By: G.M.L. Henry

The bane of any religious group and especially Christian fellowships is apostasy and heresy. These are twin diseases that rot like cancer inside belief systems and religions; causing divisions, diversions, schisms, and splits. Yet sometimes the apostasy and heresy just transform into mainstream acceptance. The orthodox positions are abandoned, and the church becomes a substantially different entity than what it was founded to be. In the case of Christianity, specifically Protestant Christianity, it is more severe and the consequences more disastrous. Christianity is the only gospel and religion that actually preaches the truth, the Bible is the only Holy Text that reveals the true God and the true Gospel. Divine blessing has been bestowed on the true Christian church thus any heresy or apostasy in this church is devastating and incurs horrendous fruits.

This week the largest Protestant organization in the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention, held their national convention. There were several interesting resolutions and decisions that came out of the three-day meeting. One resolution exhorted pastors and ministers to abstain from adultery and sexual sin. We could breathe a sigh of relief that they actually decided the seventh commandment needed to be followed by pastors. Stay tuned for next year’s resolutions exhorting ministers to abstain from murder, theft, and false witness. In a decade or so they might get around to ratifying the whole ten commandments which is remarkable considering we have only had them for three thousand years.

After this profound decision, the convention moved on to other pressing matters. First, it removed a small church in Georgia from the convention because of the “sin of racism”. Now this is a very interesting tale from the convention. First of all, they present no Biblical basis for what is the “sin of racism”. Racism is an extremely flexible, political term that does not appear in scripture. Its meaning changes with the times and feelings of the age. This presents a serious problem to the Church because the Word of God does not change in meaning or principle. The ardent fervor against racism strangely coincides with popular feelings on the subject. Maybe there was a massive surge in love for your neighbor in the convention, but it is strange that whatever the current, social narrative is gets addressed in that year’s convention. This particular case is even more disturbing since the church that was removed from the convention does not actually espouse a “racist” form of doctrine. They are accused of not treating a black congregation, to whom they were lending their building, fairly or according to Christian charity. This is an extremely broad generalization and as usual, there are no specific verses or doctrines presented to support their accusation. Interestingly the convention apparently gave themselves the right to declare an entire congregation of believers as racists; then they continued to discipline this church on the basis of something not mentioned as a sin in the Bible. The SBC has come up with a Baptist version of the Papal Bull. They can just arbitrarily declare something a sin with no Biblical support, no divine commandment, and no ecclesiastical authority. The pope must be proud.
After issuing their “Baptist bull” against a small church; the convention then went on address the other pressing “scriptural” matter: illegal immigration. In this rambling document, the convention states “Longings to protect one’s family from warfare, violence, disease, extreme poverty, and other destitute conditions are universal, driving millions of people to leave their homelands to seek a better life for themselves, their children, and their grandchildren,” So after years of struggling with what is causing massive migration, the SBC has figured it all out for us. It is all the fault of warfare, violence, disease, extreme poverty and destitute conditions. Problem solved. Luckily for us the early church in Rome was constantly overloaded with an abundance of food, health care, peace and plenty of money so they didn’t have to embark on mass migrations throughout that ancient nirvana of the Roman Empire. Thus, after two thousand years of prosperous church history, free of these scourges and persecutions, we are at last faced with these difficult issues never before encountered. This is why the Scriptures don’t discuss immigration, because everyone was doing so well back then. Happily for us we have the Southern Baptist Convention to tell us what the problem is and then they went further and gave us the solution. “God commands His people to treat immigrants with the same respect and dignity as those native-born … we desire to see immigration reform include an emphasis on securing our borders and providing a pathway to legal status with appropriate restitutionary measures, maintaining the priority of family unity, resulting in an efficient immigration system that honors the value and dignity of those seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Again it seems that God speaks directly to the SBC because they received some sort of new revelation that God commands us to treat immigrants with the same respect and dignity as those native born. The Scripture to support this? Doesn’t exist. The Bible does not address immigration because that is an issue of law and order, reserved by the Scriptures to the government. It is very interesting to note that the Bible does not command immigration for Christians living in difficult situations; it doesn’t even suggest it. We also don’t find in the Scriptures a command for “immigration reform”, “securing our borders”, or a “pathway to legal status”. But that doesn’t stop the convention from declaring that “any form of nativism, mistreatment, or exploitation is inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The truth is the whole resolution is inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ because the gospel does not portend to solve social problems. It solves man’s most pressing spiritual issue: his inability to satisfy the righteous demands of a Holy God. The convention is very worried about how the government manages its divine mandate to govern, but seems to care very little about the command God gave the church.

The last important event that happened at the convention was the election of J.D. Greear as the new president of the SBC. So after their “monumental” and unbiblical resolutions, the convention then nominates a rank apostate to be the president of their convention. Mr. Greear was raised an Independent Baptist but he left that church as a young man and moved on to a more “modern” ministry. He took over Homestead Heights Baptist Church in North Carolina, promptly dropped Baptist from the name, and renamed it Summit Church. Now one could ask why a man so ashamed of the Baptist name would be considered as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, but that would be too much common sense for a convention loaded with lunatics and sycophants. “Pastor” Greear claims that he is a traditional Southern Baptist all the while filling his blog with writings against “fundamentalists” and doctrine that “divides”. Summit church itself is nothing but a non-alcoholic nightclub for young people too young to legally drink. Fake fog, laser lights, bands all things very common in bars, clubs, and secular events; but not things compatible with worshiping a sovereign God. After a long period of dancing, shouting, waving hands and all the other things more commonly associated with a Taylor Swift concert, Mr. Greear comes bouncing out on stage with a polo shirt and jeans and starts his “sermon” Afterwards half naked girls and long-haired, tattooed young men stand up to help with the “invitation”. This is the “Christianity” of the new SBC president.

So while the convention is very concerned with racism, illegal immigration, and of course their rediscovery of the seventh commandment; personal holiness, sanctification, separation from the world, Biblical liturgy and doctrine can all take a hike. The amusing part of this whole circus is that the SBC tries to keep presenting itself as a church or Christian. A Christian is someone who imitates Christ and such an indictment could never be made against the Southern Baptists. They look like the world, dress like the world, talk like the world, listen to the same music as the world, and seek the same entertainment as the world. In the book of James the Holy Scriptures state that “friendship with the World is enmity with God.” These are not Christians, they are apostate enemies of God. They have perverted the Gospel, perverted the church and conformed it to the issues, beliefs, and practices of the world. The apostates creed is a doctrine that conforms itself to the world and its principles and sacrifices the orthodox truth of two thousand years of legitimate church history. Heresy is a serious deviation from orthodoxy; something the SBC started decades ago. The sacred tenants of the Christian faith are reverent, sobering and precious. The final authority for the church is God and his word; not a statement from the convention. The fact that the SBC feels it can now make up church doctrine and practice independent from the Word of God reveals its true apostasy. It is not Baptist in its doctrine or beliefs; it is much closer to the Roman Catholics. Baptists have historically stood against worldly practices, unholy living, unnatural styles, effeminate behavior, and doctrinal error. This is the antithesis of the modern SBC. The SBC is losing members and closing churches not because it is too “conservative” but because it has abandoned the true faith. It only remains for us to watch sadly as it disappears into the abyss of heresy and ultimately its final destruction.