Useful Church History

Here are ten stories from Church History that I tend to use in my ministry as the pastor of a local church. They are not listed in any particular order:

1. Monica of Hippo and Her Son Augustine: Augustine was a little hellion. He grew up to be a big hellion. His mother, the pious Monica, despaired of seeing his redemption from a life of squalor and dissipation. She was tempted to throw in the towel until her pastor told her, "Woman, the child of so many tears shall never perish." I don't know that this is always true, but it proved to be true in the life of Augustine, who was converted and became…well…Augustine!

   I use this story with mothers who are worried about their children. By telling it I try to encourage them to continue to pray for their children and never to abandon the hope that God might turn them around.

2. William Carey's Call to Ministry and Early Work: William Carey wasn't exactly the hottest commodity among Baptist churches in the midland counties. It took a lot of convincing to get a small church to call him as their pastor. But his sheer indefatigability carried him a long way. Of course, the calling of God eventually sent him to India, where he labored seven years without a single convert in spite of severe emotional and physical loss. Unbeknownst to him or to those who supported his ministry, those seven years laid the foundation for one of the most successful missionary stories in the modern age.

   I use this story to encourage church members to stay the course in ministry situations that are difficult. I used it extensively as we were preparing to adopt a UUPG in Senegal, wanting our church to understand that we might not see immediate results, but that it is important to persevere even if we do not.

3. Thomas Helwys's Decision to Return to England: The early English Baptists weren't in England at all. They had fled to the environs of Amsterdam to escape persecution in England. Thomas Helwys fell under the conviction that he had abandoned his preaching post—that he owed it to his homeland to declare the true gospel to his countrymen. He did not do so unobtrusively; he penned a missive to King James on the subject of religious liberty entitled "A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity." As thanks for his effort, James I cast Helwys into Newgate Prison, where he died after a few years of imprisonment.

   I use this story to inspire people regarding the debt we owe our neighbors to proclaim the gospel to them. Also, it works in any circumstance in which we need to instill courage in believers.

4. Hugh & Anne Bromhead's Letter: In the earliest days of the English Baptist movement, a member of a local Baptist church wrote a letter to a concerned family member trying to explain this strange new sect to which they belonged. The letter contains a full description of a typical Lord's Day in the life of this congregation, including hours upon hours of preaching and Bible study.

   I find this letter to be useful whenever anyone says that my preaching is too long. :-)

   Also, whenever I have church members who have come to regard our Sunday schedule as an ancient sacrament, it is helpful to be able to show not only an older form of worship, but an older BAPTIST form of worship (arguments from the Gallican Mass aren't often persuasive in SBC circles, nor should they be).

5. John Chrysostom's Conflict with Empress Eudoxia: The great golden-tongued preacher did not have a good relationship with the Byzantine Empress Eudoxia (perhaps because he had compared her to Herodias?). Although her rage against him was harsh and eventually forced him into exile, he never backed down.

   Again, like Thomas Helwys, John Chrysostom is an example of Christian courage. But his is courage of a different kind. Helwys's is the story of an outsider who courageously proclaimed the truth although it cost him his life. Chrysostom's is the story of an insider who refused to be seduced by wealth and power. That's a different kind of courage, but it is courage all the same. I use this story to encourage people to be courageous and to resist corruption when tempted by wealth, fame, or power.

6. Lottie Moon: Lottie Moon didn't start out looking like a missionary in the making. Even when she first went to China, she appeared simply to be following her sister there. The sister didn't make it, but Lottie did. Opportunities for romance, for furlough, or for greater personal comfort did not finally succeed in diverting her attention from her efforts. She is the martyred saint of Southern Baptist missionary work.

   I use her story to promote an offering we collect every Christmas for our missionaries.

7. Francis Asbury during the American Revolution: Early Methodism was, after all, a movement within Anglicanism, and Anglicanism, in turn, was the Church of where? England! When the Americans declared their independence against the British Crown, most Anglican clergy and nearly every Methodist preacher booked passage back to Mother England. Francis Asbury did not. He stayed on and consequently became the most influential man in American Methodist history.

   I use this story to illustrate how much ministry credibility can be won by a pastor's endurance through difficult times. Perseverance and shared suffering forge strong bonds that are useful in later ministry endeavors.

8. Roger Williams and Obadiah Holmes: Williams and his "Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience" made an important case in both the Americas and Great Britain for religious liberty. The story of Obadiah Holmes's savage treatment for conducting Baptist ministry in the Massachusetts Bay Colony became Exhibit A in the evidentiary argument against religious persecution.

   I use this story to help my church members to remember that religious liberty was not won for us by politicians in a constitutional convention. Also, I point them to Roger Williams's brilliant rationale for determining which laws are permissible to the state and which ones are violations of religious conscience.

9. Manz, Grebel, and Blaurock, together with Various Anabaptist Martyrdom Stories: The treatment of Anabaptist reformers was horrific. That so much of it came at the hands not of Catholics but of other so-called "Reformers" made it only that much more perverse. Particularly the role of Zwingli is disturbing. He chased to their deaths his own students, and that for their doing what he had taught them to do—to study the Bible and obey it. The drownings and burnings were not, in the end, able to bring an utter end to the onward march of truth.

   I use these stories to help people to understand their relationships with me sometimes. They have the obligation to let me point them to God's Word. They have the obligation to leave me behind if God's Word leads them further than I am willing to go.

10. The Early Beginnings of the Great Western Revival at the Gasper River Church: I love the way that revival came in the midst of a Lord's Supper service. And this wasn't just some touchy-feely wide-open Koolaid and Oatmeal Pies communion service like might be popular today. This was a communion service preceded by pastoral visitation and church discipline and good, sound ecclesiology. I love that attentiveness to the doctrine of the church was the precursor to spiritual awakening.

    I use this story sometimes to open someone's eyes to an understanding of the role of the pastor, the role of the ordinances, and the obligations of church membership that may be far different from any understanding of those things that they have ever considered before. To see how those basics—fulfilling the role of spiritual overseer over a flock, calling people to repentance and spiritual preparation for worship—might lead to revival is, I think, an important contribution that this story makes.

I do not allege that these are the best stories in Church History. I do not allege that they are the ten stories that I OUGHT to have used the most in ministry. But for the circumstances that have come my way in local church ministry and for the stories that have stuck sufficiently with me for me to be able to use them on a moment's notice, these are the top ten in terms of usefulness in ministry for me.

Helping Heretics Come Home

This year's SBTC Empower Evangelism Conference features at least three former heretics as a part of the official program. These are men whose previous spiritual affiliation was theologically deficient and—according to the teachings of scripture and the consensus of orthodox Christianity for two millennia—accomplished their damnation to eternal hell.

The three men in question are Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, and Fred Luter.

In fact, after looking a bit closer, every name on the program represents someone who was formerly a heretic, a blasphemer, a rebel against the rightful rule of God, and a soul damned for all eternity without hope of reprieve. Without hope, that is, until Jesus Christ came to save them. And it is fitting that the program should consist of such people, since it is the design of an evangelism conference to feature the fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to save heretics, which all lost people are, including the very worst among them.

Oh, there have also been questions asked about three other participants in the conference: Randy Phillips, Shawn Craig, and Dan Dean, who together comprise the CCM group "Phillips, Craig, & Dean." Like every other participant in the program, these three have a history that includes a period of error and rebellion against God. Unlike the other participants (as far as I know the histories of the other participants), their pasts include affiliation with (so-called) churches that do not affirm the Trinity but are instead adherents of the ancient heresy called modalism. Indeed, members of this group have family members who remain among the proponents of modalism to this day.

