SBC Priorities: Alcohol over Integrity in Church Membership

Tom Ascol shares today that his resolution on Integrity in Church Membership failed as it was not recommended by the resolutions committee and did not receive 2/3 vote to be considered on the floor. This was very disappointing to me because it shows how deep and entrenched our denominational pride is. We cannot admit that as Ed Young said, 10 million of our “members” cannot be found by the FBI. Furthermore, our churches have neglected regenerate church membership and church discipline and have bought into the “made in the USA” pragmatism that simply doesn’t “work.”

To add to the frustration and disappointment today, I read this morning that the SBC adopted a resolution on alcohol. Added to this resolution was an amendment urging the SBC to disallow anyone who drinks alcohol from serving as an entity/agency trustee or an SBC committee member. I cannot begin to tell you backward our convention priorities are when we are more concerned with SBC committee members who drink alcohol (which is a third level issue with little Scriptural support) than we are with our churches who have plundered their possessions to Egypt and Canaanized Christ’s beloved Bride. We are hypocrites plain and simple. We write resolutions about the “mint, dill and cumin” and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Over and over again I was hearing in the annual meeting, “Let’s major on the majors. Let’s keep the main thing the main thing and not get on ‘side streets.’” This is a side street, my friend, where the marketplace of fundamentalist ideas take us away from the culture and world we are wanting to reach—those on the main street. So while we chase down liquor bottles in the SBC, we ignore the unregenerate alcoholics in our pews.

Look, I have never had an ounce of alcohol in my life. Not an ounce, not even wine. I have no desire to defend it, but alcohol is not the problem in the SBC, we are. We don’t need a resolution on alcohol—we need a resolution on us. If we want to major on the majors, then let’s put the focus on ourselves, our denominational pride, our unwillingness to be honest, open, transparent, and broken. The SBC does not need a band-aid to cover superficial wounds; we need surgery. My question then, is, “Where are the surgeons?”