matter who. Does it make it any less of a story?

It sounds like Greg doesn’t think it is that big a deal, but the fact remains that a change was made. I see nothing in what Greg has said here to assume that there was no reason for the change. It wasn’t just “oh well, we probably won’t be giving out scholarships at all in a few years, let’s start whittling down the list of schools… any ideas who to start with? Northland, OK, got to start somewhere…”

Instead, a change was made in response to the current specific situation that NIU finds itself in. The MBA is sufficiently concerned to remove NIU from its list.

As I said, maybe its not a big story, but it is a part of the bigger story of the current controversy over NIU.

Have you asked your pastor what he thinks of it?

I didn’t say there weren’t concerns. I just don’t think the issue is as significant as other events that have happened in the larger story- such as Olson’s removal from the GARBC conference docket, let’s say. In the interests of full disclosure, I voted in favor of the decision. This is a low-profile matter, though. I would guess that the majority of people in MBA congregations weren’t even aware of the scholarships being offered, much less that we are no longer letting them be applied to NIU.

This isn’t something that we’re hiding- it’s just not something that’s been considered to this point something we felt was worthy of a great deal of attention. We have a resolutions committee, and nothing has been stated on it there. We have a publication, and it has not been addressed in its pages. We have a website, and nothing and been posted on the matter there. If we wanted to censure or “mark and avoid,” we have the venues to do so at our disposal.

The MBA is sufficiently concerned to remove NIU from its list.

Actually the leadership of the MBA did this. It was not an action taken by the MBA as a group.

I do agree that there is nothing to see here.

[Don Johnson]

Have you asked your pastor what he thinks of it?

Answer: No. I have had a brief conversation with him about Northland but actually I don’t remember much about it.