Yarnell Sermon Pivotal Gauntlet in IMB Policy
Dr. Malcom Yarnell's dialogue with David Rogers continues at loveeachstone. His white paper will be the seed of much blogging and SBC discussion as it posits the "official" position of the IMB majority trustess in a sermonic format.

One Blogger's Reply.
My response would be the following:

Wow. I see now that if you disagree with the "narrow" view of cooperation as evidenced in the Yarnell sermon, you are "out of line" with the BF&M. I didn't know we had voted on Dr. Yarnell's sermon as being synonymous with the BF&M 2000. Perhaps it was in a footnote the years I joined with thousands of other messengers to adopt the document.!?

Seriously, Dr. Yarnell's passion and commitment to our Lord are shining through in the white paper. What is distressing is his narrow view that only Baptists (should I now read that only Southern Baptists!?) are actually fulfilling the Great Commission.

My NT/Greek professor in Seminary (Kendall Easley. . .Mid-America) made a helpful distinction which has served me throughout my pastoring and teaching. He suggested what would help most debates would be a clear demarcation between heresy and error. Many times we throw mud at brothers with whom we disagree, and actually go across the line into calling them heretics, when in actuality what they are believing/practicing is error.

Without pretending to speak verbatim for David, Wade Burleson, Joel Rainey, et al; I would say that we believe that one can be absolutely committed to Southern Baptist theology, ecclesiology, and polity without viewing our Christian brothers (may I say Great Commission Christian brothers!) as being so out-of-touch with the Savior that we could not evangelize, pray, take communion, and worship alongside of them.

In this regard, we view the Billy Graham style of cooperation as the more proper model, as against a more militant (a.k.a. fundamentalist) seperation model.

I will diligently and vigorously defend my Baptist position with my paedobaptist friends, and with my Wesleyan buddies as well. But I will not accuse them, either to their face, or behind their back as being either unsaved or in disobedience to the Great Commission because of their equally cherished (and, in their hearts, Biblical) beliefs.

Interestingly, under Part II, D, (Baptizing) in defining the heart of a Baptist, Yarnell states 10 reasons for baptism:

1) baptism for believers only
2) baptism by immersion alone;
3)baptism based upon one’s profession of faith;
4)baptism as a meaningful symbolic representation of personal conversion;
5)baptism as a faith commitment;
6)baptism as an ethical commitment;
7)baptism into a local congregation;
8)baptism as participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ;
9)baptism as identification with the one God who is yet three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
10)baptism as a public testimony to regeneration.

How does this decalogue on baptism relate the the FOUR beliefs necessary for IMB appointment by the majority trustees? Interestingly, nowhere in Yarnell's list is eternal security mentioned. So if one should adopt even Yarnell's expanded list (again, endulge me to affirm that David, Wade, et al strongly support each of the 10)---that still does not get you over the hurdle of exluding so-called "alien immersion" because of eternal security as the policy does.

Under II, E (Teaching), Yarnell states that "The sufficiency of Scripture states that our “doctrines”–that is, our teachings–need to be drawn from the Bible, and that we may never go beyond the Bible for our authority. Scripture, in other words, is sufficient for the message and practice of Baptist churches and their people."

One couldn't possibly write a better critique of the IMB policy than what Yarnell has done in these two sentences! Baptists will seperate only when the Bible demands such. . .and those who oppose the new policy are saying that Scripture nowhere demands a rejection of baptism solely upon a lack of belief in eternal security.

Interestingly, while challenging the reader/listener to avoid the extremes of Hyper-Calvinism and Hyper-Arminianism, Yarnell fails to highlight the irony that in warning of the dangers of Hyper Calvinism & Arminianism, he neglects to mention the equally dangerous notion of theological reductionism.

Reductionism is the idea that all of important theology may be summarized around one key idea. In the classic SBC layperson, this would be evidenced by thinking that all one must believe is "once-saved-always-saved." How, theologically, is one to maintian this "one point Calvinism?" It doesn't matter---we all, in the words of Rodney King, need to just get along. (By the way, I am not accusing Yarnell of believing this point).

In Yarnell's paper, Baptist theology shares the disease of theological reductionism by filtering out all other distinctives as secondary to the Great Commission. I know of thousands of pastors, teachers, and missionaries of other denominations who could affirm what he has written along these lines.

Thankfully, in most of the rest of the white paper Yarnell positions true Baptist theology as being deeper and broader than this. But in searching for a "Key" to tie Baptist theology down, (a somewhat needless exercise, I would suggest---why do we need such a so-called distinctive, just because the Reformers or Anabaptists had one?!) Yarnell appears to slip for a moment into this morass.

I look forward to hearing from others in this continuing debate.