Black Churches Need Reformation
I used to say fatherlessness is the biggest problem in black communities. I was wrong.
It’s more accurate to say fatherlessness is one of the biggest problems in black communities.
This is because we cannot separate black families from black churches. Black Americans are the most religious racial group in America. 47% of black Americans go to church at least once a week, compared to 34% of white Americans.
In his PBS documentary, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song”, Henry Louis Gates Jr. said: “The importance of the role of the Black Church at its best cannot be gainsaid in the history of the African American people. Nor can it be underestimated.”
He also said: “The [Black] Church is the oldest, most continuous, and most important institution ever created by African Americans.”
Therefore, the health of the important institution in black communities determines the state of another institution in black communities: family. Meaning, the reason why there are so many absentee fathers in black communities is because there are so many absentee churches in black communities.
Churches without good leaders inevitably lead to homes without good leaders. We cannot restore black families unless we reform black churches.
Black churches need reformation.
That, of course, doesn’t mean other churches do not need reformation. As Protestants, we should always be reforming—we should always be renewing our minds by scripture alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, for the glory of God alone.
All American churches are in desperate need of reformation.
However, though much is said about lack of access to quality schools in black communities—very little is said about lack of access to healthy churches in black communities. Since churches are even more important than schools, we should be deeply concerned about the state of black churches.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t any healthy black churches. There are healthy black churches across America. However, they are significantly outnumbered by unhealthy black churches.
Churches without good leaders inevitably lead to homes without good leaders.
For instance, most of the biggest black denominations like National Baptist Convention, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and to a lesser extent the African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion have expressed varying degrees of support for same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ideology.
Moreover, some of the most powerful leaders in the “Black Church” like Raphael Warnock have defended abortion and many more have welcomed pro-abortion politicians Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris, and Lori Lightfoot to speak at their church.
Mark Hamilton, the pastor of Faithful Stones Church in inner-city Buffalo, says, “the Black Church acts as if says they’’re indifferent to Christ and his mission.” He added, “they have joined forces with people who are hungry for power.”
Faithful Stones Church is just a few feet away from the scene of the white supremacist mass shooting in Buffalo last summer. Hamilton and his church members played a crucial role in serving the community with groceries and especially, the gospel.
Hamilton said: “the hurt I felt for the families who lost loved ones [and] the crushed community I serve both as a minister of God and a minister of the gospel was extraordinarily deep.”
However, as a pastor and a police officer, Hamilton had been grieving for his community long before the mass shooting. He says white supremacy isn’t the biggest problem in his community:
“The white supremacist [mass shooter] was not from our community and was not the federal head for all white people in our community…White supremacy is not the biggest problem but the biggest distraction from the number one problem in the community, specifically…black on black crime by gang violence.”
Hamilton says churches in his community support critical race theory, LGBTQ ideology, abortion, and the prosperity gospel which “are harming the community.” Therefore, they need reformation, just like his church years before.
Like most churches in the community, Faithful Stones Church was once a prosperity gospel or Word of Faith church. However around 20 years ago, the church—led by Mark Hamilton’s father, Curtis Hamilton—denounced the Word of Faith gospel (and egalitarianism) and eventually became Reformed.
Through that process the church’s membership went from 300 to 40 members. However Mark Hamilton says, “we had a steady decline in membership but a steady increase in faithfulness to the scriptures.”
He also says what happened to his church is what other churches in his community need:
We are reformed and reforming to be faithful to the scriptures and Christ our King…We are not a woke church but we are certainly awakened from the dead and alive to Christ…We are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God for salvation.
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The Creation of the 3 Spheres of Family, Church, and State
With the recent “dust-up” of 2020, terminology such as “sphere sovereignty” has become more familiar in recent interactions and discussions. By “a sphere,” we mean a particular institution created by God wherein He granted a realm and a measure of self-determination without the mixture or interference of the other spheres. Without question, there are numerous explanations and caveats attached. For instance, what happens when a husband violently abuses his wife? Well, the sphere of the civil magistrate has a duty to step in to that family sphere, restrain the evil, and punish the husband. That would not be a violation of sphere sovereignty but the very role in which the civil magistrate was created by God. But before one can talk intelligently about sphere sovereignty, we must first establish that God, the Creator of the universe, Himself created the three primary spheres of the family, the church, and the state.
