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Featured Lifeway

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by SolaSaint, Mar 10, 2012.

  1. SolaSaint

    SolaSaint Well-Known Member

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    I was in our local Lifeway store yesterday and a guy came in and asked the sales clerk if they had a book called "The Shack". I was sure she was going to say, "we don't carry that book, but instead she directed him to it. I like the Lifeway store because you aren't bombared with rows and rows of Osteen, Meyer and Jakes books, but I was a little shocked they carried The Shack. Does this bother anyone else?
     
  2. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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  3. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    LifeWay is a book store. They do not have to agree with every book they carry on their shelves. If it came down to that, the offerings would be slim pickings indeed.

    BTW, I know Thom Rainer personally. My wife was his executive secretary for almost a decade. He is a solid guy with great doctrine and a conservative view of Scripture.
     
  4. JonC

    JonC Moderator
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    There was a time when Lifeway (the Baptist Bookstore) provided resources that one could trust in regards to doctrine. Doctrine mattered, choices were not as abundant, but you could have reasonable trust in the material. Now, doctrine doesn’t matter (not only with Lifeway, but with many churches it serves as well), there are an abundance of choices, and you should not picture the bookstore as a “ministry,” but rather as a bookstore that caters to the individual customer’s wants rather than a particular belief.

    Lifeway reflects the current atmosphere within the churches it serves.
     
  5. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    Where did the Convention Press books go? I found them to be quite good and cheap to buy.
     
  6. Amy.G

    Amy.G New Member

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    I'm afraid that's true. I remember when it was the Baptist Book Store. (boy I'm old :laugh:)
     
  7. Iconoclast

    Iconoclast Well-Known Member
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  8. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    Man, you've got a problem with everybody. Is there anything good happening in the church these days?
     
  9. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    You were doing fine until you just HAD to toss in the invective. Unless you can document that you should retract it. Good luck documenting the activities of 44,000+ churches... :BangHead:
     
  10. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    The older CP books are no longer produced, but Convention Press is still active as a publisher including publication of the Baptist Hymnal.

    I have quite a collection of the old CP books. They were nice studies, but at times the individual authors might be persons who were able to write more because of who they were in the SBC than because they were doctrinally sound. I'm not saying anythnig that everyone doesn't know about, that was part of the reason for the Conservative Resurgence.

    Today, the old Sunday School Board has a much broader mission as LifeWay Christian Resources, and they both publish through the Broadman and Holman publishing house label and also operate LifeWay book stores that sell materials from many publishers.

    As far as "cheap to buy" that was in the 1970s and earlier. Those days are over for everything, including books.
     
  11. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    You could go online and get all the doctrine books you want. I buy very few books locally because they do not have what I am looking for and very few would buy the same books I do. Doctrine should be the result of the sound study of scripture not what someone else writes about what they think. Good reference books are expensive but cheaper in the long run.
     
  12. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    There was a time when they offered courses and gave certificates when someone completed them. There are some books I am using that are published by Lifeway. Two that I am using are Step by Step through the OT and Step by Step through the NT.
     
  13. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    They dropped the Baptist Training Union round about 1954, though it did not completely go away for another decade or so.
     
  14. JonC

    JonC Moderator
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    Very true. I don't think that I have ever bought anything from Lifeway in regards to learning doctrine because that type of resource is few and far between and I do rely on the internet (it's also more cost effective).

    What I mean is that the everyday inspirational type of material, the workbooks and Sunday school guides were at one time in line with SBC doctrine. I have seen men's groups pick up John Eldridge "Wild at Heart" studies simply because it looked interesting and was at Lifeway. The pastor or at least someone in the chruch should have examined the material, but they assumed it was within traditional SBC doctrine because it came from Lifeway. The men loved the course, but it was far from being biblically correct in my opinion, and certainly from a traditional SBC standpoint. This chruch let doctrine creap in without being tested because they assumed that Lifeway was still the Baptist Book store.

