Posted: 01/31/08

Jimmy Carter Heads Push for Baptist Unity

The Christian Post reports that former President, Jimmy Carter, wants to bring together various Baptist denominations to achieve unity. While Rick Warren calls for unity between mainline churches and evangelicals, the ex-President who just won't go away is now trying his hand at uniting conservatives and moderates, Democrat and Republican Baptists. This would mean that denominations like the American Baptists that long ago sank into the pit of apostasy (think Tony Campolo and Eastern College) are being asked to unite with Baptist groups who have not. Carter says that this is his most momentous thing ever, and William Shaw of the National Baptist Convention USA is right behind him. The Christian Post story says:

"This night and these days, we do a bold and glorious thing: We attempt to express the oneness which was our Lord's desire for his people," declared William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, one of the four prominent African-American Baptists conventions participating in the meeting.

What will mark this convocation as a success is the attendance number as well as "the fact that we want to avoid anything other than harmony, cooperation [and] a positive attitude as a group of Christians," Carter said at a press conference Wednesday just before the meeting began.

Carter, a longtime Bible teacher and a Baptist since he was a child, described animosity among Christians as "a cancer metastasizing in the body of Christ" and it's that divisive image of Christians that is prevailing today, he said.

Issues that have divided Baptists include the role of women in ministry and marriage, legalized abortion, civil rights for gays, and the separation of church and state, among many others, Carter listed during the opening of the meeting.

Oh, so the issues are only women in ministry, marriage, legalized abortion, gay rights and the separation of church and state. Nothing that can't be overcome with a smiling compromiser like Jimmy Carter around to help everyone link hands. After all, he brokered the Camp David Peace Accords that achieved Middle East peace for at least ten minutes. The reason that the Peace Accords didn't end tension in the Middle East and the reason that uniting all Baptists will ultimately fail is that the issues are based on principles of right and wrong. For the Israelis, how much land can they give up before their homeland ceases to exist? For Baptists, how much doctrinally can they give up and still be Christians? For Baptists, the issues are sin and rebellion against God versus obedience to His Word (Women in the pulpit). The issues are life and death (abortion), Immorality versus morality (homosexuality), and those issues are not going to go away just because Jimmy Carter has an apparent need to stay in the headlines in his declining years. The issues are as old as mankind itself.

In his eternal quest for a global group hug, Carter once again tries to unite truth and error. He may deceive a whole lot of people, but he will never succeed in his plan. There are still at least 7,000 Baptists who are not prepared to compromise doctrinally for Jimmy Carter or anyone else.

(That's why many Bible-preaching Baptist churches are independent. Why waste the time sitting at some convocation of thousands where committees, laced with apostates, deliberate for days on whether lesbian, one-legged parrot owners should be allowed to be pastors?)

By Ingrid Schlueter Email: vcyproducer@aol.com Click here for bio and archived articles