1) God Created the Family in Genesis 1–2
The sphere of the family is perhaps the most important sphere of the three, anthropologically speaking. It was created before the fall, and thus it is a necessary component for humans to thrive in their creation mandate as well as to encourage proper roles in the other two spheres of church and state. In that way, we could say that the sphere of the family is the foundation upon which God has chosen to flourish human societies. It is the sphere in which the image God has borne upon humans will reproduce and thrive. Show me a collapsing society, and I will show you a crumbling institution of the family.
We see God’s creation of the family most clearly in Genesis 1:27–28. The first notion of the family is the binary of the husband and wife relationship imbedded in the sexes of “male and female.” And it is the family that is established in Gen 1:27, for verse 28 will give the important mandate that requires both male and female: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over [the animals].” Having settled the role of husband and wife, the pair now corresponds to father and mother as they are charged to reproduce and fill the earth with more image-bearers who would reflect God’s glory back to Him as statues are intended.
The sphere of the family is the foundation upon which God has chosen to flourish human societies.
The home is further set apart in Genesis 2. In that chapter, there is a more direct description of the process by which God made both husband and wife. Noting that man was not meant to be left alone, God says in Gen 2:18, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” The familiar story goes on to tell how God took from Adam’s side in order to make Eve. From this, the apostle Paul will interpret a vital theological truth that sets the home apart and the orders the home with male headship, 1 Cor 11:8–9, “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”
To solidify this sphere, God binds the man and woman together in the profound little poem of Gen 2:23, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” The union now pronounced by God Himself, he charges the family as a sphere unto itself saying, “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2:24). At the union of a husband and wife, the leaving of the previous home is for the purpose of establishing a new family. This implies a sphere unto itself.
2) God Created the Church in Genesis 3
Yet shortly after the creation of the family sphere, and while there was only a sinless existence in the world, Adam as the covenant head of his own family sphere as well as the entire human race will sin against God and plunge humanity into the fall. Curse is brought upon the physical creation (Gen 3:17–18) as well as upon the newly created family sphere (Gen 3:16). And though this is tremendously bad news, the initial curse of the Serpent was also ironically a promise of blessing. The proto-evangelium or “first gospel” as it is often called was announced in Genesis 3:15. God said to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”
Many recognize this to be the first prophecy of a Messiah to be born to a woman and defeat the devil. The seed or offspring of the woman, Jesus Christ, will bruise the head of the serpent. This is, after all, the most vulnerable yet dangerous part of a snake. And in the process of this skull-crushing seed’s victory, the serpent will simultaneously bruise the heel of the woman’s seed. This is a forecast of the sufferings and death of Jesus on the cross. It would be through this promise of good news that Adam, having just sinned, would claim a hope for himself and all who would believe. After receiving the curses, Adam would then name his wife “Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Gen 3:20). Rather than humanity surely dying, as God had warned (Gen 2:17), God instead was merciful. He held out a promise of deliverance in the seed of the woman, whomever that Seed may be.
And in display of such infinite grace, God seemingly killed some animals so that He might cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve (Gen 3:21). There is now a depiction of both a redeemer in the seed of the woman and the means by which redemption will occur—sacrifice as a substitutionary atonement.
With this gospel held out in type and shadow, Adam and Eve would believe in such a hope for the forgiveness of their sins. Thus the sphere of the church was created, it being defined in the 2nd London Confession of 1677/89 §26.1 as “the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ, the head thereof.”
It is crucial to distinguish that God did not create the church before the fall, for that would confuse Law and Gospel; the Covenant of Works with the Covenant of Grace. Rather God created the sphere of the church, the redeemed community of God, after the fall of humanity. In the Covenant of Grace, God initially revealed it “in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament” (2LCF §7.3). As God’s revelation of the Covenant of Grace and entrance into the redeemed community was progressively revealed, the administration of the church, whether in the OT or the NT, was dictated by the covenant under which the church was dispensed. Thus, the Confession speaks of the old covenant “ceremonial law, to which the Jewish church was subjected” (§21.1). Now under the new covenant, the church having reached its eschatological fulfillment point (at least its initial stage of fulfillment, though she await its her consummation), Christ can say to his disciples “I will build my church” (Matt 16:18).
