Calvinist Flyswatter

What should SBC do with . . . ?

TOM ASCOL ASKS: "What Should
Southern Baptists Do with Calvinists?"

That is the question running on the Flounders' blog the past few days.

A more appropriate question might be, "What should Southern Baptists do with the Hybrid Calvinists?"

Hybrid Calvinism -- not Creedal Calvinism -- is the real issue in the SBC in regard to the Flounders and some others who use the word "Reformed" to identify their theology.

This is the theology imbibed from the Reformed Pedobaptists who teach that "regeneration precedes faith," or "born again before faith."

This notion contradicts the Baptist Faith and Message, as we have shown several times on this blog. It also contradicts all other Baptist Confessions of Faith, and it contradicts the theology of our notable Baptist theologians and preachers of yesteryear. It contradicts the theology of Baptists whose pictures are used as "wall paper" on the Flounders' website.

What should be done by the SBC?

My suggestion is, someone should compose a Resolution denouncing the idea that a person is or must be "born again" before he believes in Jesus Christ, and present it to the SBC.

This would be a first step, at least.

Had the Baptists in the 1820s-1830s moved more quickly against the movements of Alexander Campbell and the Hardshell Baptists, many might have been saved from those aberrant developments. [See the BaptistGadfly on both of these 19th century parasitical movements within the Baptist denomination].

If those who adhere to the Baptist Faith & Message on the necessary elements of repentance and faith in the New Birth do not recognize and pinpoint the Reformed Pedobaptist heresy of "prefaith regeneration," we believe more churches will be split by the Hybrid Calvinists and more proselytes will go into the Flounders' movement.

posted by Bob L. Ross @ 4:42 PM