I have looked through the data about Phillips, Craig, & Dean, at least as far as it is presented online, and the material that I have seen to date I would characterize in this manner: (a) the members of the group have never publicly claimed to be modalists or publicly espoused modalist teachings, (b) the churches of which they are members have not been found to claim to be modalistic or to teach a modalist interpretation of the godhead, but they have been found to have statements of faith that are not clearly written to exclude modalism. Mark Lamprecht, author of "Here I Blog" and one of the most careful and helpful contributors to the conversation about Phillips, Craig, & Dean, has written here that the status of these churches is "unclear and questionable." Because Mark is a careful and conscientious blogger, he has called not for Randy Phillips, Shawn Craig, and Dan Dean to repent of modalism but to obtain from them a "clear, explicit statement…of their position on the Trinity."

This is a reasonable request.

And so, before the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention ever booked PC&D to sing at this year's Empower Evangelism Conference, the convention required from them precisely that: a clear, explicit statement of their position on the Trinity. They provided it gladly. I have it in hand with all three of their signatures in place at the bottom. In the text of the statement they say, "Phillips, Craig, & Dean fully acknowledge their past denominational affiliations and are grateful for their heritage; however, they reject the teaching of modalism, a.k.a. Sabellianism." But they go further than that. They additionally say, "Although none of the members of PC&D are affiliated with any denomination, collectively, the ministry of Phillips, Craig, & Dean affirms the statement of faith of the Southern Baptist Convention—http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp."

Now, in light of this, I pose these questions to you:

1. Does the statement by PC&D amount to a "clear, explicit statement…of their position on the Trinity"? The first quote that I gave above admittedly is not. That is, although it certainly is a clear, explicit statement of what the group's position on the Trinity IS NOT, it does not provide any clear, explicit statement of what the group's position on the Trinity IS. When you add the second statement, however, things change. At that point the answer to the question depends upon whether one considers the Baptist Faith & Message to amount to a "clear, explicit statement" regarding the doctrine of the Trinity. Having read our statement of faith many times and having affirmed it myself, I do consider the Baptist Faith & Message to meet this standard of clarity and explicitness.

2. How ought those of us who have been concerned in the past about whether PC&D are modalists to respond to this statement? Does this statement change things? I think we can choose one response among several possibilities:

   1. We can determine that they are lying. In which case, I submit that they are not modalists. They may not be Trinitarians if they are lying, but they certainly are not modalists.

      Look at it this way: you show me a politician who tells people in Massachusetts that he is pro-choice on the question of abortion and tells people in Texas that he is pro-life on the question of abortion. If he is doing both of those things at the same time, then perhaps you might ask me, "Bart, which do you think he is, pro-life or pro-choice?" My answer would be, "I don't think he's either one; I think he's pro-I-want-to-be-elected-and-will-say-whatever-it-takes-for-that-to-happen." In other words, it is clear that he holds no convictions on either side of the issue.

      Likewise, if you have someone who tells one group of people that he is a modalist and another group of people that he is a Trinitarian, what you have is neither a modalist nor a Trinitarian but a liar who doesn't think that theology is all that important and doesn't hold any real convictions on the question of God's nature. Such liars are sinners and such lying is wrong. We'd all have good reason to doubt the salvation of anyone who could not bring himself to make an honest confession about who God is.

      But I find it difficult to put these three men into this category by way of anything resembling evidence. I've never seen any evidence that any of the three of these men have ever taught, affirmed, encouraged, or supported modalism in what they have personally said or done. They admit that they grew up in the midst of modalism. I do not doubt that at some point along the way they subscribed to modalism. But any such subscription or affirmation happened before these men were in the public eye and no public record of it remains. So, on the side of evidence to suggest that they are presently teaching, affirming, encouraging, or supporting modalism, either publicly or privately, the basket it empty.

      On the other hand, we have before us their signed statements claiming that they are Trinitarians. Perhaps I would like to have seen it sooner (like, years ago). Perhaps I would like to see it stronger (like, video of the three of them burning some sort of modalist flag or something). But the fact remains that everything Randy Phillips, Shawn Craig, and Dan Dean have ever said publicly about the nature of the godhead has been Trinitarian in its nature.

      The only way I know to conclude that they are lying is to do so by intuition, unless there exists somewhere more evidence than I have seen.

   2. We can state that we do not have enough evidence to conclude one way or the other and can continue to hold these men at arm's length as potential heretics until they provide something more to our liking. And yet, would we be just in doing so? This ministry has affirmed the BF&M 2000. Have all of the speakers and singers at YOUR state evangelism conference done so? Dare I ask whether all of the full-time ministry employees of your state convention have done so?

      There's a fine line between discernment and skepticism. I have to watch out for that line myself. But when I step back and take a look at the situation with these three men, I've heard more Trinitarianism from them than I have from most of the bloggers whom I admire and read. I've heard more Trinitarianism from them than I heard from a number of my college and seminary professors. I've heard more Trinitarianism from them than I find in the content of a year's worth of sermons from a lot of our Southern Baptist churches. Unless I'm prepared to sally forth to war against all of those folks, I have to ask myself whether I'm right in asking these three men to affirm Trinitarianism yet again in a yet another way.

   3. We can celebrate their conversion to Trinitarian Christianity, which is the Christianity of Christ, the Christianity of the New Testament, and the only true Christianity that there is. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention takes doctrine seriously. The churches of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, if they did not find doctrine to be important, could have found plenty of a-theological Baptist associationalism…elsewhere. That's why weeks and weeks ago this question was settled before Phillips, Craig, & Dean ever earned a spot on the program. We are a biblically-based, confessional fellowship of Southern Baptist churches. That's who we are, and that's how we conduct our ministries.

      But we are also a fellowship of churches who believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to lead people to all truth. We believe in the gospel. We believe in redemption. We believe in affirming people who confess the true faith and in receiving them as brothers. After all, apart from that kind of a reception, we know we would all still be on the outside.

      We're not afraid to ask anybody any question about the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. We're also not unwilling to accept their good answers at face value apart from evidence to suggest that we should not do so. After all, if we would not do that, how on earth could we ever help heretics to come home? And wouldn't we rather win them to the truth than to defeat them?

The Potency of Proclamations

According to this story, Mayor Tom Hayden of Flower Mound, TX, has proclaimed 2014 to be the Year of the Bible in Flower Mound (complete with website that is performing about as well as healthcare.gov under the increased load that accompanies media attention). Hayden collaborated with area churches in making the proclamation, and he hopes that his community will "connect through the Bible" (those are the reporter's words, not necessarily Hayden's).

If you are a Bible-believing Christian, this kind of thing FEELS good. In an environment of heavy-handed government oppression of the consciences of people like the Green family, the world seems a little less worrisome when local government does something in affirmation of our beliefs. But these uncertain days are no time for us to be navigating church-state questions by the seat-of-our-pants navigation that our feelings provide for us. We need map-based navigation drawn from time-honored and thoughtful ideas about the proper respective roles of churches and government officials in a well-ordered society.