God created the sphere of the church, the redeemed community of God, after the fall of humanity.
And just as the church of the Old Testament was directed by the old covenant commands which regulated its worship in the “ceremonial law,” so likewise is the church under the new covenant to adhere to the dictates of the new covenant commands of Scriptures found in the New Testament. This is often referred to as the “regulative principle of worship.” That is, when it comes to the method which God is to be worshiped, the church must follow the mandates of Scripture, only doing what God commands.
3) God Created the Civil Magistrate in Genesis 9
It may seem surprising to some that if the church was created shortly after the fall, then wouldn’t the sphere of the civil magistrate not also be created shortly thereafter? Whatever the reason in God’s decreed ordering of creation and providence, He chose to allow humanity to grow into chaos and violence. So much so, that by the time we get from the next chapter after the fall, Genesis 4, we only make it to Genesis 6 before the violence of unrestrained humanity wreaks havoc over the earth. Genesis 6:5 says, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Rather than filling the earth with image-bearers who would reflect worship and glory back to God, as the creation mandate called for (Gen 1:28, “fill the earth…”), instead “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence” (Gen 6:11).
We have to ask: why was violence the key feature of humanity’s rebellion before the flood? This question would be answered after the flood when God created the final sphere: the civil magistrate. If the purpose of the magistrate is to restrain the wickedness and violent disposition of depraved humanity (cf. Rom 13:3–4 and 1 Pet 2:13–14), then the lack of restraint before the flood would be best explained in that the magistrate was yet instituted by God for humanity.
In this sense, it is helpful to see the flood as a de-creation and do-over. Afterwards, Noah is depicted as a “new Adam” figure. Just as Adam was created from the dust or the adamah (Gen 2:7), so also was Noah described as a “man of soil” or literally a man of adamah (Gen 9:20). Indeed, the charge given to Adam to be fruitful and fill the earth (Gen 1:28) was repeated to Noah in Genesis 9:1. Nevertheless, Noah, like Adam, would likewise fall into sin with fruit, end up naked, and have a son who intensifies sin (Cain kills Abel; Ham dishonors his father).
And between this new story of humanity, God says to Noah in Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” Here, the inverted wording is intentional and illustrative for the meaning of this text. God moves from shed – > blood – > man | man – > blood – > shed. This reversal of the words implies a reciprocal judgment. If a human man sheds the blood of another, then by mankind in the sphere of the magistrate is evil to be restrained and the murderer to be punished. This is founded upon the dignity of the dead one in that the verse concludes, “For God made man in His own image.” Capital punishment carried out by the civil magistrate is to restrain the earth from being filled with violence as before the flood as well as to punish any evil-doer who might kill what God has especially marked with His image.
The implication is that the civil magistrate is a sphere created by God in this newly restarted humanity project. The family continues in Noah, his wife, and his sons with their wives. The church continues in Noah and the elect of his descendants. And now, for the good of civilization as well as to make safe the entrance of the seed of the woman, God has established the final sphere: the civil government.
For more teaching on these topics, order Dr. Timothy Decker’s new book: A Revolutionary Reading of Romans 13 at press.founders.org.
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The Grace of Fear
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved;How precious did that grace appear The hour I first believed!
This second stanza of John Newton’s “Amazing Grace” provides Christians with a rich and subtle insight into the nature of God’s saving work in the lives of believers. The verses encourage us to consider God’s providence over both the universal, objective elements of conversion – the new birth, including conviction of sin, repentance, and faith – but also over the subjective, particular circumstances of that conversion: the events, conversations, and degrees of the conviction that all believers feel. All are under the sovereignty of God in working out His purpose to save His people.