    Granted - it was the chruch's responsibility and Lifeway needs to survive in a business aspect. But chruches need to let their members know not to "trust" Lifeway in this regard, but they are simply a bookstore that focuses on selling to Christians. They have some very good material, but churches have to be more careful than they were in the past - which is a good thing if it is recognized because many problems we have today are related to things in the past.
     
  15. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    It was in about 1999 that my daughter read a magazine the church subscribed to and discovered that it was not in line with creation but evolution. I called the pastors in my area and everyone of them removed it from their church. She was in the fourth grade at the time. By that time she had read a few books on biblical creation and noticed the difference. I find it interesting that a child noticed the issue and not those who regularly read it.
     
  16. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    It seems to me that because Christians typically are a good market so much is being published for sale to them. There are so many materials and studies available and yet it seems that we now have a church that enjoys the studies but when it comes to studying scripture they are out to lunch. Over the years I have seen a decline in the attitude of learning and studying the text itself. I have been doing the same kind of studies that I have developed and use books that are written for lay people and even those who have graduated from college complain about that it is a lot of work.

    I have never found studying to be fun, but the results are rewarding.
     
  17. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    What is the alternative -- both to study, and with that the "weeding out" of unworthy materials -- and to the sale of materials for study? Where is this "pure as the driven snow" place where we can ONLY buy the doctrinal material that we totally agree with? Perhaps in our local church only, except that the vast majority of local churches are ALLERGIC to books and study, and certainly would never SELL books!

    To whom shall we turn in our efforts to find the pure and perfect store that only sells doctrinally perfect materials? CBD? They sell what LifeWay sells and more. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders? Sheesh, they sell TONS worse stuff than LifeWay would ever dream of! Who sells JUST what some of you are asking for? Answer... No one.

    What is really happening here is that some people can find fault with anyone or anything as long is it is not themselves. They do so under the guise of Christian concern, but are in fact doing the work of the enemy of God in that they gossip and slander those who are open enough to realize that there are differences of opinion, culture, and yes, scholarship.

    Hypocrites... :BangHead:
     
  18. JonC

    JonC Moderator
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    I actually wonder how much is a lack of desire on the part of church members to learn and how much is a desire on the part of church leadership to keep the doctrine light. I suspect a little of both.

    LifeWay is certainly not as bad as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. Of course, LifeWay is the only one of those mentioned associated with a particular denomination. But, the problem isn’t really LifeWay, it is churches who suppose that the resources sold teach material concurrent with the church they supposedly represent.

    It is one thing to present study material that presents various views of doctrine, and another to present inspiration material that has anit-southern Baptist doctrine tucked inside (if it is a SBC bookstore). If the book is intended to present a difference of opinion, culture and scholarship, that’s fine.For example, I would have no problem seeing Pinnock’s “The Openness of God” at LifeWay. It is opposed to Southern Baptist theology, but it presents an argument for a different view. It is clear from the onset what the authors are trying to defend. It is an altogether different case for Eldridge’s study because the doctrine opposed to Southern Baptist theology is tucked away and hidden in its “inspiration” and “relevancy.”

    I guess on a practical side, if LifeWay remained as it was in the Baptist Bookstore days, it’d probably have gone out of business and we’d be going to Amazon anyway. You are right that we, as a whole, are hypocrites.
    We are expecting LifeWay as a Southern Baptist organization to be somewhat of a safe haven for Southern Baptist doctrine when we, as Southern Baptist churches seem to be failing as well.
     
    #18 JonC, Mar 10, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 10, 2012
  19. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    I found a different congregation when I began teaching them about the Bible and how to interpret it and teaching them to make disciples. The more a pastor gives and requires from the congregation the more is also required of him.

    When a teacher expects a lot from his students he is more likely to get some critical students who are lazy and some who will rise to their best.
     
  20. Alive in Christ

    Alive in Christ New Member

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    I, too, remember when it was "Baptist Book Store".

    When I 1st pulled into the the parking lot after the change, and saw "Lifeway", I thought either a health food store or a fitness gym had moved in!!
     
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