The Southern Baptist editor asks, "How would a pastor initiate a discipline (not rejection) program?" and identifies the "choke point" that will help churches recover unity and joy.
Gary Ledbetter, the editor of the Southern Baptist Texan, uses a graphic image to describe the way to unify the church through discipline:
Practically though, there is a choke point through which all members must pass. It is also the point at which we make meaningful church discipline possible. Further, any possibility that the church will be unified is decided at this same time--the receiving of new church members.The need for church discipline, in Ledbetter's mind, arises from differences in the way other Christians interpret scripture. He says,
If Southern Baptists believe we are conducting our church life according to our best understanding of biblical truth, it is a problem for us to casually mix in new members whose understanding of biblical truth is greatly less or different than our own.Ledbetter's essay reveals a sleight difference in the way that Southern Baptists view the church and the way that the UCC advertisements have been charicaturizing some churches. In the UCC ads people are turned away at the door or ejected from their pews. Ledbetter would simply apply a choke hold on the people who want to join his church and only admit those who readily agree to submit to his interpretations of scripture.
1 comment:
Yes, but I think Ledbetter's editorial (or your representation of it at least) has a strong scriptural basis at least as applied to church discipline.
Paul uses 1 Corinthians to outline how to perform church discipline in a sexually charged community. It goes like this:
(1) You can't expect non-christians to be moral or live a christian life.
(2) You can't cut yourself off from the immoral because that is the whole world.
(3) You are called to live to higher standards as a Christian.
(4) The church has a right and a duty to correct Christian brothers who fail to live to that standard. The church should even cast them out if they fail to repent and continue living in their sins. Failure to do this doesn't do the church or the person any favors.
The modern interpretation is that anyone can come and sit in the pews, but a church should hold members (who ought to be Christians) to higher standards. The SBC probably has a lot of theological crap in their "higher standards" that doesn't need to be there, but that's the current SBC for you.
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