According to those principles, as I understand them, Mayor Hayden has made a mistake. Here are a few reasons why:

1. He has overstepped his authority as mayor. In the Fox4 story Curt Orton complained, "He was elected mayor, not as the spiritual leader of Flower Mound." You might presume (as I'll admit I did at first) that Orton is a flaming liberal secularist. Actually, it appears that he is an active member of Lantana Community Fellowship Church of the Nazarene in Flower Mound and is, in fact, the president of the church's missions auxiliary (see this document that led me to conclude this). I've neither met nor spoken with Orton, but he looks and smells like an evangelical Christian.

   He's also 100% correct in his assessment of the situation and stands in line with the best of historical Christian thinking about church-state issues.

   Although I can see some questions that it does not fully anticipate or resolve, I've never seen a better theory of church-state relationships than Roger Williams's metaphor of the Two Tables of the Law. Williams's rationale safeguards religious liberty for all people without plunging society into erosive amorality. It provides a hermeneutical distinctive that makes sense of the entirety of the New Testament's treatment of the role of the state in the Christian worldview. It's a shame that so few of our fellow believers are acquainted with Williams's approach: We would more deftly handle situations like this one if we were well-versed in the writings of Roger Williams.

   Hayden is free to stand in the pulpit of his home congregation as a church member to proclaim 2014 to be the Year of the Bible as a church member. He is free to stand in a local meeting place as a Christian in Flower Mound and to proclaim with the local ministerial alliance that they consider 2014 to be the Year of the Bible. He is free to stand on his front porch as a citizen of Flower Mound and proclaim that 2014 is the Year of the Bible. But to issue an official proclamation in the council chambers in his role as mayor oversteps his authority.

   One last thing about this before I move on: I am well aware that this is not an official law. I am well aware that the city council did not vote on this question. I am well aware that the ceremonial and non-binding nature of this proclamation may well cause our court system not to regard this as any violation of the First Amendment. But when I say that the mayor has overstepped his authority, I'm not talking about the First Amendment. There wasn't a First Amendment when Roger Williams lived and wrote. I'm not talking about the authority that the Constitution gives to the Mayor Hayden; I'm talking about the authority that God has given to government as His agent. God has given someone the job of encouraging people to read the Bible, and He did not give that job to the government. I'm also completely cognizant of the fact that Ronald Reagan issued a similar proclamation in 1983. I, decrepit old man that I am, remember 1983. Reagan was wrong, too.

2. He has denigrated and misrepresented the Bible. Please read carefully, because this is the way that evangelicals so frequently betray what they claim to believe without realizing that they are doing so.

   Hayden's proclamation, like Reagan's proclamation before it, explained the rationale behind the proclamation, grounding it in the unique role that the Bible has played in American history as a formative influence underlying our legal system and the design of our government. That the Bible has played this role is historical fact. That any evangelical Christian should expend any energy to communicate this as an important message about the Bible is a crying shame. These accidents of history are not on the Bible's résumé. The credibility and authority of the Bible rests upon these items of trivia not at all.

   Here's what's important about the Bible: You're going to Hell forever unless you heed the words God has spoken to us in the Bible and receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. Reagan's proclamation said nothing about that. Although the story did not give the full text of Hayden's proclamation, and although I have not read it, I'm willing to proceed upon the assumption that Hayden's proclamation also said nothing remotely resembling these gospel truths. To do so would be to commit political suicide, to be sure, but to fail to do so is to dilute the Bible's message, transmogrifying its radical gospel message into a bland civil Christianity that encourages people to behave like good citizens while they await perdition.

   Yes, Hayden probably says more about the Bible in private, but the officially proclaimed position of the office of the Mayor of Flower Mound is now this gospel-less view of the Bible, since the proclamation says no more than it does. Yes, there's the possibility that someone will read the Bible because of this proclamation and will thereby encounter the gospel, but who here really believes that God cooked this up as a strategy for sharing the gospel?

   Look at it this way: Twentieth-century Christianity can claim that the Bible has had more influence upon worldwide jurisprudence and political thinking than any other one book (second place probably goes to the Qur'an). First-century Christianity could not claim that the Bible was any more than a collection of obscure writings produced by obscure followers of an obscure religious sect in an obscure backwater region forgotten by civilization. In which of these two epochs did Christians enjoy greater effectiveness in pointing people to the Bible's true message?

   The Bible ought to be revered as the words of eternal life. To be regarded as the cornerstone of American civilization would be a high honor for any other book, to be sure, but it is an insult to the Bible to treat it as merely that.

3. It distracts government officials from their true God-given jobs as government officials. I think God would be more pleased if government officials would put an end to no-fault divorce and the epidemic of child poverty and child dysfunction the proliferation of divorce has created. Perhaps a mayor could drive payday lenders out of the city or end the way that city governments wink at illegal gambling operations like the "eight-liner" game rooms that are proliferating in North Texas.

   Don't misunderstand: I do not offer this critique out of any jaded cynicism that suspects that Mayor Hayden does not really care about these things. In fact, quite the opposite is true: I offer this suggestion precisely because I suspect that he does care about being the kind of mayor God approves. Because his energies, when directed towards his actual God-authorized job, are likely to be discharged in a good and godly way, I want him spending his time THERE, doing his job well rather than doing mine poorly.

   And although I'm in pretty much 100% in line with the planks of the old Moral Majority platform, at least this much critique of the old "culture war" campaign is healthy and necessary: It was always a lot more effective at producing good proclamations than good laws.

4. It distracts Christians from their true God-given jobs as Christians. On this we do agree: Proclamations are indispensable to New Testament Christianity. It's just that Mayor Hayden and the good folks in Flower Mound have chosen the most impotent kind of proclamation over those that are actually effective. Proclaim the gospel from the pulpit. Proclaim the gospel in the marketplace over the water cooler. Proclaim the gospel in the neighborhood by witnessing to your neighbors. Proclaim the gospel at the family dinner table. Undergird your proclamation of the gospel by being careful in the way that you spend your money, your time, and your energy. Treat other people in your relationships in ways that are strategically supportive of gospel proclamation. Too many of those Christians who will celebrate "The Year of the Bible" will not share their faith with anyone in 2014 (or, dare I say, do the hard work required to deepen their own).

   The real-life proclamations about the Bible, in contrast to political resolutions, are potent. Two thousand years of Christian History vindicates that claim. State-sponsored Christianity is utterly impotent. Visit Germany and see what became of Martin Luther's Landeskirche. I think sometimes we forget that effective spiritual warfare consists of more game, less pep rally, and strategically speaking, mayoral proclamations about the Bible accomplish little more than the rustling of pom-pons. I like a good pep rally as much as the next guy; it's just that history teaches us that this pep rally takes place during the game, in an offsite venue, and with free food and drinks. I can't help but suspect that it is funded by the other team.

Belonging and Giving

The Southern Baptist Convention faces few questions more important than that of cooperative giving. Not that I'm trying to categorize it as a crisis, the lugubrious tone of some of our prophets and sons of prophets notwithstanding. In the boomiest of boom years, there are still few questions more important for our convention than that of cooperative giving. The voluntary cooperative giving of our churches makes the ministries of the SBC happen. We never take our eyes entirely off of that ball.

Nevertheless, the question does become more acute when we come to it with a spirit of fear. Most of the writing and discussion on the subject of the Cooperative Program in the past decade has revealed that perspective in the author and has engendered it in the average reader. The statistics reveal that we have passed what was the zenith (so far) of Cooperative Program giving as a percentage of church budgets, although we are nowhere near the nadir (which would approach 0% for the first half of our existence). Pressed by frequent comparisons of annualized CP numbers and gloomy forecasts, as well as by the specter of unmet needs and unsent missionaries, among those who care about the Cooperative Program there looms a growing sense of Somebody Has To Do Something.

