Spirit of "non-cooperation" among Baptists

It has been my experience, that many IFB's want uniformity over unity, which in my view appeals to ego. While it's alright to disagree, we as Fundamentalists like to make mountains out of molehills, while the world goes to Hell!
Much of it has to do w/ the man made KJVOnlyism, which college you went to, etc, ad infintum! I can't help but think that much of the secondary separation has it's source in the ego, what some have called, "OneUpManship"
(and I hope no one is reading btwn the lines that I am espousing 'anything goes')

 

I remember when I started pastoring my first SBC church. A pastor told me to be careful of what I shared with other pastors about what I was doing. After I thougtht about that for awhile I thought, "Nonsense." If it is God's work then everybody should know. When the church I was pastoring began to grow other pastors began to ask me about what I was doing. I told them and soon found out that most of those pastors who asked were not all that interested in doing what I was doing anyway. It required a lot of work and time. But God blessed and the church today is doing very well. I never found cooperation to be a problem. In fact I found the people in the congregation to actually appreciate it when pastors worked together,

In the last church I was at the pastors from the community began to get together to plan community outreach events and pray togehter. One Sunday a lady in my congregation mentioned to me about how well the pastors worked together. I told her that they were my friends too. At first they were reluctant to do evangelism together. After awhile they agreed. It helped some of the pastors to start doing evangelism. Some of them had never done evangelsim in the community. People came to know Christ through every Bible believing church in that town. Nobody has exclusive rights to the gospel. Personally I want to see every pastor and every Christian sharing the gospel.

 

Plain and simple truth is many of the pastors in the fundamental Baptist churches espescially ,preach and teach a my way or the hiway brand of fundamentalism.They won't have thier teaching, thinking ,or preaching come into question. One of the ways to make this system work is to have a very limited or restricted fellowship group,then claim nobody else can meet their standards as they are the only ones truly following God's Word.

 

I think that it would be a good thing for some of the Baptist Denominations to actually merge together. The things that cause us to split are often things that none of us can remember or even know about. If there are two Baptist denominations that are likeminded, why not pool your resources and amalgamate?

 

It seems like a lot of times this non-cooperation has come from past doctrinal errors of certain Baptist churches, like, for example, in my city, there is a Regular Baptist church that exists because it split from my American Baptist church over certain doctrinal issues.

And Dr. Bob, not all American Baptists are liberal/moderate in their theology, as Autonomy of the local church is one of our primary beliefs.

 

In essentials-unity: In non essentials-charity!

 

There's not a lot of moderate, liberal AB churches here in WV, also. We have some very fine fundamental ABC churches. Some are even so fundamental that they are being duped into believing KJVOnlism.

Most American Baptists are not liberal.
Just the loud mouths.

 

Sorry to tar you with the broad brush. All of the American Baptist church that I know are either moderate or liberal, but I am sure there are still some who have not bowed the knee to ba'al.

I wrote "Forward: History of Fundamental Baptists in Wisconsin" and studied the demise of the ABC (esp in Wisconsin).from historic baptist doctrine and polity. Not much "baptist" left in them. </font>[/QUOTE]A number of the American Baptist pastors where I live have graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary.

 

What are Dallas grads doing in mainline ABC churches? American Baptists, as a denomination, are very liberal, part of the ecumenical movement, and here we have a church that does not EVER preach the Gospel.

HEre in town I've gone round with some of the folks from FBC. They have a woman preacher who would not know the Gospel if it hit her on the head. She went to Judson and Northern. </font>[/QUOTE]From what I have been able to tell the ABC has basically two sides that are opposed. Some are very conservative and some are quite liberal. Most of the FBC's here are an ABC chruch and are doing well. In fact most of the staff have graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary ior some other conservative school. I did ask one pastor about the same thing you mentioned and he gave me the impression that there is the diferences and that the cinservative churches stick together as one agisnt the liberalism. I think it is much like a man I know who is a mathodist pastor that use s the baptist church to immmerse people for baptism. He gives people the gospel. His cousin is SBC. The people love him as their pastor.

Personally I am convinced that there are liberal pastors in every denomination. Some are more vocal thayn others about it. I know a pastor that pastored a large church and was once a trustee at Baylor and later at SWBTS. When I talked with him about sctripture he would claim to be a conservative, But when I heard some answers to my questions as a young pastor I really had to wonder. He proclaimed to be in the right camp but some of us had serious doubts about his study and what he said. Often what he preached was so basic and what he said in private would lead you to believe if that man ever studied. One of the older men on staff who was retired pastored told me that he truly wondered about what that man believed. There were times when I asked him tougher questions and he would send me to the older staff member to answer my questions. I became convionced that the man didn't want to answer my questions out of fear that the truth would be found out. However he was part of the SBT. He said he believed the Bible but some of his interpretations led me to believe otherwise. He preached other pastors sermons often. Eventually some of the people fouind out and put pressure on him and he left for another church.

You have read some things on this board that would lead one to believe that you can add to scripture and it is still scripture and they will claim they are a conservative. They would claim to believe all the right things.