March 2005 Editorial
In the December 2004 edition of the EFN, we asked, “Whither evangelical churches in the BGAV?” Last month several friends of this renewal ministry, both Pastors and laymen, gathered in a Richmond restaurant to discuss the future direction of the Evangelical Forum. First, we agreed that is extremely easy to be critical of the liberal drift of our state denomination. Though there is a place for clearly identifying, declaring, and explaining doctrinal decline and compromise in the Baptist churches of Virginia, we also discussed the necessity of positively describing what it is that we stand for.
Toward that end, we discussed some general principles that we hope to stand for in this Evangelical Forum among Virginia Baptist churches:
- Support for traditional partnership and friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.
- Support for return to confessional and doctrinal emphases in churches, including unapologetic support for the Baptist Faith and Message (2000).
- Support for Biblical church health, including resistance to the man-centered “new measures” of the post-modern, church growth, and “emerging church” movements.
- Support for passion and integrity in Great Commission (evangelism and missions) activities, including resistance of naïve social gospel focus in ministry and “easy-believism” evangelism.
- Support for reclamation of a meaningful, covenantal concept of church membership and the Biblical exercise of church discipline.
- Support for integrity in ministry partnerships, excluding relationships with entities that compromise our Christian witness.
- Support for Biblical understanding of marriage as a “one man, one woman” covenant commitment lasting a lifetime. This includes opposition to worldly, uncritical acceptance of homosexual practice, cohabitation, and no-fault divorce.
- Support for “complementarian” versus “egalitarian” understanding of the roles of men and women in family, church, and society.
- Support for the sanctity of human life, including opposition to racism, abortion, and euthanasia.
- Support for religious freedom, always seeking to convince by persuasion and not coercion.
The reader will find that several of the articles in this edition of the Evangelical Forum Newsletter are devoted to the third principle above on church health, particularly in understanding the blind alley of the “emerging church movement.”
In days to come we hope to establish for the first time an official Evangelical Forum steering committee, consisting of Pastors and laymen from churches throughout the state, to oversee the work of this ministry. In the first two months of 2005 we have received over $4,000 in financial contributions from individuals and churches to support the publication of this quarterly newsletter and the continuing existence of this Forum. This is still a fledgling fellowship and it may come to the end of its usefulness sooner rather than later, but we can give thanks to God for what he has been able to accomplish thus far through these efforts.♦
JR