What might surprise the reader upon closer examination of the hymn is the stanza’s first line: “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved.” What is interesting about this line is that it at least implies that the same grace which prompts fear answers that fear. But how can the grace of God prompt fear? The fear Newton mentions is spurred by recognition of the Law’s demands and the wrath of God imminent upon a sinner. The Scriptures reinforce this fear of God’s wrath. As far back as the Exodus, Moses observes, “Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of You?” (Psalm 90:11-12). In the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews rhetorically declares, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). This fear from God’s righteous standards is succinctly articulated by Abraham Booth, the great English Particular Baptist:
“[W]hen the Spirit of God convinces of sin by the holy law, and manifests its extensive demands to the conscience of the sinner; when he is informed that every sin subjects the offender to a dreadful curse; then his fears are alarmed and his endeavours are quickened…for now, guilt burdens his soul, and conscience sharpens her sting; while the terrors of the Almighty seem to be set in array against him. The duties he has neglected, the mercies he has abused, and the daring acts of rebellion he has committed against his divine Sovereign, crowd in upon his mind and rack his very soul.”[i]
But again, how can fear be gracious? It is gracious in hindsight when considered as part of the process through which God redeems a Christian. It could be said that God prepares a person for salvation through an awareness of the guilt and judgment impending upon him as a sinner before God. The fear of God’s Law can precede the comfort of God’s Gospel as day follows night.
Newton’s own life and conversion provides a concrete example of just this kind of providential work. While a sailor at sea, living in “carnal security,”[ii] Newton was awoken by a violent storm that threatened to sink them, and though working frantically to exhaustion to save the ship, he despaired of any hope of deliverance:
“As he was returning, [Newton] said, almost without meaning, ‘If this will not do, the Lord have mercy upon us!’…[s]truck with his own words, it directly occurred to him, What mercy can there be for me!”[iii]
Ultimately, the ship and crew were spared, but it was through these circumstances that Newton came to reflect on the Scripture’s teaching of his need for Christ and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit within him, and during this trial became a follower of Jesus. Yet, it should be clear, it was not ultimately physical death that concerned Newton – he was terrified that, were the Scriptures true, his soul would be lost, condemned before a holy God. It was precisely this experience of fear before the terror of God’s holy wrath that John Newton learned about the allaying power of the Gospel.
Nor is Newton’s life an anomaly in redemptive history. The book of Acts especially provides examples of fear preceding the comfort found only in Christ. There is the record of Pentecost. After hearing Peter’s preaching, the Jews were “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37) – that is, they were filled with anxiety and remorse over the realization that they had been responsible for crucifying the Lord’s Christ.[iv] In their desperation they cried out for some source of hope – “Brothers, what shall we do?” – recognizing that they had no apparent hope for redemption against the God they had offended. Yet they received the words of Peter to repent of their sins and became devoted to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship (2:42). Another example can be found in the Philippian jailer. He too, upon learning of Paul and Silas’ presence in the cell, became filled with fear and trembling, and not merely due to his concern for his life, but clearly through the witness of their praying and singing hymns (Acts 16:25).
The idea that God prepares sinners for conversion prior to regeneration has roots in Protestant history. Particularly during the Puritan era, as Scriptural truths were being rediscovered and developed, it was a topic of discussion how much of God’s illumination merely convicted of sin and how much actually saved a person.[v] They astutely observed that Law works in the hearts of men so as to deprive them of any sense of hope to stand before God in their own righteousness and power, and it is through that helplessness that the sweetness of the Gospel message is tasted. For example, in Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, we see in the early pages that the pilgrim Christian is tormented by the burden of his sin lashed to his back. He is aware of his guilt, and desires to be free of its ponderous weight. Yet it will be some time in the narrative before Christian is free of his burden. In fact, it will not be removed until he enters the Wicket Gate and the place of deliverance beyond. Consequently, the reader may infer that, though we cannot know for certain how long it is, there is sometimes distance between a believer’s awareness of his burden (the fear of God’s Law) and that burden’s removal (the power of the Gospel to save).
