Expert: Bruce Gourley - 11/5/2006

Question
Hi!

Just a couple quick, related questions: does the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship maintain any official ties to the SBC?

Do those in the CBF still think of or refer to themselves as Southern Baptists?

Do you see any chance of the CBF's take on the Baptist tradition making a resurgence in the SBC, and, if so, do you feel that the CBF and the SBC might re-unite in such an instance?

Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom.

God bless.

Answer
Fred,

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) does not have any official ties with the CBF, simply because in the late 1990s the Southern Baptist Convention refused to accept missions money from CBF national or state organizations.

However, many CBF churches yet maintain some ties to the SBC, in terms of sending some money to the SBC Cooperative Program. The percentages to the CP from such churches are dwindling (and in fact, CP contributions from SBC churches overall are also down about 40% since 1990). Some members of CBF churches and/or dually aligned churches (both CBF and SBC) refer to themselves as Southern Baptists, but many simply refer to themselves as either Baptists, moderate Baptists, traditional Baptists or Cooperative Baptists.

As to the possibility of moderate (or traditional) Baptists via CBF making a "resurgance" in the now-fundamentalist SBC, it is doubtful: CBFers, by and large, have put the SBC behind them and have no interest in returning. A more likely scenario is increasing conflict between ultra-fundamentalist Southern Baptists (like Jerry Falwell, Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, Rick Scarborough and most recent presidents of the SBC) and less-in-your-face fundamentalist Southern Baptists (such as Wade Burleson of blogger fame, and current president Frank Page). A second more likely scenario is future fragmention between Calvinist fundamentalists (Mohler, Tom Ascol, Tom Nettles, etc.) and non-Calvinistic fundamentalists (Patterson, Page, Land, etc.). In short, future conflict within the SBC will most likely be between fundamentalists.

I hope this helps.

Bruce Gourley
www.brucegourley.com
www.baptistlife.com