The Washington Post has informed us that today there will be a meeting between Frank Page, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention and current president of the SBC’s Executive Committee (an entity that functions as the SBC when delegates from the churches of the SBC are not seated for action in their annual meeting).

At issue is the controversy created by Jack Graham and those who join him in being upset about Moore’s pointed criticism of Donald Trump (and, in fairness, Hillary Clinton) during the United States’ most recent presidential election season and those unnamed individuals who may choose to vote for Trump simply because he was not a member of the Democratic Party.

Specifically, Graham and his coalition have raised the specter of withholding mission funding if Moore isn’t brought to heel. In fact, it appears that a number of this faction will not be satisfied unless Moore is removed from his post and the ERLC he is tasked with leading is dissolved entirely.

According to the post this meeting could, in fact, represent the crisis point in the controversy:

Page declined to discuss the plan for Monday’s meeting, but he indicated that he would not rule out the possibility that he could ask Moore to resign. He said he hopes Moore and his opposition will agree to pursue efforts toward reconciliation.

Ligon Duncan, he of PCA affiliation, has wisely, I think, encouraged all aware of this controversy to be praying for Dr. Page.

A good thing for all of us to do right now who are concerned for the SBC, @drmoore & @ERLC would be to pray for Dr. @frankpagesbc. — Ligon Duncan (@LigonDuncan) March 13, 2017

I could not agree more with Duncan. Where I sit, with no hyperbole, the future of the SBC may in fact be in the balance. Here’s why:

I. The Confessional Unity of the Southern Baptist Convention

As anyone remotely familiar with SBC (or church) history knows, the SBC has never long been without controversy. In my lifetime this has appeared in the last ripples of what is known as the Conservative Resurgence, the conflict between those of Calvinist persuasion (commonly referred to as YRRs) and the Neo-Traditional SBC front who took up the name Traditionalist for their movement, and even in the conflict around nomenclature reflected in the Great Commission Baptist argument.

As I have observed each of these disputes – many of which I would say were necessary, even essential, to sorting out what gospel faithfulness looks like for Southern Baptists – the most compelling argument for unity offered by denominational leaders I have found is that the Baptist Faith and Message is sufficient to specify what Southern Baptists as individuals and churches understand to be essential. That is a position I affirm (and have specifically argued applies in the issue with Graham and the ERLC).

However, Graham’s move to withold funding raises the issue of whether or not there is in fact a second, unstated test of unity, that being allegiance to the Republican Party.

I have no doubts that, however Graham’s controversy with the ERLC is resolved, that the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM2k) will remain as a ground of SBC unity. The message that will sound, loud and clear, should Graham’s mission-funding-cessation strategy lead to Moore’s dismissal hold sway, is that in practical fashion it is required of those who would be Southern Baptists that to keep faith with the GOP, regardless.

I am deeply, deeply uncomfortable with a para-BFM2k political standard (and I write that as a political conservative). This amounts to an extra-confessional confession, one which the visible standard (i.e. the BFM2k) does not address. Should Graham’s party accomplish their ends Southern Baptists will be left saying one thing – “We are unified in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000” – and doing another.

II. The Missional Unity of the Southern Baptist Convention

As a [relatively; see below] young pastor I have often told my frustrated friends in ministry who looked for more welcoming pastures of ministry partnership (i.e. Acts 29, private networks, direct support of missionaries) that a major reason to remain in the SBC was the power of the Cooperative Program (CP) – an idea that, like the idea that the BFM2k is a sufficient standard of confessional unity, has been consistently promoted in my lifetime by denominational leaders.

I remain convinced, in fact, that the CP is still the greatest mission funding mechanism available in the world today. I am also convinced that it is imperative that we Southern Baptists, having this mechanism, make use of it for the purposes of the Great Commission.

The second major issue raised by Graham’s controversy with the ERLC is whether or not the Cooperative Program, as the historic means by which Southern Baptists have cooperated to fulfill the Great Commission, should be used as a weapon against political opponents (opponents only, it should be noted, in battle grounds unaddressed by the Baptist Faith and Message). To whatever degree this matter is also a contest between the YRR and the Neo-Traditionalists we also consider, in Graham’s controversy, whether or not mission funding is a weapon to be used against theological enemies who nonetheless stand with us in the common ground of the Baptist Faith and Message.

Should Graham’s faction gain their desired end the claim that Southern Baptists should find ways to work together in order to utilize the Cooperative Program toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission will suffer an severe, and perhaps fatal, loss of credibility.

If conformity to the GOP is required of Southern Baptists and is so necessary that we might follow Graham’s lead in withholding mission funding in order to enforce it there will be serious questions raised about what other issues are worth withholding funding and/or ceasing cooperation over. I don’t think, long term, Southern Baptists – as agents of the Great Commission -will benefit from such questions.

III. The Moral Credibility of Our Theological Fathers and Grandfathers

As a younger (note: only in the world of pastors and politicians is 35 considered to still be “younger”) pastor I grew up looking to the men of Graham’s generation as heroes.

These were men who held the line against theological liberalism and the inherent threat to the saving gospel of Jesus Christ represented by liberalism.

I found, in men of Graham’s generation like Graham himself, Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, Jerry Vines, Adrian Rogers, etc., men who showed me a way forward in love for the Lord and the love for the gospel and scripture incumbent within that love for Christ.

That later, in following their lead in loving the Bible, I came to conclusions that brought me into the Reformed tradition, I found that this generation – and often the specific men I named above – were unhappy with that conclusion I was able to nonetheless accept that unhappiness as an unfortunate family disagreement but one which my respect for these men called for me to grant them without breaking fellowship.

I saw, as a very young man, this same generation speak powerfully into the political reality of our country during the Bill Clinton / Monica Lewinsky controversy. Character matters! they claimed and I believed them (and still do). And while I do not insist on an evangelical President for our country I do believe, as I trust the men named above do insofar as they modeled it in their public statements about Clinton during that controversy, in an ethical standard that should be expected of our elected leaders that is necessary for a healthy United States.

That I now see those heroes who led me, richly, into the Bible unwilling to tolerate Biblical theological conclusions that are consistent with the BFM2k and breaking with an application to Donald Trump of the political theory their generation – and often they specifically as individuals – applied to Bill Clinton I am left deeply frustrated.

Here in the Jack Graham controversy with the ERLC I am left facing a stark confrontation. My heroes, men I do not know personally but who I nonetheless see as grandfathers and fathers in the faith, making clear that the theological conclusions I have come to from the Bible they led me to and the political conclusions that same Bible led me to (and modeled in their calls to Bill Clinton) are not welcome when resulting in embracing theological traditions they do not like and candidates they do.

Should Graham’s faction win the day it will be hard to see any means by which I can continue on in the family that, despite my love and appreciation for, I am consistently finding myself unwelcomed to. Do those of us in this position leave the Southern Baptist Convention? I can’t imagine that future and I certainly wouldn’t call for it. But those of Graham’s persuasion would insist and mandate that those who don’t tow the para-BFM2k theological and political line ask whether we belong or not.

So yes, by all means, pray for Frank Page and the SBC. It appears our future might quite literally hang in the balance during the time of his meeting with Moore. Might I suggest that, secondary to your prayers, you also contact the Executive Committee that Page leads and let them know your thoughts (whether you stand with Graham, Moore, or otherwise)? Page and the ExComm needs to know what is thought by those whom they represent on this crucial issue.

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