Yet this fearful sensitivity, called conviction of sin, cannot be identical with regeneration. It is not clear merely from conviction whether the Spirit’s work is completed, or whether this constitutes earthly fears of heavenly realities now considered. John Owen, reflecting on the work of the Spirit in regeneration, observes, “ordinarily there are certain previous and preparatory works, or workings in and upon the souls of men, that are antecedent and dispositive unto it. But yet regeneration doth not consist in them, nor can it be educed out of them.”[vi] Newton himself concurs, “We may be unable to judge with certainty upon the first appearance of a religious profession, whether the work be thus deep and spiritual or not; but ‘the Lord knows them that are his.”[vii] Though the outside fear may not be infallible as to its origin, it is nevertheless true that such fears can be and often are expressive of a heart in the process of being converted. This makes the nature of when regeneration takes place imprecise. The divine aspect of regeneration, the work of God, is internal; we only see external aspects – conviction of sin, repentance, faith in Christ. The new birth, in Jonathan Edwards’ words, may come in “a confused chaos…exceeding mysterious and unsearchable.”[viii] B. H. Carroll further articulates this imprecision:
“[c]onviction, repentance, and faith are the constituent elements of regeneration; that is, they are the elements within our range of vision. We can see only the under side of what is above us. When we describe it, we describe it as we see it. As the view is partial, the description is partial.”[ix]
Occasionally, some Puritans steered into language and concepts of God’s convicting work prior to conversion that were unhelpful and imbalanced. A particularly famous example is the New England Puritan Thomas Hooker. In some of his works he asserted that an acute sense of fear from God’s Law is a necessary qualification to repentance and faith: “[the pre-regenerate person] must be a lost man in his own apprehension…All men must thus be disposed before they can be saved.”[x] However, many contemporaries challenged Hooker’s suggestion that godly terror must first precede regeneration. From the earlier quote from Owen, we can see how he qualifies his observations with the word “ordinarily.” Preparatory works resulting in fear can certainly be present, but that is not a necessary precondition for the Spirit to work. Notably, the early Particular Baptist William Kiffen found Hooker’s thoughts distasteful, and his thoughts are reflected in Article 25 of the First London Baptist Confession of 1644 (1646 revision): “The preaching of the gospel to the conversion of sinners, is absolutely free; no way requiring as absolutely necessary, any qualifications, preparations, or terrors of the law, or preceding ministry of the law.”[xi]
More recent Christian theologians, especially after the First Great Awakening, have concurred with this hesitancy toward a unilateral experience prior to salvation. The thoughts of Archibald Alexander, living in the generation subsequent to the labors of Edwards, Whitefield, Rowland, and Wesley, summarize this consensus. After observing the idea of legal conviction (being convicted of the law’s curse) had “generally prevailed in all our modern revivals: and it is usually taken for granted, that the convictions experienced are prior to regeneration,” he then states, “But it would be very difficult to prove from Scripture, or from the nature of the case, that such a preparatory work was necessary.”[xii] In the present day Sinclair Ferguson observes, “Because God sees what he intends to produce in us and through is as his children, he exposes us to differing levels of conviction. Some like Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, are under conviction for minutes; others, like Paul, perhaps for days; yet others go through a dark night of the soul which seems interminable, like Bunyan and Luther before him.”[xiii]
These historical-theological accounts invite the question: if conviction of sin is a part of salvation – one sign of regeneration – why is it not essential prior to salvation? Further, how can some experience the conviction of sin and its attendant fear more acutely than others? Why do some not experience the degree of fear Newton summarizes so well in “Amazing Grace”? The answer to this lies in understanding what might be called universal and particular aspects of salvation. Every Christian is saved in accordance with God’s eternal electing plan, the universal character of this saving work between the God who redeems and the person who is redeemed. All sinners are hopeless in themselves to be saved. All three Persons of the Godhead participate in a person’s being brought from death to life; the work of the incarnate Son, accomplished in His earthly ministry, is implemented by the Holy Spirit who regenerates the believer at the behest of the Father’s effectual call. Every Christian is incorporated into the one people of God (Eph. 4:4-6). In sum, the work of redemption has a linear process, from the effective call to glorification, with regeneration, repentance/faith, justification, and sanctification falling between these (Rom. 8:30).
