Observations About Those Who Are Still Here

Not disputing your experience. But #1, having experience with a GARBC or Baptist Network Northwest church or two is not necessarily indicative of the entire range of churches. If you go to my church, it isn’t necessarily what you’re going to get at Fourth Baptist, or Harvest: A Church of New Beginnings. Just remember that. I took a class with Dave Lunsford as one of my classmates. He is the Representative of the Baptist Network Northwest (for our purposes here, more or less the GARBC churches in the NW, though that isn’t precisely the best way to say it). What you describe is accurate for some of the churches, as he described it to me. On the other hand, he also said they have churches in their fellowship pastored by PCC grads who have a strong KJV preference and traditional Southern-ish music.

The FBFI is no different when it comes to variety. Not everyone is Mark Minnick, and not everyone is a Van Gelderen. There is a lot in between the extremes (and maybe my own assessment of the extremes is incomplete).

One question that we have to wrestle with is how does local church autonomy factor into decisions? The FBFI probably has less concern with a church having “Baptist in the name” than some on the conservative side of the GARBC or the fellowships in MN, IL, and WI. On the West Coast, you also have, well, the influence of West Coast Baptist College, which is on the other side from the FBFI than what you perceive in the GARBC. There’s the music issue… polity matters… Dispensationalism… to say nothing of what gets lumped by some into “Cultural Fundamentalism” (usually a pejorative term).

It’s just not as simple as saying “I’m a _____ guy.” Each group has som measure of variety within it… and in my assessment, that is generally healthy.

Yes, obviously generic characterizations are, well … generic. Still, my experience with the GARBC in general (in the MidWest and out here) is that it is not as far to the right as the FBFI guys are. I think you know what I mean. That is good in some cases, bad in others. Nobody is perfect, etc., etc. Yes, everybody is different. Yes, we all need to learn from each other, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. There! Now that we have the nice caveats out of the way. The general characterization stands. My journey through the different iterations of Baptist fundamentalism has allowed me to better appreciate the infamous Frontline article about “convergents,” even if I don’t completely agree with it.

Jim - go Maranatha.

Tyler,

A fellow pastor highlighted this statistic set to me yesterday:

Key Findings

The number of Minnesotans turning 65 in this decade (about 285,000) will be greater than the past four decades combined.
Around 2020, Minnesota’s 65+ population is expected to eclipse the 5-17 K-12 population, for the first time in history.
The total number of older adults (65+) is anticipated to double between 2010 and 2030, according to our projections. By then, more than 1 in 5 Minnesotans will be an older adult, including all the Baby Boomers.

Source: https://mn.gov/admin/demography/data-by-topic/aging/

What is this going to mean for churches like ours?

I think, among other things, if we are going to grow and reach the populations that live where we do, it’s going to mean more of getting out of our comfort zone than less. In Marshall, a town of just over 13,000, we have growing populations of Asians (Hmong, Karen…) Somali, Nepalese, Hispanics… Our church has connected with one of those groups, but there are many we have not. I know of fewer than 10 churches like ours who are doing those kind of things, and most of those are in metro areas. We have to do better.

We are gathering around issues like MLWj mentioned, like music. And to some degree, I get that, and it may even be necessary. But in the past, a variety of Baptists got together to support foreign missions and enable domestic church planting. These issues dividing us aren’t insignificant, but they shouldn’t completely separate us from collaboration. We may not always be able to sing together, or do camp, but why can’t we benefit one another with theological classroom instruction, or Bible translation, or missions structure and support at an institutional level? The churches we establish aren’t all likely to be either “traditional” or “progressive” as we currently define them give another decade or two, anyway. They’ll be multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and speaking from experience, will be harder to direct and fence in because of it. America is getting browner. The wars and fights we’re having, to be blunt, are more or less “white problems.” Some of these things will be similarly battled out (our Karen have their own kind of translation battle among them, for example)—but it isn’t going to be exactly like what we face here and now.

Also, when it comes to things like music, there has to be some room for change. I don’t just mean toleration of drums and guitars, though how we parse that out may be part of it. I’ve seen just as many sharp reactions from people who resent the discarding of old fashioned gospel songs, and react sharply to the more “high church” types like Scott Aniol. Even the conservative music scene doesn’t look like it did in the 1980s. There are different voices using different kinds of arguments. Part of what has enabled that development has been a commitment to local church autonomy.