The connection may not be immediately obvious between this context and Dr. John Mark Yeats's motion in Houston this past summer that Southern Baptists review the membership requirements established in Article III of our constitution (see a mention of this motion buried in this article). Dr. Yeats is a friend and I was immediately interested in his motion simply because he offered it and I know how astute he is regarding the operations of our convention. In fact, I confess that he and I discussed this motion several weeks before he offered it. He is absolutely correct that we have a messenger allocation formula that has not been indexed for inflation in more than a century (although other adjustments have been made to that article). The only thing the status quo has going for it is that it is the status quo. It is time to revise this formula.

I was all the more interested in his motion because we faced the same questions in the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention as we initiated the process of reviewing our own governing documents. For more than a year I've sat in committee meetings and participated in discussion from every imaginable perspective on questions related to membership and giving in Southern Baptist associational bodies. I'd like to offer some thoughts that arise out of that experience—convictions about the relationship between belonging and giving among Baptist churches. This motion provides the context in which these thoughts are important for Southern Baptists to consider.

I have observed that when we are concerned about declines in cooperative giving we almost instinctively consider imposing what are the equivalent of membership dues upon our churches. In other words, there is a way of approaching Baptist cooperation by which people give in order to belong. The rationale goes like this: "We have churches who are not doing their fair share. Why should we recognize them as peers alongside those churches who sacrifice in order to carry forward our work? Let's raise the bar! Only those churches who are contributing significantly to the work through their gifts will we consider to be member churches with us."

The present state of our constitution reveals both that we have tried this style of organization and that we have found it to be unprofitable. The constitution reveals that we have tried this style of organization because Article III presently awards additional convention messengers in proportion to contributions. Pay to play. But the nature of this requirement reveals that we were halfhearted from the very beginning concerning this approach. After all, any church can earn a single messenger simply by contributing a penny, as I understand our documents. Also, parallel to the "money track" of earning messengers is the "member track" by which churches can earn messengers simply by having large membership rolls without regard for their cooperative giving. Finally, the ten-messenger cap (no church can have more than ten messengers) also reveals our initial reticence about thoroughgoing pay-to-play Baptist associationalism—we weren't comfortable with the idea that our largest givers would be able to dominate the annual meeting with messengers. This system has served us through many valleys (the Great Depression) and peaks (the 1950s). It even served us well before we had anything resembling the Cooperative Program. But, as Dr. Yeats so accurately brought to our attention, although we have not voted to change this system, it has changed by itself. The fact of monetary inflation has changed it. A gift of $250 is not today what it was a century ago. Down through the years, although we have amended this article multiple times, we have never increased the amount of the gift nor set up automatic indexes for inflation. I submit that this is the case because we have not seen value in this pay-to-play approach, otherwise, we would have given attention to maintaining it.

To be fair, we all know a great many organizations that thrive under the pay-to-play system. For example, some of my readers will be members in a country club. If that's you, then you (or somebody) is paying membership dues for you to belong. Others of you are members of the Evangelical Theological Society. Yet others belong to Ducks Unlimited. Giving in order to belong is certainly not an approach doomed to universal failure.

And yet, organizations that thrive by requiring people to give in order to belong are generally those organizations that offer defined benefits to those members who will pay their dues. The country club offers you golf and the use of their facilities. ETS members get a subscription to JETS. Join Ducks Unlimited today and you'll receive a DU-branded fleece pullover, as well as a magazine subscription and various other member benefits. The Southern Baptist Convention has never been this sort of organization. We exist not to give benefits to member churches but to provide a framework through which they can give without getting anything in return. That's bad business…and great Christianity.

And yet it is easy for those who love the Southern Baptist Convention and who want to see an increase in cooperative giving to be deceived on this very point. It is easy for us to conclude (wrongly) that the SBC does indeed have something of value with which we can reward the good churches who give the most. Three "perks" come to the forefront in these discussions:

1. We award messengers. As we have already seen, the Southern Baptist Convention awards proportional representation in our annual meeting according to (among other things) gifts made by affiliated churches to convention causes. This is the "perk" of convention membership. It is easy enough, as parliamentary actions go, to ramp up this scheme of proportionality by "charging" more and more to churches before we will award them messenger representation.

   But we ought to ask a question: How many of our member churches actually place much monetary value upon the number of messengers allotted to them? Not many, I think. How many churches actually send all of the messengers to which they are already entitled? Of those who attend, how many of them place a high priority upon being on the floor for the actual votes that we take (apart from those few items which attract some controversial attention)? Considering the fact that a person can attend the meeting as a visitor and can do everything a messenger can do, other than make motions and vote, how likely is any church to follow the (il)logical train of thought: "It's about to cost more to have our ten-messenger allotment to the SBC Annual Meeting: We've got to start giving more!!!"

   I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

2. We place individuals in positions of responsibility (convention officers, committee members, entity trustees, etc.). Beginning in 2006 Southern Baptists began to emphasize the idea that elected officers and appointees should belong to churches who are giving higher percentages of their undesignated gifts through the Cooperative Program. This is the "perk" of convention leadership.

   Southern Baptist messengers have proven that they will elect whom they wish to elect. Statistics do not appear to play that important of a role in our elections. Any particular year may serve as an exception to that rule, but in my opinion SBC elections are becoming more difficult to predict by ANY metric. I do not observe that CP giving or any other measurable item is beginning to correlate more closely with election to convention office.

   With regard to our appointees as well as our officers, the rationale seems to be (and OUGHT to be, in my opinion) simply that we entrust with the leadership jobs of the convention's business those people whom we believe to be best fitted to discharge them with excellence. This makes sense—as churches we have the greatest confidence about the disposition of our gifts when we have confidence in the abilities of those who are putting them to use.

   I'm not saying that faithfulness to give is unimportant to Southern Baptists when we make these decisions. Rather, I'm simply saying that we have refused to make it the only important factor that we consider when we choose our leadership.

   I do not think it is likely that many churches would make their decisions about how to give based upon this "perk." First, the preponderance of churches in our convention never have anyone in their membership who ever receives any appointment or election to any position of convention leadership. This "perk" simply is not distributed widely enough to motivate many churches. This is particularly true for most of our smaller churches. Our largest churches tend to be enterprises unto themselves. If they want outlets for leadership for their members, they have lots of options. This might be more important to those churches in the middle, but only to those churches in the middle that are meaningfully engaged in the governance of the convention. A lot of those churches are already giving at higher levels.

3. We hire and educate individuals as a part of the Southern Baptist Convention's family of entities. This is the "perk" of convention employment (or enrollment). Although not all of the gainful employment to be found under the auspices of the SBC and related entities requires membership in a Southern Baptist church, a good bit of it does. If a church successfully becomes an affiliated church, the members of that church become eligible to work for a few employers. In most cities and towns, this factor is irrelevant. In a few key locales, this "perk" is quite important. Also, when a church affiliates with the SBC its members can obtain an education at SBC seminaries at a deep discount.

   It is important to note that this "perk" does not cost the Cooperative Program a penny. That is, entities and seminaries receive the same CP allocations without regard to how many of their employees or students are members of Southern Baptist churches. Although the amount of money going to any particular SBC seminary changes based upon FTEs, this merely affects the way that our six seminaries divvy up a static pie—the aggregate amount of money going to seminary education is fixed by the budget, not by enrollments. The other SBC entities likewise receive their allocations from the CP budget without regard to the details of their workforces. This perk makes our seminaries a little poorer, but that's about the extent of its impact upon convention operations.

