Some Kinds of Baptist Boldness Needed Now: 2 Timothy 2:14–21 -- By: W. Randall Lolley
Journal: Faith and Mission
Volume: FM 01:2 (Spring 1984)
Article: Some Kinds of Baptist Boldness Needed Now: 2 Timothy 2:14–21
Author: W. Randall Lolley
FM 1:2 (Spring 1984) p. 62
Some Kinds of Baptist Boldness Needed Now:
2 Timothy 2:14–21
President,
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
I want you to meet some friends of mine. Meet Baptist A. He could be one of the 8,500,000 people in the 24,000 churches east of the Mississippi, or he could be one of the 5,500,000 people in the 13,000 churches west of the River. He is conservative and proud of it. In fact, he is quite comfortable with being called a fundamentalist. He is sick and tired of being stereotyped, caricatured as an uncaring, unthinking, unintelligent blockhead. And he is weary of feeling cut out of some of the decision making processes in this denomination. He is rather grateful over the ways some things are moving right now. He perceives himself to be in the mainstream of both the country and the denomination.
Meet Baptist B. He prefers to call himself moderate, or progressive is even better. He is sick and tired of being labeled liberal just because he happens to be open on several theological issues. He knows the Cooperative Program may support some things he does not understand, and that some dollars are spent in ways he would not personally spend them. Yet, he supports the Baptist cooperative technique because it is a far better way of doing missions together than any other way yet developed. He perceives himself to be in the mainstream of both this nation and this denomination.
Meet Baptist C. She is young, bright, and female. She bears no special label except the one she inevitably wears everywhere she goes. She is a woman in ministry. She is sick and tired of all the chatter which surrounds her efforts to pursue her calling. She understands neither the debate nor its vehemence. All she knows is that there is a hand on her shoulder, a fire in her bones, and a mandate to her mission from which she cannot turn away. She senses that no one with an experience is ever at the mercy of one with an argument. She perceives herself to be in the mainstream of God’s new thing in this nation, this denomination, and this world.
Meet Baptist D. She might be one of Southern Baptist’s 3,217 overseas missionaries, or one of Southern Baptist’s 3,074 home missionaries. She is frightened, frustrated, even a little hurt with her people. Let her tell you how she feels:
Our hardest times as missionaries were not when we were working isolated at our station, doing without, or in physical danger. We suffered most when we learned Christian friends we depended on for prayers and other support were more concerned over biblical inerrancy and political maneuverings, than with missions and their covenant with us.
These are but four of 14,000,000 Southern Baptists; yet they are typi...
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