I am neither GARBC or SBC or have ever attended Cedarville. I am not exactly sure where the school is located other than Ohio. But I did serve in Western Michigan where the GARBC was strong, and I learned about secondary separation first hand. I have always consider the Covenant to be a fairly conservative denomination, so I was surprised that the local GARBC church would not join in services with us becasue I would eat breakfast with local ministerium. I eat breakfast with almost anyone. We had also had been involved with the local churches for Good Friday and Thanksgiving services. They had no problems with me but didn’t like the company I kept. Well that was fine, unfortunate but fine. What made life curious for me was when the pastor of the church who would not join us because my associations came and asked to use our copier because theirs was on the fritz. I am an agreeable sort and said sure. But the amusing thought has always stayed with me that I am not good enough to worship with but my functioning and free copier was theologically pure and blessedly available.  There is a lesson here but I am not quite sure what it is.

I attend a church that’s a member of the SBC, but even so, I’m in no position to answer the questions posed, but would simply ask another question:  What does this recent decision do for the Kingdom of God? From my line of sight, not much, if anything.

Having grown up in the GARBC and experienced the Secondary Separation on several occasions I am not surprised.  I too affirm my biblical upbringing and the love for scripture it produced in me but I am so glad to have broken free from that part of my history. 

As for the question(s) about impact I would say it will do very little to alter the decline of the Garb.  Out here the Garb churches I am aware of are all shrinking at such a rapid pace that you can actually hear it on a quiet night.  What is sad is that this is not a reason to be concerned in the GARBC but a reason to pat a back and say, at least we are still pure.  The church I grew up in forbade going to the Billy Graham crusade because there were Methodist on stage.  It forbade most Christian music, even though we did squeak a Gaither Trio song in occasionally.  Here is the deal IMO.  When you are known more for what you are against than what you are for, you are in trouble.  The GARBC is in trouble.

I think this will actually open up the enrollment of Cedarville because now it won’t just be known as a garb school.  One final thought, I am now on the list of people you cannot hang out with so if you are GARBC, I understand you not calling.  Even though my theology is the same, my understanding of grace ruined my chance to be one of the GARBC guys.

I’m not from a GARBC background, but from a similar independent Baptist group. For the last few years, I’ve been on staff at an SBC church. I now have friends (former) and other leaders from that group who will not longer associate with me. So, I’m feeling the pain of Kent and others.

I don’t get it either. What shame we are bringing to the cause of Christ.

Now, the group I was once a part of is very slowly beginning to open its doors to people of like faith. I don’t know what the future holds for GARBC and Cedarville, but I can’t help but think that cooperation between believers is a good thing. I know we have our minute doctrinal differences, but with the Gospel of Jesus Christ as central to our faith, surely a mature Christian can overlook such things for the building of the Kingdom.

I am so glad Jesus wasn’t a secondary separationist otherwise we wouldn’t have had the book of the Matthew (Matt 9).

(rant warning!) This is ridiculous. It is hard for me to believe that this is still going on in Christian circles. The world must look at this and laugh. Personally, we were asked to leave a GARB church in Ohio and now I think they did us a favor. I’m not sure I want to be “secondarily associated” with a church that associates with an association that practices secondary separation. HA!

I recommend that if you don’t like Cedarville University then keep your mouth shut and don’t encourage your people to go there. If you are so immature that you have to resort to “secondary separation” to live a pure and holy life, then go live on an island somewhere (or get discipled in a good Bible church). I’m all for piercing the darkness with the light of Jesus Christ and secondary separation only stops this.

I’m not from a GARB church, but have friends and relatives there.  While I think they have taken this to an extreeme, there is some cause for concern.  As a pastor how do I participate in a community worship service when the Presbyterian pastor denies the virgin birth, diety of Christ, and the resurection?  The Catholic priest has told me that if you pray enough and more importantly give enough money tothe Catholic church you can get your dead loved one into heaven.  The Methodist minister just preached a sermon on how everyone get to heaven, Muslim, Hindu, New Age, we all worship the same God and we all go to heaven.  The Lutheran pastor tells me that because someone is baptised in the Lutheran church and goes thru the conformation classes they go to heaven.  These too are extreeme positions.  We do not worship the same God.  How much should I participate with these other pastors?

Jesus said they would know we were Christians by our love—not who is to be shunned.  It appears that they have taken lessons from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Be blest

Wendi, I have appreciated your comments that I’ve read to date but have to say that your comment copied below is very incorreect:

“But Bart . . . your examples don’t work here.  The SBC has a very clear statement of faith to which all SBC pastors must adhere in order to be part of the SBC.  Included is the virgin birth, deity and bodily resurrection of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith as the only means to salvation. “

These are statements found in our 2000 (and previous versions) Baptist Faith and Message but pastors are not reguired to sign anything stating their adhearance to them. I have been a Baptist minister for over 20 years and was reared in the Sothern Baptist system of faith so I come with some basis of knowledge. To be fair some or all of our seminaries and other institutions have required or tried to require this action of the professors or staff members but the pastor in the pulpit has not and as a rule most Southern Baptist would not stand for it, me being one. To connect to a previous article the disagreement with this attempted action was a component in the election of Frank Page as SBC President.

