I am not accusing you or Dr. Akin of stupidity or duplicity. I am not smart enough to tell if you are stupid or duplicitous but I ain’t dumb enough to state such either. :) Please, do not place words out there that have not been stated. I asked a simple question concerning your perspective of theological triage. I merely presented that it was a man-made system that moved the commands of Christ into secondary and even some would say tertiary positions. Your response was baptism was something that was primary but how someone interpreted it would place in as secondary. It seems the command of Christ was not baptism but believers baptism. In all due respect, that is where I disagree with you and anyone else that uses theological triage in order to get around partnering with others that forsake believers baptism. If the great commission does not include the commands of Christ how then is it a great commission? In your theological triage position you are stopping the great commission after “go”. Thus, you are saying (I am not saying you have stated this, merely by your argument you seem to be advocating this) “In order to fulfill the great commission with others we must stop after “go” and leave the discipleship and decision for or against baptism to the new believer.

Dr. Finn,

As you so aptly point out, individual churches are free to partner with whomever, whenever, and wherever they choose. Within the convention structure, entities do not have that luxury. Remember, the church is king and entities answer to the churches through the trustee system. Thus, theological triage should be used by entities in order to partner with others outside the convention structure and in so doing the primary level of doctrine changes drastically. Why? If we believe leading someone to Christ only involves getting them to say a prayer then we can partner with anyone as long as we get to the prayer. But, I thought we understood that leading someone to Christ involved more than just a prayer, it also involves the discipleship of one within the context of a local church. Since we as baptist understand the local church to be an assembly of born again baptized believers then it seems that believers baptism should be a primary concern during the triage assessment, when partnering with others outside of the convention.

Blessings,
Tim

I really wish the people so obsessed with the separatism of Amos and Corinthians would take the time to read John 17. Jesus’ longest prayer recorded in Scripture calls for the visible unity of His people. After praying for the unity of the disciples with Him, Our Lord clearly stated the importance of unity in our generations: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

For far too long, far too many in the SBC have lived with the anticipation of separating from other believers at the least hint of theological disagreement. This sordid tendency really killed our missions momentum with the so-called “Conservative Resurgence” of the 1970’s-1980’s. I’m not saying we didn’t need correcting at the time, but the bloodletting that followed was blatantly unChristian.

Some may say, “We needed to get rid of the ‘liberals.’” I remember a Presbyterian pastor (a former SBC pastor, BTW) who once told me, “Most Baptists have never met a liberal. A true liberal is someone who denies the Virgin Birth.” Sure, we have another group of Baptists, the CBF, so both groups should reach twice as many people, right? However, the warfare of the 1980’s destroyed any hope of success for the Bold Mission Thrust begun in the 1970’s. Someone once told me, “When the Fundamentalists finish purging the moderates, they’ll turn on each other.” The accuracy of this prophecy is almost maddening, nearly as much as our arrogance in withdrawing from the BWA when that organization recognized the CBF.

Following our warfare of the preceding decades, it amazes me that the separatists stand aghast when the world refuses to hear the gospel proclaimed by the Church at large. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, “When He said ‘That they may be one,’ He meant it.” We’ve blatantly disobeyed Jesus’ clear teaching regarding the importance of our unity and then wonder why our membership has dropped and our witness goes unheeded.

NAF

Triage is not a man-made system for interpreting Scripture, Tim. It is a conceptual framework to help us sort out what we divide over and what we don’t, etc. The framework itself is intended to drive us back to Scripture.

As for your question about whether we would recommend triage for partnerships outside of the SBC: No. The SBC is a network of churches who cooperate for mission, theological ed, etc. Churches can cooperate with other networks and have done so in the past (mega-metro, saddleback, etc.)

Thanks for the reply. I am honored that you think so much of my intellectual prowess that you would think I am asking something so basic that it may be beneath me. However, I am very disheartened in the fact that we have taken a man made system to interpret scripture. For example, your semantics concerning the denying of scriptural baptism is very interesting. It seems that the Historical/Critical method did much of the same. The theological triage system, if we are not careful, will place us outside of scriptural authority just like the Historical/Critical method did.

Thus, I ask again, “would the authors of this post be advocating such a triage system in order to form partnerships with other groups outside of the SBC? Or, is the purpose of the system for maintaining cooperative ventures within the SBC?”

Blessings,
Tim

I place doctrines such as Trinity, Incarnation, and salvation by grace/faith/Christ in the category of “primary” b/c w/out those one does not have true Christianity. I place Scripture in the primary category also b/c once we lose that doctrine we will soon lose all others.

Therefore, if somebody denied baptism he would be denying the commands of Christ, which would be tantamount to denying Scripture. That would me a disagreement over a primary doctrine. If a person baptizes improperly, he is not denying the doctrine of Scripture, but rather misinterpreting the Bible’s teaching on Baptism.

The point is: I can have a type of fellowship and camaraderie with somebody who misinterprets baptism (e.g. Francis Schaeffer) that I cannot have with somebody who denies the Bible as ipsissima verba Dei (e.g. Schleiermacher) or who denies the Trinity, or Incarnation, or salvation by grace/faith/Christ (e.g. Mormons, JWs, etc.). This is why SBC presidents and theologians spend time at ETS but not at the Mormon convention. This is why they read Schaeffer’s books approvingly, but not Joseph Smith’s.

This is pretty basic stuff, Tim. I’m surprised that you asked such a question.