So, while the general characterizations may be there (and those vary a lot geographically—compare the GARBC in Iowa to the GARBC in Pennsylvania, for example), they are still general, and they are very much in flux. Compare Central, Faith, Maranatha, Baptist College of Ministry, Detroit… there are common principles, but still a lot of variance between them. A lot.
I’m arguing we need to be more intentional about overlap, and taking deliberate steps to keep the various strands intertwined.

Let us remember that the FBFI is not a group of churches but a group of individuals who subscribe to a magazine. When the only requirement for membership is a magazine subscription there is bound to be a diversity we can only imagine. We definitely cannot assume that every subscriber is in agreement with the FBFI. What we do know is the mindset of the leadership.

Greg,

Appreciated your comments in the posts above, and will try to keep a ‘long-ball’ perspective on the FBFI as you suggested. I’ve followed the FBFI since ‘96 so it has taken me a long time to get to the point I have. Maybe things will change; I can hope but I very much doubt. We shall see.

Going back to the post above and the need for cooperation…I still have a major question. In one of the many, many threads on music, the question became a point-blank ‘would you cooperate on a church plant with someone who had different music standards than you?’. I and a few others said that we would and could accommodate that, and those of us who believed in a more…traditional?…service said that they would not cooperate with us.

I mentioned that I disagreed with Dr. Ward on a few things, and this is one of them. He specifically called out traditional music as one of his fundamental values in his article. That’s fine and I respect that he has a different conviction on that. Many of my friends from NBBC and BJU feel that way as well.

So I have a really, really hard time reconciling this desire for ‘fundamentalist ecumenism’ in order to plant churches and such at the same time some of my brethren’s zeal to defend the fundamental doctrines of traditional BJU/Wilds/DBTS/etc Baptist culture.

In an ideal world, I would hope that the FBFI would support those efforts as well, but instead they have deemed people like myself as convergents and in error. As a result, I have moved towards the conservative evangelical side of things, simply because they would have me and the FBFI brethren would not.

Do you see the dynamic in play here, and why the music discussions here are far from the waste of time that many may think they are? More importantly…is there any kind of workaround or bridge that can be built back so that we can work together again? I would think that FBFI-type fundamentalists would prioritize planting churches and evangelism/discipleship over music, but that frankly doesn’t seem possible anymore.

I just read what you wrote. No kidding. I don’t think you understand what I’m writing. I never wrote anything that would give the impression I’m all for a reactionary step backward, a return to 1950s Americana Christianity, or a blind loyalty to a monolithic, fundamentalist ideal which allows no room for individual expression. Not sure what you’re driving at. I agree with you. This should go without saying. Goodness, look at my comments here!

I’m saying I can now appreciate some of what the FBFI is anxious about. Not all. Some. Doesn’t mean I agree with everything.

Tyler,

I’m not saying you agree with everything. If anything, I’m focusing more on the GARBC end of your comments and just being rambly-pastor. :)

[TylerR]

My recent experience with the GARBC in the Pacific NW is that, generally speaking, some of them are a basically indistinguishable from conservative evangelicalism. There is a more casual approach to dress for corporate worship, the music is different (to greater and lesser extent), personal separation is not emphasized, and evangelism is not emphasized. These are generic observations from a very narrow sphere, so take that into consideration - but the point is that the GARBC out here are basically not fundamentalists, in the sense that I’m used to understanding the term. Hear this, though:

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For my part, I’d love to see a lot more discussion on what constitutes good evangelism--e.g. here—and a lot less on dress and music as it’s typically argued. Regarding attire, my take is that once the torso and upper thigh are basically covered—granted not a gimme even in most fundamental churches—I really am not terribly worried about what someone wears to church, especially given James 2:1-8. Exactly how do we insist on suit and tie when God tells us how to treat a person in rags at our church? Sorry, I just can’t go there. Too many people have been pushed away from the church by this kind of thing.

Regarding music, as much as I love old music—yes, including Gregorian chant and 16th century songs of the Reformation, and sometimes I even tolerate camp meeting songs while despising most CCM—I cannot reconcile most calls for “traditional” church music with Psalms 149 and 150. Contrary to some of the FBFI statements about modern music being too “emotional” or “sensual”, it seems that music in the Temple had enough emotional component in it to set peoples’ feet to dancing. Even today, Jews will dance with the synagogue Torah as they celebrate God giving it to Moses. So while yes, music ought to engage the mind, it’s got to engage the heart, too. I don’t think we joke about our feet being nailed to the floor because we’re being obedient to these Psalms, to put it mildly.

And come to think of it, dancing with the Scriptures just might be a great way of communicating the goodness of the Gospel, don’t you think?