Local Autonomy is a kingpin of Baptist polity and none of our local, state, or national organizations has any authority over the local church. Now back to the topic at hand.

It is ironic that the GARB has censured Cedarville because the SBC is too moderate. Recently the SBC executive board voted to remove (not financially support nor send messengers) the Southern Baptist from the BWA - Baptist World Alliance, because some of the BWA denominations and churches teach doctrines that conflict with SBC doctrines. This was and is an unpopular decision among many Southern Baptists. So what do those churches in disagreement do? They choose to directly affiliate with the BWA and send financial support. The Executive Committee can do what they want to do and the local church can do what they want to do.

BTW, I am a Kentucky pastor but went to the Ohio Baptist State Meeting at Cedarville last February. They had a great lineup of speakers. I was very impressed with the school. It seemed like one I would recommend to a prospective student. I had no idea it had been or was GARB connected. I didn’t know but assumed it was an SBC affiliated school. Again, ironically, many of our SBC connected schools are seeking to separate from the SBC connection. For one example Georgetown College in Georgetown, KY is moving to be an independant school not affilated with the KY Baptist State Convention.

Also ironically, while I enjoyed the music, many of my Southern Baptist brothers and sisters would not have liked it’s contemporary nature and would not recommend Cedarville because it wasn’t conservative enough. However, I do not mean to start another ‘style of music’ debate.

Warning – Rant follows – I was raised in an ultra-conservative church that taught all the various degrees of separation, enforced strict church discipline thru intimidation and shunning, and preached non-stop about how wrong the other Churches in town were. 

Actions like this by GARBC are just another example of how Christianity is in ways self-destructing.  As baffling as this action is to many here (devout Christians all, I assume) think how this plays to the unchurched.

Many unchurched see Christianity today as fragmented groups involved in bitter fighting slinging hate-filled rhetoric back and forth.  They hear Christians preaching the love of Jesus Christ, but then the same Christians are often saying listen to us and us only, all those others groups are wrong, they pervert the Word of God.

And what do they hear about Christianity in the media?  Not the good, not the love of Jesus Christ.  No, they hear the controversies, the disputes and in-fighting.  They hear that GARBC will not recommend a college that associates with the SBC because the SBC is not conservative enough.  The SBC not conservative enough?  They hear that the Episcopal Church has elected a woman to be the head of their church and that many Christians are choosing to separate from the Episcopal Church rather than have a woman in authority over them.  They hear that the Episcopal Church is tearing itself apart in a bitter battle for control between homophobic conservatives and heresy preaching liberals.  They hear (and see) Christians saying that Methodists do this, and Lutherans do that, and Catholics don’t believe like I do, so don’t listen to them.  Enough!

Have you heard the saying “All roads lead to Rome”.  Today can’t all Christian Churches lead people to Jesus Christ?  If the Lutherans or Methodists or Baptists or whoever haven’t got it quite 100% right, can’t they still bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ where Jesus can lead them to the right path?  Shouldn’t we focus more on how lost the unchurched are rather than how wrong the other Christian denominations are?

Wes - Wes –

I stand corrected, but a bit confused.  I am currently part of a BGC church, previously with an EFCA church.  In both cases, in order to call ourselves BGC or EFCA we had to adopt the denominational statement of faith.  In other words, the BGC statement of faith is our local church’s statement of faith.  Same with the EFCA.  In both cases it is part of our constitution.

Of course, I don’t know if my pastors every had to sign anything.  And in both cases above local church autonomy is indeed a high value of the denomination.  But I’ve always found this to be in areas of operations, governance, ministry methodology and non-essential doctrinal issues (those not found on the statement of faith).

Are you saying that an SBC pastor could regularly teach from his pulpit something contrary to the SBC doctrinal statement and the regional SBC folks would not show up to protect the orthodoxy of the SBC doctrines?  If so, that is quite surprising to me.  It was differences regarding these (core SBC doctrines) that Bart was describing as things which would/could cause him to question worshiping together. 

Wendi

Thanks Wes – very informative.  I had indeed made some assumptions about denominations that obviously do not carry with the SB.

I guess, at the end of the day, it is the autonomy (not the liberalism) of the SBC with regard to its churches that caused the GARBC to disassociate with them.  Because there are SOME SB churches that are more liberal they must separate.  They would have to then disassociate with every denomination that does not keep a very tight rein on its member churches and pastors.

Oh my how sad . . .  I agree with Dan’s rant.  What fools we make of ourselves (unnecessarily) in the eyes of the lost.  I’ve posted this statistic before here at MMI, but this situation with the GARBC is the very reason that North America is the only continent on the planet where the Christian church is decreasing instead of growing.  I would like to know the conversion growth statistics in GARBC churches in the past 10 years. 

Wendi

In an event of what has been previously posted or written, The GARBC knows where it stands on issues. I read the statement by John Greening and agree or disagree with their decision one must respect that they unwaiveringly know where they stand. They are an association that you can choose to be a part of or not and one of their stances is secondary seperation. Some associations can be too broad and some too narrow but at least one could look at the GARBC’s decision and know foresure whether or not you want to associate with them and that I have to respect.