GCR passage won't change SBC

Even if the "Great Commission Resurgence" Task Force proposals are adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting this week, there will be no "resurgence."

The overall effort will fail because the required change isn't on the agenda and if it were, could not be implemented by a vote of the messengers.

The report says SBC churches "need a new missional vision." No one will argue against the task force's proposed statement which is "to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations."

But casting ballots does not alter an organization's underlying mission.

For more than 30 years, the SBC's mission has been doctrinal conformity enforced by the the group's culture of conflict.

The SBC has boycotted Disney, kicked out churches with gay members and taken stands against women pastors.

But the most high-profile controversy took place from the late 1970s till the early 1990s when conservatives and moderates battled for control of the convention.

The conflict still remains an undercurrent in SBC life. Even the name given to the task force's effort — the Great Commission Resurgence — harkens back to it. Critics call the SBC conflict the "fundamentalist takeover," but supporters proudly call it the "conservative resurgence."

The remnants of the fight between conservatives and moderates can even be seen in one of report's core values. Truth is defined as when Southern Baptists "stand together in the truth of God’s inerrant Word, celebrating the faith once for all delivered to the saints."

Inerrancy was the conservatives battle cry as they drove moderates from leadership positions in the SBC. Anyone who didn't accept the conservative definition of inerrancy was labeled a "liberal" and effectively ostracized.

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, is one of the leading architects of the GCR. During a panel discussion at his school, Akin compared the SBC meeting this year to the 1979 meeting in Houston that started the controversy.

That analogy doesn't fit. The "conservative resurgence" was a political solution to what conservatives perceived as a theological problem. The "Great Commission resurgence" is a structural solution to a cultural problem.

The underlying problem with the GCR was highlighted last year in a column by Doug Baker, editor of the Oklahoma Baptist. As debate about the GCR was heating up, Baker cited (but didn't link to) a panel discussion at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and asked if Bill Leonard was right when he said conservatives would turn on each other after moderates left the SBC.

During the panel, Al Mohler, president of the seminary, asked Russell D. Moore, a senior vice president for the school, if moderates were correct when they said the conservative resurgence had not resulted in a "Great Commission intensity."

Moore answered affirmatively adding that things would have been worse without the conservative shift. He then says that at the national level of the SBC and in local churches there is "a lack of the fruit of the Spirit that is necessary for carrying out the Great Commission."

"In order to have a fire for the Great Commission, you must first have a love for one another," Moore said.

Lonnie Wilkey, editor of the Baptist & Reflector in Tennessee, writes about the "Us vs. Them" mentality that has permeated the SBC in his 30 years as a denominational journalist.

He talks about how the lines have been blurred since most "die-hard" moderates left the SBC. An example is Morris Chapman, who as president of the SBC Executive Committee was clearly one of the SBC's "us" but has become one of "them" as he has opposed the GCR.

"We need to do what it takes to reach our state, nation and world for Christ," Wilkey said. "But it will take more than simply adopting a report in Orlando to see this resurgence."

Any resurgence in the SBC is further complicated by the shrinking demographic pool from which the denomination is likely to draw new members.

Spiritual renewal won't happen in the SBC until the very nature of the organization changes. That's not likely to happen until its leaders no longer hold conflict in such high regard.