   A few churches might be highly motivated by this last "perk." If large portions of your church staff are receiving discounted seminary education by virtue of your church's membership in the SBC, then the church staff might push for that church to meet any heightened requirements for affiliation. Most churches in the convention, however, do not participate in this "perk" at all. Most don't have any members who work for the convention, and as students go, locally funded scholarships would be much cheaper for a church than would high "membership dues" for convention affiliation.

So, I conclude that the Southern Baptist Convention has little to nothing to offer the average Southern Baptist congregation in the way of a "perk" to generate increased cooperative giving. This is why our periodic flirtations with the concept of making churches give in order to belong have been ill-fated, not to consider the fact that they tend to inflame the negative passions of a body of autonomous and independent churches.

An Alternative

Here's what works better: Southern Baptists need to recognize that rather than belonging because we give, we give because we belong. If the Southern Baptist Convention wishes to see increased giving and participation on the part of affiliated churches, it ought to seek to enhance the sense of belonging among SBC churches. Here's why this works:

First, this is how the Christian life works. This is the gospel, right? I give (when I'm writing out my tithe check) not in order to belong to Jesus but BECAUSE I belong to Jesus. Of course, the gift of salvation is valuable enough to command a hefty sum. It is the pearl of great price! But I do not purchase it; I receive it as a gift. Out of my gratitude and my sense of belonging to Jesus I am motivated to give.

Second, this is how our local churches work. I remember how shocked I was as a seminary student to discover that at least some Jewish synagogues assess membership fees upon their member families. What a foreign concept to a Southern Baptist! Voluntarism is the model in our churches, and our members give to our local churches because they belong there. We all know (and bemoan) that a great many of our members give a pittance (or even nothing at all!), but we do not assess membership dues in our churches. Why? Because in a local Southern Baptist church you do not give in order to belong, you give BECAUSE you belong. This is a matter of conviction for us, not just a matter of convenience.

Third, our history has demonstrated that this has been the most successful strategy for promoting cooperative giving. The idea of requiring contributions to secure membership is a feature of the society method rather than the convention method of Baptist cooperation. Beyond the fact that Southern Baptists are distinctively committed to the convention method rather than the society method, one must take note of the fact that the convention method has historically been a revenue juggernaut compared to those Baptist entities eking out an existence by means of the society method.

In our relationships with Jesus, with our local churches, and even with our families, we give because we belong, not the other way around. The best way to get Southern Baptist churches to give more to our cooperative work is to give them a greater sense of belonging together in this work.

How to Cultivate Belonging

"OK, Barber, that's all well and good, but tell us how, exactly, the Southern Baptist Convention is going to make local churches feel a greater sense of belonging?" I'm so glad you asked!

My enthusiasm comes not because I don't see the challenges before us. Although our giving levels have been worse at some moments in our history, I don't think that our sense of belonging has ever been weaker. I'd better hasten to clarify what I mean: We've got great churches, and we get along better than people like to acknowledge in giving us credit for it. I'm not trying to say that we do not belong together or that we can't move forward together. I'm just drawing a conclusion from several measurable phenomena:

1. An increasing number of our churches are hiding the fact that they are affiliated with us.
2. The number of conclusions that you can safely draw about a church when I tell you that it is a Southern Baptist church is decreasing. One does not have to believe that diversity is bad to understand that diversity does not build a sense of belonging. Something else has to exist alongside diversity in order to build a sense of belonging among diverse churches. The more diverse the churches are, the more robust that something else has to be.
3. Recent decades have witnessed the growth of sub-affiliations and dual-affiliations among SBC churches.
4. Even among those churches that have long, historic relationships with the other churches of the SBC, active participation in those relationships has been declining. That is, the number of people interacting with sister churches at associational meetings, state convention meetings, and national SBC meetings is certainly not growing (and I'm including in this not only the official annual meetings but also the various conferences, camps, and other events that characterize our fellowship).

All of these phenomenon, unless they are offset by items that have somehow escaped my notice, bespeak an erosion of the sense of belonging that ought to characterize a church's membership in the SBC. It is no surprise to me that cooperative giving would not experience stratospheric increases in such an environment. I am aware of the challenges.

Here's Dr. Barber's prescription for increasing that sense of belonging:

First, I recommend that we embrace formally the confessional nature of our convention. Southern Baptist churches have associated with one another organically wherever three factors have overlapped: (1) doctrinal similarity, (2) geographical proximity, and (3) strategic commonality. In this Internet age, geographical proximity is becoming less important, but the cultural, linguistic, and governmental factors that often accompany geographical proximity keep it from going away entirely. Because of the factors that brought about the Conservative Resurgence, many Southern Baptist bodies have explicitly shied away from emphasizing doctrinal similarity as a basis for association. The idea that "doctrine divides" leads panicky denominational employees to try to de-emphasize doctrine in order to keep the base together. This kind of thinking is a poison pill.

After all, look at all of the new sub-affiliations (the 3:16 conference, Founders, IX Marks, etc.) and competing affiliations (Acts 29, Willow Creek, etc.). Most of them emphasize a specific doctrinal viewpoint even stricter than our Baptist Faith & Message. Several of them even adopt some methodological stackpole. Such "divisiveness" has not sapped their strength; it has made them grow!

It is not enough to give churches no reason to leave; we have to give them a reason to belong. That reason cannot be atheological if it will succeed. Churches are, at their essence, theological entities (or else they are not churches). For this reason, the SBC ought to embrace the confessional nature of our convention and do so formally.

Informally, we already are a confessional fellowship of churches. The Baptist Faith & Message already defines the work of our entities and defines the parameters by which churches participate in the convention, even though it does not yet define the parameters by which churches belong to the convention. Informally, a church has to be in agreement with the BF&M in order to participate robustly in convention work.

The time has come to take that next step and to state formally what we practice informally. My state convention, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, already exists as a confessional fellowship of churches. Although the Baptist Faith & Message need not be the formal statement of faith of a member church, all affiliated churches of the SBTC must, as a condition of affiliation, affirm the BF&M. This has been the approach of the SBTC since its inception, and the convention has grown both in population and in enthusiasm.

To accomplish this in the Southern Baptist Convention may require that we adopt a tiered approach to our statement of faith, identifying some subset of doctrinal ideas in the BF&M that are mandatory upon affiliated churches. After all, the BF&M was not drafted with this particular purpose in mind, and it may not perfectly articulate the items that constitute the bond of belonging among SBC churches. Of course, our periodic amendments of the BF&M could continue to adapt the document for suitable use as our statement of affiliation parameters, but the more we try to do with the BF&M (i.e., we use it as our terms of employment for seminary professors, rules of affiliation for member churches, apologetic document for interdenominational dialogue and for evangelism, etc.), the more difficult we may find that it is to craft a single document that serves all of those purposes equally well.

I'm comfortable with the BF&M exactly as it stands, but I'd prefer a confessional fellowship along the lines of some similar-but-not-identical faith statement than a continued dichotomy between our de facto and de jure parameters for convention affiliation. Accomplishing this would be hard work. The stakes would be high. Done poorly, it could cause trouble. Done well, it could be a B-12 shot in the Southern Baptist arm.

Second, we need to look to the activity of our churches to learn how to improve what we do with our convention.

