Baptists and Predestination
This morning in Sunday School (or whatever it is called these days) we continued our discussion on denominational differences. During the lesson I heard the teacher state that “all Protestant denominations believe in predestination.”
I joined in on the discussion and stated that may not be entirely correct, that Mainline Protestants tend to believe in variations of predestination (it gets complicated), but Evangelicals, in particular, the Southern Baptists do not believe in predestination. I say this because of my experience in the Southern Baptist Church. Thus the reason for altar calls, the sinners prayer, the gift of salvation, and the acceptance of Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior among other things. The teacher then deferred to some materials to support his thought, and class briefly discussed.
As soon as I got home, I decided to see do a little research. I took a look at my favorite denominational chart, in particle the section titled, “Predestination.” What was listed didn’t seem as clear as I hoped, so I decided to check out what the official site of the Southern Baptist Church says in their Baptist Faith and Message. In particular, I looked up the areas of Salvation and Grace. I still didn’t find what I was looking for, so I decided to use the power of The Google.
I found of all things a blog post, but a rather unique one. It comes from one Southern Baptist pastor who personally accepts predestination, but wrote further on the topic using the Baptist Faith and Message as a guidepost. In short, he says that individuals in the SBC will differ on the thought, but I don’t think he really gave an answer on how the Baptist Faith and Message addresses it specifically.
So this is where I want my Evangelical and Baptist readers to sound off, cause I know many of you are out there. I would like to know not if you personally believe in predestination, but using the links provided above, in particular the Baptist Faith and Message, do you think the SBC believes in predestination?
I think it’s going to be hard to say what a whole denomination believes because so many individuals within a denomination may differ.
16 comments January 18th, 2009