Seminary president says smaller families hurting baptism totals

Maybe he should stick to his seminary job, and quit trying to be the Holy Spirit for every Baptist family in the country. I don't think the position's open.

I'm kinda partial to that "priesthood of the believer" thing.

 

From what I've seen and heard I think ABPNews truncated the statement.

Aside from that part, I think the idea is silly. If we believe the power of the Gospel we know that it is stronger than birthrates.

There is considerable scholarship and research to suggest that the Church in Europe isn't dying away anytime soon and that Islam isn't as strong as suggested. From everything we've seen most Muslims that move to Europe assume an aspect of religious apathy that comes with that move. Also there is a significant wave of Christians from Africa moving into Europe.

 

If we have more kids, and they get saved, yes, that might increase the number of baptisms. That might make us feel better. We ought to reach our families, but there's lots of other families who have no Christian heritage or example in them... maybe we could also reach them.

 

Everything I've seen says the Church in Europe is much weaker in terms of numbers than it was say 50 years ago.

 

Numerically it is not as large as it was 50 years ago, but numbers don't reflect strength. Europe has always engendered a weird, cultural religion that is apathetic to its core.

I'm going to suggest that the Church in Europe is much, much stronger than it was 50 years ago because those who attend (for the most part) are deeply committed and desire Kingdom growth.

 

That would be great if it were true. Do you have any reason for suggesting this? Or are you saying that the strength of the church is inversely proportional to its size?

 

How anyone could seriously dispute Dr. Akin's assertion that the average Christian family structure more closely resembles and replicates culture than Scripture is beyond me.

 

It's also important to note that it's a completely different economic and social environment in 21st century American than 1st century Palestine.

Akin's solution is to bury our heads in the sand and to reproduce. That may be well and good if you have a good amount of land or a significant income potential, but do we really expect families who may be struggling to make ends meet on two incomes to continue to have children which will probably necessitate a reduction to a one-income household.

Now, I understand the point that many of us have overextended ourselves, but there is a point at which even frugality will not help much. If you are making $30,000 a year, you cannot support 6 children in most areas of the country. You won't even have the resources to house them. Where I live, to get even a decent two bedroom apartment (translation: free from stray bullets and rapists) is going to cost $600 a month. To provide housing for 8, even a three bedroom home would be extremely cramped, and it would be expensive. Even if you could get into a home for 800 a month, then you only have roughly 20k to support 8 people.

 

Moreover, Dr. Akin, quite honestly, is being absurd with his assertion of thinking of families as a "mission field."

"Pastors should acknowledge that we do have a culture mandate to be fruitful and multiply and that the Scriptures consistently witness to the fact that children are a good gift from a great God," he said. "They are a prime avenue and a prime mission field.
"In fact, in my axioms message, I said that our first line of doing missions is our own families. Of course, if you have one child as opposed to four, five or six, then you have a much smaller initial mission field."

If we are going to think in terms of evangelization, why have children at all? Doesn't the risk that one child might end up in hell bother him? We don't have children to create a mission field. If anyone is looking for a mission field, he should do it outside of the maternity ward.

 

A Stalwart American Church Faces the Unimaginable: Decline

You might like to read the following article as a companion piece for the one in this thread. It begins:

Much has been made in recent decades about the declining membership in Mainline churches -- denominations that include Presbyterians, United Methodists and Disciples of Christ, among others.

But one American religious institution that has long seemed impervious to such declines has been the Southern Baptist Convention, which has been and remains the second largest denomination in the United States (behind Roman Catholics).


http://blogs.indystar.com/thoushalt/2009/06/considering_a_o.html

 

Have you even read the entire GCR? This is just one point of the entire GCR and point I fully agree with.