• People who don't yet feel a sense of belonging to our local churches but who participate in some of our activities and consume some of our services are called "prospects" at the local church level, not "freeloaders." Our approach to them is generally not to chastise them for not giving enough but to make to them the positive case for belonging. Where belonging takes root, giving will blossom.
• In our local churches we have learned how to implement a warm welcome for people on the way in. Why don't we do that at the level of the Southern Baptist Convention? Where are the first-time attendee badges for messengers to the SBC? Why not host a meeting for them at the beginning of the annual meeting at which they get to meet all of our entity heads and hear about convention ministries? When was the last time you were given the opportunity to call a newly affiliated pastor and welcome him to the convention in the way that one of our church's members might contact a new member or a first-time visitor and welcome them? What are we really doing to cultivate a sense of belonging in those who are on the way into the SBC?
• Our local churches know that the cultivation of belonging is a process, not a one-time event. The process takes more or less time for different people, depending upon their personalities and their past experiences. Consider, for example, the ethnic diversity that the Southern Baptist Convention has been cultivating in the makeup of its member churches. We have been able to see the new affiliation of larger numbers of non-anglo SBC churches than at any previous point in our history. But just because those churches have affiliated does not mean that they already feel a full sense of belonging to the convention. Draconian pay-to-play strategies designed with anglo churches in mind (to elicit stronger cooperative giving from them) might have disastrous unintended consequences among those churches, anglo or otherwise, who are on the way into the convention.

Third, we cannot be afraid of losing some churches along the way. We do not need to go on any sort of gleeful purge, but we need to acknowledge the fact that some of the churches who once belonged within the SBC no longer belong there. For example, alongside Dr. Yeats's motion in the article that I linked above you'll find a motion to disfellowship a church in Waco, TX. That church responded to the motion by stating that they long ago considered themselves to have departed the SBC. We know that they no longer belong here. They know that they no longer belong here.

It is an axiom of human relationships: Where everyone belongs, nobody does. Relationships are defined both by inclusion and exclusion. Your relationship with your spouse is both inclusive and exclusive. Your relationship with your local church is both inclusive and exclusive. Both inclusion and exclusion define the nature of the relationship. Skittishness about exclusivity will kill the convention.

Kowtowing to the most exclusive voices in the convention would likewise destroy it, of course. A sensible approach focused upon reasonable doctrinal similarity, geographical proximity, and strategic commonality is the winning move.

Fourth, we certainly do not need to reduce further the opportunities for involvement in the convention. The "Covenant for a New Century" in the 1990s eliminated and consolidated entities, reducing the number of boards and commissions on which Southern Baptists could participate. Doing things like consolidating our entities further (combining our mission boards, for example), whatever else they might accomplish, would result in reduced opportunity for involving individual Southern Baptists. Involvement fosters a sense of belonging. We ought not to dole out positions of responsibility to those who have given no indication of a sense of belonging and commitment to the convention, but we also ought to acknowledge the potential of involvement in convention ministries to deepen and solidify the sense of belonging that participants bring into the experience.

Fifth, we need always to make the phenomenon of belonging in the SBC (that is, the degree to which a person values belonging to the convention and is publicly associated with belonging to the convention family) one factor that we consider when we define success and promote heroes. If the platform at our meetings, the bookshelves at our stores, and the articles in our newsfeeds are dominated by people who do not belong among us, whatever else they communicate verbally, we are nonverbally communicating that belonging does not matter. I'm not advocating isolationism—I'm not calling for this to be the only factor or even the most important factor. But if denominational meetings and publications do not value belonging and commitment to the SBC family, who will?

Conclusion

Rather than writing all of the recommendations that I have just written, I might simply have spouted off this little axiom and left well-enough alone: The best way to cultivate a sense of belonging is to cultivate a reality of belonging. Belonging is more a state of affairs than a sentiment. The sentiment ("I feel like I belong") and the state of affairs ("I really do belong here") can and do get out of sync sometimes, but the mismatch will not long endure. It is in doubling-down on the three elements of our identity as Southern Baptists (doctrinal, geographical, missiological) that we rediscover the reality of why we belong together. Feelings will follow facts, and giving will follow belonging.

For this reason, we in the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention have abandoned proportional representation and membership dues. Affiliated churches receive ten messengers, no matter what size they are or how much they give. In place of carrot-and-stick we have a confessional fellowship that cultivates a sense of belonging. This is not only the way forward for Southern Baptists in Texas; it is the way forward for Southern Baptists everywhere, I believe.

I Learned Something about Fasting Today

I'm about to break Matthew 6:16-18 in favor of Matthew 7:12.

OK, I really don't think I'm breaking Matthew 6:16-18, technically speaking, but I do try not to speak much about my personal practice of fasting, neither during the midst of it nor afterwards. But I've learned something about fasting that you might need to know someday, and I think it might be important for me to share it.

First, a little story.

In 2012 at my annual physical (which I had not been having anywhere CLOSE to annually), my doctor notified me that my cholesterol was a little high. He suggested that I consider taking a daily statin. I suggested that he consider taking a hike.

I do not like to take medicine. I certainly do not want to take DAILY medicine. And I'm not going to consent to taking daily medicine until I have explored every possible alternative to taking medicine. That's just me.

So, for a year I worked on losing weight. I was weighing in at something in the neighborhood of 216 when I went to that first appointment. In the ensuing months, I got my weight down to 199. How did I lose weight? Basically, I started to eat two meals a day instead of three. I'm not saying that's the healthy way to do it. That probably wouldn't work for you. But it worked for me.

In October 2013 I went back in for my next annual physical, prepared for plaudits and exuberant congratulations from my doctor. Instead, I received news that absolutely disgusted me: My cholesterol had GONE UP 30 POINTS!!! My doctor informed me that cholesterol medication was no longer a suggestion, but was now a strong recommendation.

How could this be? Sure, I hadn't pulled out all of the stops. I hadn't exercised at all. Although I was eating less, I was still drinking whole milk and eating real butter, etc. I could have imagined only slight improvement, or even no improvement at all, but how on earth could my body be DOING WORSE with regard to cholesterol levels after I had disciplined my eating for a year and had lost so much weight?

My natural inclination when faced with a troubling problem is to research it, so I began to research. What I discovered surprised me a little.

You see, my 2013 physical came just before a time of considerable activity on my part. In the ensuing days I was to make a major presentation at our state convention's annual meeting and then take an unanticipated journey to Africa as a part of our church's Embrace assignment. I was doing important work, as I saw it, and I had a lot on my plate. In light of these upcoming commitments, I had been fasting.

I knew that I would need to fast a little bit for the bloodwork anyway, so I just started early as a part of my prayer life leading up to these events. By the time of my appointment, I had been fasting for around three days.

My lipid levels were so disappointing that I began to search the Internet for any rationale that would justify them. What I found was this: "Effect of prolonged fasting on plasma lipids, lipoproteins and apolipoprotein B in 12 physicians participating in a hunger strike: an observational study. In this little study, "prolonged" fasting (three days, so that's hardly "prolonged" in the biblical sense) led to a significant spike in LDL cholesterol levels.