Nevertheless, this work of redemption, universal in character, takes place during a person’s life and experience, the particular aspect. Were it God’s will, He could simply redeem a person immediately with the fullness of Christ’s purchased salvation. This is certainly within the power of Him who called all things into being by the utterance of His Word (2 Cor. 4:6). Yet God has rarely chosen such an expeditious manner in saving sinners. Very often, in fact almost always, He works in a believer’s life through the events, circumstances, and processes unique to his life. Archibald Alexander, in his insightful Thoughts on Religious Experience, places these differences in experience within the situational, historical, and constitutional differences between each individual person, requiring pastoral wisdom in assessing a person’s spiritual state.[xiv] There is manifold wisdom in God’s way of saving sinners. Each person participates in the one salvation wrought by Christ, yet each person also contributes a distinct story of how that saving grace is manifested in him. John Murray observes, “If God has provided for the salvation of men, it must be salvation that takes effect in the sphere of human existence, that is, in the temporal, historical realm. Salvation as accomplished in time comprises a great many elements, factors, and aspects.”[xv]
The universal and particular aspects of redemption lead us to conclude that, though there is one salvation for all, the experience of one Christian in that process may drastically differ from another’s. All these circumstances, though unique, are not outside of God’s purview, but are the very means through which the Gospel, like leaven, works in the sinner’s heart to convict him of sin and bring him to faith and repentance. Whether the night of conviction is long or short, God’s grace brings a recollection of how He worked providentially in each of us to save us, drawing Christians into deeper devotion to Him for His grace, and a greater sense of our dependence on Christ for our unimpeachable hope.
“How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.”
[i] Abraham Booth, The Reign of Grace: From Its Rise to Its Consummation (reprint, Sprinkle Publications, 2017), 100. A similar insight into the uncertainty of when redemption is genuinely effected can be found in John Bunyan’s autobiographical Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. This short piece can be found in The Whole Works of John Bunyan (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1977), 1:6-65. The Banner of Truth Trust has a standalone version of this title.
[ii] The Works of John Newton (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1988), 1:25.
[iii] Ibid, 1:26, italics original.
[iv] The verb used here, κατανύσσομαι (“to be pierced, stabbed”), can mean pain in reference to anxiety or remorse. See Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000), 523.
[v] For a helpful discussion of the topic of “preparation,” see Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 443-461, especially 455-461.
[vi] John Owen, The Works of John Owen (Banner of Truth, 1981), 3:229.
[vii] Newton, Letters of John Newton (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 15, emphasis added.
[viii] Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, quoted in Beeke and Jones, A Puritan Theology, 459.
[ix] B. H. Carroll, “The Human Side of Regeneration,” in J. B. Cranfill, Sermons and Life Sketch of B. H. Carroll, D. D. (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1893), 177.
[x] Thomas Hooker, The Soul’s Preparation for Christ, 170-171, quoted in James M. Renihan, For the Vindication of the Truth: A Brief Exposition of the First London Baptist Confession of Faith (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2021), 99, emphasis added.
[xi] Quoted from Renihan, Vindication, 98. For evidence that Kiffen’s views are harmonious with the 1st London Confession, see ibid, 98-102.
[xii] Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience (reprint, Banner of Truth Trust, 1967), 15-16.
[xiii] Sinclair Ferguson, The Christian Life: A Doctrinal Introduction (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2017), 42. Roland Bainton provides a useful summary of Luther’s “Damascus Road” experience in Here I Stand (New York: Mentor Books, 1950), 15. It is interesting to compare Luther’s earlier experience and subsequent vow with his later wrestling over salvation seen in the same biography at 46-51.
[xiv] Alexander, Religious Experience, 32-36.
[xv] John Murray, The Collected Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977), 2:123. Though Murray is specifying the diverse aspects of the plan of salvation from election to glorification, it is just as applicable to the personalized experience of salvation in the believer.
