On Dr. Al Mohler’s blog (see my blogroll for a link) he reviews many books. An extract from Restoring Integrity In Baptist Churches caught my attention. Having served in several Fellowship Baptist Churches since I first began formal theological training in 1979, I am convinced the Canadian scene among Baptists is no different.

We too are driven by pragmatic concerns and have sadly not considered our ecclesiology (study of the church) in a Biblically careful manner. I direct you also toward A.W. Tozer’s classic ‘The Waning Authority of Christ In the Churches‘ – truly prophetic words.

Here is the extract Mohler cites -

Southern Baptists experienced three tectonic shifts that reshaped Baptist identity and rendered church discipline implausible for both conservatives and progressives. First, they lost confidence that Christ commanded a specific ecclesiology and based church practices on pragmatic concerns, on human standards of effectiveness. Second, they adopted a new view of Baptist identity that led them to redefine ecclesiology and theology according to human experience, which among other things recast God in humanitarian terms and weakened their sense of the fear of God. Third, they took guardianship of the social order, which secularized the churches and eroded their commitment to separation from the world.

These commitments so altered Baptist piety that, all things considered, church discipline seemed ill suited to advance the aims of the contemporary church. It seemed ineffective for church growth and irrelevant for ministry in modern society. Southern Baptist pastors finally chose relevance over obedience and quieted their consciences over the loss.

In Revelation 3, Christ stands at the door and knocks. The text (Revelation 3:20) is not evangelistic but rather a sad portrait of the Lord of the church, the head of the body, the husband of the bride of Christ standing outside the congregation of His people anxiously waiting for anyone to hear his voice, open the door and invite Him in. Any genuine believer may and should invite Christ into every gathering of which they are a part. Something to think about……