Armed with this study, I emailed my doctor and requested from him a re-test of my cholesterol levels along with other testing. Today those most recent results came in. Here are the three test results (last year, this year's first test, and the re-test) side by side:

	2012	October 2013	December 2013
HDL	34	40	34
LDL	177	209	173
Triglicerides	134	58	111
Total	238	261	222

So, here's the moral of this little story: If you practice fasting as a Christian discipline and you receive unexpected medical results from tests taken during a period of fasting, before you take action based upon those results, you might consider obtaining new tests at a time when you are not in the midst of what your doctor would consider "prolonged fasting."

FBC and TBN: What Paul Crouch's Life Tells Us about Southern Baptists in the Twenty-First Century

Yesterday Paul Crouch, founder of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), died at the age of 79 (New York Times). Begun as a single Christian TV station in California, TBN is now a family of more than 20 television networks the span the globe. By the way, the Barber family has neither cable nor satellite television, but even our plain over-the-air TV antenna picks up at least five TBN-related channels. It is only barely an overstatement to claim that Paul Crouch founded an empire.

The pervasiveness of his influence, the opulence of his lifestyle, and the particulars of his theology necessarily mean that Christian blogs will heap upon him in equal measures both plaudits and opprobrium in the coming days. To speak specifically of Southern Baptist pastors, although a few have evidenced toward Crouch what might be termed approval or envy, a larger number (in my experience) have chosen their attitudes from among indifference, distaste, or anathema.

And so, confident that others will praise his accomplishments and criticize his failures, I choose to write today, to the best of my abilities, as church historian rather than as pastor-theologian. Furthermore, I write as someone who loves the Southern Baptist Convention, lives within the Southern Baptist Convention, and observes the Southern Baptist Convention. What does Paul Crouch's life tell us about Southern Baptists in the this century?

Paul Crouch, Southern Baptists, and Broadcast Media

In the story of Southern Baptist blogging since 2006, TBN has played a small, uncredited role. In 2008 the network broadcast a panel discussion consisting of Richard Hogue, Scott Camp, Dwight McKissic, and Dwaine Miller. The episode featured a characterization of non-Pentecostalism as "silly" (especially the views of Dr. Paige Patterson on the subject) and concluded with panel participants looking into the camera and imploring with Southern Baptist pastors to be converted to the gospel of Pentecostalism.

Also, a number of prominent Southern Baptists—influential pastors and denominational employees alike—have appeared on TBN programs in recent years. Perhaps the most recent is Ed Stetzer, who (if I understood his tweets correctly) has landed something of a repeating gig on the network. Paul Crouch and the network that he founded exerts some influence upon even the Southern Baptist Convention.

Whenever something like this happens, I hear about it from some of my friends. "Why are our SBC leaders appearing on TBN? Don't they realize what damage the Name-It-Claim-It Prosperity Gospel has done to American Christianity? Aren't they dragging the reputation of our entire convention down into the theological gutter when they do that?"

The question "Why are our SBC leadership appearing on TBN?" may be an interesting question, but here's what I think is a far more interesting one: Why isn't there anywhere else for them to appear? Southern Baptists leaders do not choose TBN from among some larger universe of successful Christian broadcast media empires because they prefer Paul Crouch's theology; if they want to appear on widely viewed Christian television, there simply are not many other options available to them. Paul Crouch monopolized the market.

Sometimes it seems to me that Southern Baptists aren't self-aware enough to mourn the loss of the Radio and Television Commission (RTVC). Of course, the RTVC was lost (in terms of hope that it would have any significant impact) long before it was dissolved. Whether the failure of the RTVC was a result of insufficient funding or insufficient dreaming I am not able to say. Perhaps it was a doomed venture from the start—Paul Crouch succeeded by way of entrepreneurial chutzpah rather than by means of a committee. But Southern Baptists never produced a media mogul—nobody but Pentecostals ever did. Whatever broadcast media hopes we had, we pinned them all to the RTVC and buried them with it in 1995's "Covenant for a New Century."

Dream with me for a moment: How would the story be different if Southern Baptists had somehow succeeded in Christian television? From the New York Times article linked above, "In 2010, donations to TBN totaled $93 million. The Crouches had his-and-her mansions in Newport Beach, Calif., and used corporate jets valued at $8 million and $49 million each." Certainly Southern Baptists would have exercised better stewardship than this. How might Southern Baptist missionary enterprises have been fueled by a successful SBC media venture? Southern Baptists would be in a position to harness the airwaves to promote responsible, sound doctrine rather than the epidemic of error for which TBN has too often served as a vector.

Why have we Southern Baptists failed so miserably in our feeble attempts to harness radio and television for our ministries? One can argue that Pentecostal worship is far more entertaining to watch than is the average Southern Baptist worship service. And yet even the Pentecostalest (I just made up that word) of Pentecostal worship services isn't all that entertaining either. TBN's stock in trade has been the studio program rather than the broadcast of worship services. Southern Baptists, who more than most ought not to have depended upon their worship services to drive ratings, could hardly think of anything to do with a TV camera other than to point it at themselves while they were preaching (I'm speaking here not so much about the folks who worked at RTVC as about SBC pastors).

Also, I think that TBN has understood and has (MIS-?)applied a truth that David understood and employed in the composition of the Psalms. The Hebrews sang Psalms prior to the life of David. David didn't invent the psalm. But during the prolific life of David the Hebrews began to sing psalms about every facet of life. Aaron and Miriam sang in times of celebration, but David sang in times of despair, or even in times of personal humiliation and contrition. David changed worship forever when he taught God's people how to sing honestly but hopefully to God even on the darkest of days. TBN, likewise, has spoken a word of hope to the poor, lonely, and downtrodden. Even if it has predominantly been a word of false hope motivated by an avaricious plot for self-enrichment, it has proven to be more than a match for "Seven Steps to a Superhero Faith" when it comes to what the world would rather watch on television.

If there is a bright spot in all of this for Southern Baptists, it is the promising strength that Southern Baptists have shown in the realm of new media. Of course, the apparatus of the convention has generally alternated between belittlement and toleration of blogging and Twitter (after all, the SBC is Microsoft, not Apple). But I think all of that is slowly changing, and it needs to change. New media is more propositional and less visual than TV. Twitter does not lend itself well to sermonizing, simply because of length. The SBC is well-poised to contribute solid content in the world of new media, and it has shown in the success of SBCers online. Southern Baptists have some rockstars and some potential rockstars in the realm of Christian new media. If we will be deliberate and visionary about it, we may find ourselves doing better in the coming media age than we did in the last one.

Paul Crouch and SBC International Missions

Of course, there is a wide world for whom their 2013 is our 1993, where TBN rather than Twitter is the new media. A few years ago I taught Church History in Kenya. I encountered there a student who presumed that I was a prosperity gospel preacher (of which he did not approve) simply because I was an American. You see, all he had ever encountered of American Christianity was TBN, which is beamed by satellite around the world. Likewise, just a couple of weeks ago I found myself in Africa defending the Christian orthodoxy of the Assemblies of God and of other tongues-speaking Christians against the attacks of a black Christian pastor (my friends will appreciate the delicious irony in this). For this man, his predominant exposure to American Christianity (and charismatic Christianity in general) had been TBN-related networks.

And so, I think we must acknowledge about Paul Crouch that he has affected the way that the entire world sees not only him but also us. The average member of a Southern Baptist FBC Somewhere may see a mighty chasm between his church and TBN, but to a tribal animist in the DRC, we're all the same thing. My experience with international missions is limited, but from what I've seen so far, Crouch's influence harms the broader Christian missionary effort. Missionaries face the challenge of getting themselves out from under the shadow of broadcast charlatans without inaugurating an internecine shooting war among evangelical denominations in areas where the Christian movement is young and fragile.

