VIRUS INFECTS SBC?
By Doyle Sager

Some weird virus must have infected professional baseball and professional Baptists at the same time. With no warning, a group of major league baseball team owners met last winter and decided to “contract” (make baseball smaller), by arbitrarily dropping two teams. No one asked those teams if they wanted to be kicked out or dropped.They just heard about it on ESPN. Can you imagine such audacity?

Well, lately, a group of Baptists got together and decided to “contract” (make the kingdom of God smaller), by arbitrarily dropping churches from membership in our state convention and by dropping pastors from the “O.K.” list of doctrinal soundness. Nobody asked these folks if they wanted to be dropped. Can you imagine such audacity? The latest in this theater of the absurd is that the IMB is now requiring its international missionaries to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. For the record, when I want the missionaries I support with prayer and money to sign a creed, I will join a cult!

Now, in the case of baseball, the Minnesota Twins and the Montreal Expos stood up and said, “Wait just a minute. After all we have contributed to this great enterprise, you’re kicking us out without so much as a fare-thee-well? Nothing doing!” And MLB owners backed down. But in the case of Baptists? Well, you see, that’s different. In professional sports, there is a sense of fair play!

June 2002