A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE:
Living in the Real World
By David R. Currie,
Coordinator

Anyone that has attended any TBC statewide function, i.e., our convocation, an annual breakfast, etc., knows my Mother, Mary Jim. She is the 80 year old bundle of energy running around gathering tickets, telling people where to go, trying to make sure her son is doing his job correctly. Mary Jim is committed, opinionated, energetic and mostly helpful. I love her deeply.

Growing up in her home I often heard the phrase “you’ve got to learn to live in the real world.” I still hear that phrase frequently. It is her way of reminding her son to deal with reality and not live in a fantasy world. Mary Jim is a practical, “get it done” kind of person.

I have tried to take her counsel wisely and I believe Texas Baptists would do well to apply her wisdom of “living in the real world.”

In my opinion, the Effectiveness and Efficiency Report is an attempt to challenge Texas Baptists to “live in the real world.” What is the Real World Texas Baptists face in 1997?

Part of the Real World we live in has to do with the demographics of Texas. We are the fastest growing state in the country. We are primarily an unchurched state. There are 11 million unchurched people in Texas, more than the entire population of each of 42 other states.

We have a huge minority population and soon will be a minority majority state. Demographers project that Hispanics will make up over 50 percent of all Texans by the year 2030. Anglos are projected to be less than half of the Texas population by 2010. The E/E Committee report challenges us to reach these people for Christ through new churches and new ministries, especially multi-ethnic ministries. We cannot ignore these needs and “live in the real world.”

Texas is a state with families in crisis. Our teen pregnancy rates are among the highest in the country. There are more single people than married people. The E/E report emphasizes an expanded family ministry through our Christian Life Commission. This is a Real World approach to this problem.

Part of the Real World we live in is a changing denomination structure as well as a declining commitment to denominations. No, I do not believe the primary purpose of the E/E report is to react to the changes in the Southern Baptist Convention. The primary purpose of the report is to cast a vision for Texas Baptists for the future. But the report is not naive about the realities of Baptist life and that is good.

Southern Baptist life has undergone radical changes. Fundamentalists do control the SBC. The result is every seminary, every agency, every leader has changed. It is reality that Texas Baptists have not embraced these changes and in fact, are clearly uncomfortable with the changes.

Southern Baptist seminaries are different. The presidents we were comfortable with have left voluntarily or involuntarily. Most of the professors are different and have been trained differently. New seminaries and Baptist Houses of Study have been started including three in Texas alone.

The SBC Christian Life Commission (now renamed), where I worked in the late 1970s, is radically different. It advocates positions on religious liberty the old CLC clearly opposed. SBC literature is now often written by individuals trained in non-SBC theological institutions.

SBC literature emphasizes fundamentalist interpretations of scripture many traditional Baptists are not comfortable with.

In the Real World, people want to be more involved in the things they support. They want to go on mission trips, see what they are supporting with their financial gifts, roll up their sleeves and do missions themselves.

The E/E report deals with these changes in a Real World manner. It asks us to create literature options that churches can chose to utilize. It asks us to put more emphasis on Partnership Missions because people want more hands-on involvement.

In theological education, the E/E report accepts the reality that Texas Baptists want to support our new theological institutions and calls for their expansion. It calls for a Bible College because in the Real World of Texas Baptists, with over 5,700 churches and missions, and more being started every day, we need well trained ministers for these positions.

Finally, let us think a moment about the Real World of Baptist Polity. In Baptist life, local churches are the power. They worship as they choose, call the pastors they choose, ordain for ministry whomever they approve, and design their budgets to financially support what they choose.

Likewise, state conventions are autonomous entities. They have the right and responsibility to recommend programs to the churches for voluntary cooperation and budgets as they choose. The E/E report is doing this. Each local church will decide at what level they wish to support the emphases of the state convention.

Further, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, as national entities, are autonomous bodies who have the right to create programs and support institutions as they choose. State conventions and associations, as autonomous bodies, can relate to these national entities as they choose as can local churches. As I believe Bill Pinson once said, “Baptist polity can be messy but it still is wonderful.”

An autonomous state convention, the BGCT, has to approve or reject this report. SBC leaders want the report rejected. Why? Because it means Texas Baptists are practicing autonomy by selecting ministries to support and are designing their own programs and supporting their own institutions which are distinctively different than SBC programs and institutions.

In the Real World, this report is about Texas Baptists remaining Real Baptists. If you vote to reject this report, you are voting for SBC type fundamentalist control of the BGCT. If you reject this report you are saying you do not like Baptist polity and prefer a top down, connectionalism approach to cooperation.

Will the relationship between the SBC and the BGCT change if this report is adopted? I certainly hope so!

The BGCT, as an autonomous state convention, has no business, in my opinion, maintaining a close partnership with some of the SBC structure, specifically Midwestern, Southern, and Southeastern Seminaries, as well as the former SBC Christian Life Commission, and the North American Mission Board.

Local churches can partner with whomever they choose and so can the BGCT. I hope and pray that the passage of this report means the BGCT will carefully examine its partnership and move away from some while clearly maintaining support for SBC foreign missionaries as well as CBF foreign missionaries.

If this report passes, local churches will have the option of supporting its recommendations as they so choose. If we reject this report, we are opening the door to allowing fundamentalists to control the BGCT. Mary Jim keeps reminding me to “live in the real world.” She and I urge Texas Baptists to do the same.

October 1997