The Media Empire and the Local Church

Paul Crouch equated the growth of his business enterprise with the growth of the Kingdom. While reflecting upon the expansion of his network into more cities, Crouch said "All over the country, [people are] coming to know Jesus.…Church, I think we ought to rejoice ’cause the whole world is getting saved.”

And yet, Crouch's ascendancy has not resulted in any measurable growth of Christianity "all over the country." Worldwide, the statistics for Crouch's brand of Pentecostalism are rosier than in the USA, depending upon who is doing the counting and whom they are willing to count. But setting aside the question of statistics for a moment, there's no doubt that whatever the details of Crouch's ecclesiology, Crouch figured prominently in it. There are those who erroneously think that all of their countrymen are Christians because of their citizenship. It is an equally grievous error to think that all of one's customers are Christians because of their contributions.

Southern Baptists did indeed miss an opportunity by failing to take better advantage of radio and television. I'm more comfortable with making that mistake, however, than with the idea that we might have diluted our focus upon the local church in order to pursue broadcast media domination. Jesus Christ did not found a television network. We have no promise that TBN (or any network we might have started) will prevail over the gates of Hell.

It is therefore most accurate, if we will evaluate the contributions of Paul Crouch to the Kingdom of God (or of anyone else), to ask ourselves not how many nations his satellites reach nor how much money he made nor how many Christian celebrities have occupied a couch on his studio stage, but instead, we must ask ourselves whether churches are healthier and more numerous because of TBN. Because Crouch's doctrinal errors are of sufficient gravity to call his contributions into question, I would struggle to conclude that Crouch has made churches healthier through his endeavors, although the aftermath of the man's death is perhaps not an appropriate time to indulge in excessive criticism of his life's work.

Indeed, I only mention what I consider to be this critical failure on Crouch's part to make this appeal to Southern Baptists: Whatever we will do with new media—be it Twitter or YouTube—we must be careful to focus our efforts upon the strengthening and planting of local churches rather than upon the accumulation of personal wealth or the vicissitudes of fame. To the degree that we can harness media to the benefit of local churches we will have done something lasting and worthwhile.

Reflections upon Matthew 13:10-17

And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,
‘YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND;
YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;
FOR THE HEART OF THIS PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL.
WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR,
AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES,
OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES,
HEAR WITH THEIR EARS,
AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN,
AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.’
But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Since I first encountered it in childhood, this exchange between Jesus and His disciples has fascinated me. In recent years it has accomplished more than that: Jesus' words recorded here have served as a corrective against some of the contemporary Christian writings that I have read and have served as a roadblock on the broad highway that leads away from humility concerning how much we truly comprehend about the Lord. The areas of insight provided by this passage are varied.

Homiletics

"Teach like Jesus," people say. "People will understand you better when you teach like Jesus. Jesus used stories so that His teaching was accessible to everyone. Use more stories. Be more narrative. Teach like Jesus, and you'll bring the world to Christ." I'm indebted to Dr. Adam Dooley for having finally put all of this together for me: Yes, Jesus taught in parables. But He told us why He did so, and His reasons were 180° from the reasons the people give today. Jesus used parables in order to be MISunderstood, not in order to be understood. Parables were a device by which He achieved desired opacity, not transparency.

And, indeed, now that I'm a parent, I see this all the more clearly. There is nothing quite so easy to understand as a simple, direct command. Haven't we all had the experience of trying to lead our children down the pleasant path of a good didactic anecdote, parenting in the path of Sheriff Andy Taylor, using homespun narrative to make some sagacious point—only to find in the end that our children missed the point entirely? Beating around the bush can provide good diplomacy in our relationships, but if the primary objective is to be understood, nothing trumps succinct frankness.

After all, you memorized a²+b²=c², right? Not the whole story of how Pythagoras came to understand the ratio among the sides of a right triangle or the detailed proof of why the formula is true, right? Because, even if occasionally it is less satisfying as an experience, there is nothing more successful than the approach that says, "Here's the formula: Do this and don't worry about why."

So, whenever I use an illustration in my preaching (and I'm going to continue to do so), I do well to keep in mind that illustrations can be misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misapplied. Good preaching will involve working hard to prevent those bad outcomes for those who hear my sermon illustrations. Stories and parables are, after all, a blessing to those who have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. But I should never presume that my sermon is clearer or more helpful just because it has stories in it. Illustrations generally provide entertainment and rapport; exegesis provides clarity.

After all, politicians use LOTS or stories, all the more when they want to keep you from understanding fully just what it is that they are saying.

Soteriology

This passage should give pause to people who get too enthusiastic about their Arminianism. Here you have Christ working to ensure that some people do not hear and understand His message. I think there is room in the passage to wonder whether by the past behavior of the Pharisees and Sadducees they earned for themselves this treatment (after all, Jesus didn't start His ministry this way, and however you understand the "Unpardonable Sin," Jesus was certainly condemning these detractors for it), but undeniable is the depiction of God Incarnate working to ensure that these enemies of the cross do not see, hear, understand, and return. This reads more like reprobation than mere preterition.

This passage should also give pause to people who get too enthusiastic about their monergism. Jesus' actions here are something of an antidote to the way that some people extrapolate the wording of Ephesians 2. You know what I'm talking about: "Apart from the regenerating work of Christ, people are dead in their sins—DEAD I tell you! What can a dead man do to bring himself back to life? NOTHING!!!!!!! And so, salvation is entirely the work of God without any response or activity on the part of the corpse that He quickens."…

…In which case it wouldn't have been necessary for Jesus to do anything at all to obscure His preaching from the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Don't get me wrong: This passage is shot through with the doctrine of election. There are those to whom it has been given to understand. There are those to whom God gives more until they have an abundance, and there are those from whom God takes away everything. There is the blessing of God upon those with the eyes to see. The sovereign hand of God is hard at work here.

But what is also part-and-parcel of this passage is a presumption that the external work of preaching the good news of the Kingdom is not without efficacy. There is a presumption that Jesus' public preaching of the Kingdom, apart from any private, inward, regenerating action of the Spirit, is a dangerous thing to put into the hearing of anyone whom God might have determined not to save. If they will remain lost and condemned, it is expedient for Christ to obscure the good news from their plain hearing.

Living in Post-Ascencion Christianity

Jesus spoke of the blessing that God had given to these disciples by permitting them to live during the days of Jesus' earthly ministry. Abraham and Moses and Isaiah looked longingly toward those days in Galilee. Peter and James and John were more blessed than they.

But take careful note of the basis of that blessing: The blessing comes in the knowing of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Not in being there while Jesus fed multitudes and walked on water and healed the sick and raised the dead. Simply in understanding the truth that He taught.

The truth of the gospel and the presence of Jesus among us was always more important than a front-row seat for the miracle show.

And yet the truth remains equally well for us as for them. We find Jesus talking about the relative advantage of the disciples over those who came before them; but we never read that Jesus called the disciples more blessed than those who would come after them. No, quite to the contrary, we read that WE are even MORE blessed than they were, we who believe without having seen (John 20:29).

We devout Christians live with a temptation toward Era Envy. We tend to think we have missed out because we weren't born in first-century Judea. But to hear Jesus tell it, our opportunity to know the truth Jesus taught and to experience the presence of Jesus through the gospel—and to do so without the crutch of His bodily presence beside us—makes us most blessed of all.