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Bindergate: An Appeal for Honesty and Integrity in the SBC
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has a new scandal to add to its tragically growing list. Let’s call this one “bindergate,” because a black notebook binder with a red and white identification page is at the center of it. The following information is printed on that page:
2021 Resolutions Committee
James Merritt
June 2021
That binder evidently contains private emails that I exchanged with James Merritt (who chaired the Resolutions Committee that recommended resolutions to the 2021 SBC annual meeting that met in Nashville, June 15-16). I wrote those emails in response to Dr. Merritt reaching out to me with specific questions before the 2021 annual meeting. In an April 20 email he asked me two questions:
1) What are your specific concerns concerning Critical Race Theory and how the Southern Baptist Convention has handled this issue? 2) What specific things would you want our committee to hear from you?
I answered him as directly and helpfully as I could the very next day. We exchanged a couple of more brief emails before the annual meeting.
I had not given much thought to those email exchanges until a reporter for the Tennessean newspaper notified me a few weeks ago that he had obtained copies of them and intended to use them in a story he was writing on the SBC. Liam Adams asked to speak with me several times for the story. For a variety of reasons I never responded to his request (I was beyond cell service part of the time; I don’t trust mainstream media; and I find it somewhat distasteful that a reporter would make private emails public without at least asking permission to do so).
Let me quickly note that I am not concerned that Adams quoted my private correspondence. I long ago decided that I would operate as if every word I say in any context is being recorded and that anything I write anywhere will be made public. After all, a day is coming when I will give an account for all my words to a much higher court than that of mere human opinion. My Lord said, “On the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matthew 12:36).
So, I am not worried about my private words being made public in this way. I just think it is a slimy thing to do. Evidently it fits within the journalistic standards of the Tennessean, but I would like to think that Christians would have higher standards of ethics than that. Of course, while I might like to, I know better than to actually think that when it comes to certain SBC elitists. After all, this ain’t my first rodeo.
After Adams informed me in his third email to me (on November 18) that he intended to quote from my private emails to James Merritt, I contacted Dr. Merritt and asked him if he knew he had given my emails to Adams or if he knew how Adams had obtained them. Dr. Merritt called me the next day, while I was in Tennessee (which, as former ERLC ethicist, Philip Bethancourt reminded Southern Baptists is a “one-party consent” state when it comes to capturing audio secretly). He assured me that he had not given those emails to the reporter and that he had “no idea” how Adams obtained them. That conversation was the first time that I heard the word “binder” in connection with all of these shenanigans. Dr. Merritt said that Adams kept bringing up “some kind of binder” during an interview that he gave to Adams. Dr. Merritt assured me that he didn’t know what Adams’ meant by that.
In the story that Adams wrote for the Tennessean (which can be accessed here without a paywall) he states, “The documents, included in a binder that once belonged to James Merritt, the chair of the 2021 resolutions committee, include resolutions submitted on the subject of race and emails between top Southern Baptist leaders, including Greear.” I have since learned that a staff member from the ERLC is usually assigned to help the Resolutions Committee and that Executive Committee staff members would have access to their work room. Perhaps one of them could provide more information about this fiasco. I have also learned that it is not uncommon for each member of the SBC Resolutions Committee to have a binder with information related to their work at the annual meeting. That is understandable. What I do not yet understand is why the binder with James Merritt’s name on it and my private emails in it was given to the press.
In recent days we have heard a great deal about the need for transparency in the SBC. Calls for such have come from various sectors of the convention, including from the current SBC President. I generally agree with such calls. There was a time when Southern Baptist leaders tried to live by the old adage, “trust the Lord and tell the people.” Today that principle has morphed into “forget the Lord, just trust us, people.” But no association of churches can survive where the leaders call for trust from but eschew genuine accountability to the people they are supposed to lead. Much less can it survive when there is little or no fear of God demonstrated by leadership.
So, in the interest of transparency, and with full confidence in the power of the gospel to forgive any sin that may be involved and to strengthen any forgiveness that may need to be granted, I am asking for those who know how this binder made its way into the hands of the press to step forward and tell the truth. Southern Baptists have a right to know how something like this could happen. I have been informed that there are some whose salaries are paid by Southern Baptist churches who are in positions to know or at least to find out.
Perhaps the Lord would bless such a simple step of honesty and integrity to begin a deeply needed work of renewal among the people known as Southern Baptists.Follow Tom Ascol:
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