Young Southern Baptists Criticize Elders

Associated Baptist Press has published some comments by young Southern Baptist leaders that challenge the severely critical reaction that SBC denominational leaders have had toward the New Baptist Covenant group. Here's an excerpt:

Wade Burleson, a leader in the network of reform-minded conservatives who elected Page as president, said Chapman's and Page's criticisms are uncalled-for.

While not familiar with Covenant and it's leaders, Burleson said, "it would be difficult for me to criticize any evangelical Christian movement whose stated goals are to live out the gospel through doing justice and loving mercy."

"There comes a time when we as Southern Baptists should simply remain silent if we cannot say anything supportive of other Baptist attempts at addressing pressing social and cultural issues in a prophetic manner," Burleson, an Oklahoma pastor, told Associated Baptist Press. "To provide a public defense of our convention's record, while at the same time criticizing others, seems to be acting in a manner contrary to the spirit of our Lord and the good of His kingdom at large. I wish nothing but success for all Baptists who seek to live out the gospel for a world in need of a Savior."

Ben Cole, another leader of the young reformers and a blogger at baptistblog.wordpress.com, also criticized his SBC colleagues.

"I am not surprised to see a response movement beginning to develop to provide balance to the fundamentalist tire-slashers who have managed to arrest the microphone of public witness among Southern Baptists," Cole said in a statement to ABP. "Neither am I surprised to read the prejudicial criticisms already being lobbed at Carter and Clinton by some of my fundamentalist brethren."

"Southern Baptists had better be careful when it comes to criticizing efforts to unite people of faith who seek social justice for the poor and oppressed," said Cole, a Southern Baptist pastor in Arlington, Texas "The role of the Levite or the priest in Christ's parable of the Good Samaritan is not one to be preferred. It could be that men whom the Southern Baptist fundamentalist elites regard as undesirable are the very ones who gain heaven's blessing in their efforts to bind up the wounds of those in our society who have fallen among thieves."

Cole said he shares the Covenant group's desire for more Baptist voices to be heard.

"The Southern Baptist Convention has gained a great deal of media attention in the last quarter-century, and our spokesmen have not always reflected with fairness the diversity of Baptist identity on issues of political or social importance," he said.

The reaction of young SBCers should be a hopeful sign for David Goatley pictured above as he spoke at the New Baptist Covenant press conference. Goatley is Executive Secretary of Lott Carey Foreign Missions and President of the North American Baptist Fellowship. He has been working diligently to bring all Baptists in North America together in a regional grouping of the Baptist World Alliance.