"Attention was paid when former President Jimmy Carter, with great reluctance, resigned from the Southern Baptist Convention in protest against what he viewed as its increasingly narrow conservative direction. Technically he did not resign, since he still belongs to an SBC local church where he is very active in, inter alia, teaching Sunday School. But Carter made his point.

"Dr. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, an SBC conservative in good standing, and one of the more impressive theologians around today, says that some SBC leaders may respond to Carter’s decision with ‘Good riddance!’ Not Dr. George, however. He thinks Carter has a point well worth making. He writes,

" ‘Especially troubling right now are isolationist forces within the denomination, some of whom oppose Baptist efforts even with other evangelicals. Combined with nativist politics and a virulent anti-Catholicism, this movement would actually restrict the missionary and evangelistic outreach at the heart of the Southern Baptist ethos. If left to grow like kudzu, it could reduce the Southern Baptist Convention to a mega-sect.’ "

Wow! That’s one you have to read back over a time or two, huh? Need a dictionary? Good grief! (Hang in there with me now, this gets a little tongue-in-cheeky.) Please let me translate for those of us who may be somewhat hyper-academia challenged;

First, Roman Catholic priest Richard Neuhaus is happy to report that a famous liberal Southern Baptist, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, is criticizing the growing progression of conservative theology within the SBC.

Neuhaus is also pleased to stretch the truth a bit, so as to promote to his readers that Dr. Timothy George is a SBC conservative in good standing and an impressive theologian. (The truth is that over the past few years t-George has been falling from whatever good standing he may have had with some conservatives. His increasingly flaunted ecumenical activism and courting of liberal associations certainly have earned t-George the praise of ecumenists Richard Neuhaus and Charles Colson, but some SBC theologians are bewildered by his move to the ecumenical left.)

Neuhaus is sure glad t-George agrees with him that Carter’s opposition to conservative leadership is valid and that the increasingly conservative direction of the SBC is horrible thing.

t-George is very troubled over the fact that Southern Baptists are taking conservative biblical belief to its theo-logical end... separation from false brethren, false doctrines, and false gospels, even separating from supposed "evangelicals" who espouse false doctrines.

Now, here is where this gets tricky. I mean, part of his message is in code, but this is an incredible revelation of where t-George really is, and this REALLY isn’t going to improve his supposed "good standing" among SBC conservatives...

t-George says that these powerful, dangerous "isolationist forces," combined with the strong conservative majority of Convention leaders ("nativist politics"), and then throw in the fact that Southern Baptists are becoming educated to the truth about the false gospel of Roman Catholicism... well, this combination of elements of biblical conservativism could mean an end to ecumenism’s increasing influence within the Southern Baptist Convention. Horror of horrors! That’s something that really worries both t-George and Neuhaus a lot.

The danger that t-George sees is that if left unchecked, this combination of conservative leaders and biblical truth will create an atmosphere in which the doctrine of biblical separation will have to be examined. And if this happens, then Southern Baptists will realize the lostness of most professing Christians around them and they will turn their efforts toward reaching out with the true Gospel to Roman Catholics and to others who are confused and lost in false doctrines.

And just who are these horrible, dreaded "isolationist forces" at work within the SBC? Who is it that t-George is so fearful of? Who so shakes his confidence in his ability to infuse broad ecumenical toleration into the SBC? WHO???

Well, t-George is not at all unaware of the efforts of several Southern Baptists who oppose ecumenical compromise. He knows exactly who we are, but fearful of sharing media coverage with those who oppose his ecumenical agenda, t-George flings his broad criticism at us while hiding high above behind his academic barricade.

But whether t-George or Neuhaus realize it or not, it is not men who bring such fear to ecumenists. That which is most feared by those involved in ecumenical compromise of the Gospel, that force which strikes such dread in those who seek the praise of men, is the Word of God in all of its inerrant, inspired, infallible authority. When God’s uncompromised Word is spoken and believed, men separate from the twin perversions of liberalism and unbiblical ecumenism. And as a result, there comes into prominence an increasingly biblical conservative direction in the lives of men (and thus, into the conventions of men).

From the editor:

I’m sure you note that this commentary is not my usual style. Some will laugh, others will be offended. But on the other side of my style, the issue is still the same... we have a real problem with ecumenism. It’s not just a SBC problem; it exists throughout the Church, worldwide. We must come to understand that ecumenism is the more socially acceptable child of liberalism. What can we do to eradicate it? The enemy of liberal belief is biblical truth expounded in the authority of the Holy Spirit and received by God’s chosen people; and the bane of ecumenism is that same biblical truth lived out daily in the power of Christ Jesus.

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