On Sunday night I quoted from the booklet entitled “Building Bridges.” It is authored by David Dockery and Timothy George. In the opening chapter Dr. Dockery speaks of seven groups in the diverse family of conservative Southern Baptists. He goes on to say that there are subgroups in most of these. I would add that many are a combination of one or more of these. For now I want to identify again those groups he introduced: 

1. Fundamentalists ~ these are hard-line people who have more in common with Independent Baptists than with the SBC heritage. 

2. Revivalists ~ these from the Sandy Creek background are Baptists who are hot-hearted for a fresh work of the Spirit but they are suspicious of education. 

3. Traditionalists ~ these also come from the Sandy Creek theology which includes evangelism and revivalism but they affirm education. 

4. Orthodox Evangelicals ~ this is a peaceful group with a commitment to the full truthfulness of the Bible that includes a serious intellectual and cultural engagement while interacting with all who would claim the great orthodox Christian traditions. 

5. Calvinists ~ they have much in common with group #4 but tend to be at times less irenic or inclusive. They come from the Charleston tradition of an educated clergy and reformed theology. 

6. Contemporary Church Practitioners ~ these leaders seek to find new ways to connect with the culture, resulting in new models for doing church. Saddleback, Willow Creek and some emergent types would be in this group. 

7. Cultural Warriors ~ these conservatives desire to engage the issues of culture and society. Their priority is cultural transformation and social justice. 

All of these groups helped bring the “conservative resurgence” to the SBC. Now we are seeking to keep these groups together to touch the world with the Gospel. The enemy target is no longer liberalism in the denomination. Our focus must change to be the advancement of the Gospel in the lost world. To date we have not brought the coalition together for this cause. We must do that or the SBC will slowly die from inward fighting. It is time to fight the GOOD FIGHT. 

Pastor Ted Traylor 

Posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 9:22 am.
You can leave a response, or you can follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed.