This was the resolution, passed unanimously, by the Fellowship Baptist Church in Sidney, Montana. And with it, we remind ourselves of Spurgeon’s words…
“We fear it is hopeless ever to form a society which can keep out men base enough to profess one thing and believe another; but it might be possible to make an informal alliance among all who hold the Christianity of their fathers. Little as they might be able to do, they could at least protest, and as far as possible free themselves of that complicity which will be involved in a conspiracy of silence. If for a while the evangelicals are doomed to go down, let them die fighting, and in the full assurance that their gospel will have a resurrection when the inventions of “modern thought” shall be burned up with fire unquenchable.
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS Lifeway Christian Resources, an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, knowingly retails theological material that would clearly be understood as heretical by most, if not all of our six seminaries, including books promoting Eastern Mysticism, Prosperity Gospel, Word-Faith Theology, hyper-charismaticism, Roman Catholicism, books claiming to be direct and divine revelation (other than the Holy Bible), books by Modalists, and those affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation, and until recently Heaven Tourism;
WHEREAS Lifeway has been exhorted to repent of this grievous, profit-motivated evil, but its leadership and trustees have refused to address these errors;
WHEREAS the International Mission Board, an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, has issued a directive to allow those engaging in private ecstatic utterance to serve as missionaries in the foreign mission field in clear departure of Baptist orthodoxy;
WHEREAS the International Mission Board has been exhorted to repent of this grievous departure from Baptist orthodoxy and has refused contrite repentance;
WHEREAS the North American Mission Board, an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, has never made an attempt to refute the claims of extreme financial waste made by Mary Kinney Branson in her book, Spending God’s Money;
WHEREAS the North American Mission Board has been exhorted to repent of their financial waste, fraud and cover-up and has refused contrite repentance;
WHEREAS the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, has developed a softening tone on homosexuality and the sinfulness of Same Sex Attraction (SSA);
WHEREAS the ERLC helped craft an animal rights document in partnership with radical animal rights activists, under the guise as a “Gospel issue” and has spent time and resources advocating such a superfluous, wasteful agenda;
WHEREAS the ERLC signed an amicus brief to demand a Mosque be built, which we believe was a matter of zoning law and not the denial of civil liberty, and neither is the worship of a false god to be supported by followers of Christ;
WHEREAS the ERLC has advanced and promoted the ideology of Critical Race Theory and Cultural Marxism, which we believe are juxtaposed to the very Gospel itself and is, in fact, causing racial division rather than racial unity;
WHEREAS the ERLC has refused to speak on genuine issues relating to substantive and real intrusions of religious liberty, but steers resources to primarily politically correct causes, not being a brave or prophetic voice for our culture, but singing along in harmony with it;
WHEREAS the ERLC has been exhorted to repent of it’s tragic and unbiblical but politically-expedient trajectory but has refused to contritely address these issues;
WHEREAS Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) enrolled a follower of Islam in its seminary, explicitly against the institution’s mission statement to train Christian ministers;
WHEREAS the president of SWBTS has been exhorted to repent of this misguided and supposed attempt at evangelism, and he received a standing ovation at the SBC annual convention after implying he would do it again;
WHEREAS the president Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) did a promotional video for Openly Secular, an atheist, Christian-hating organization;
WHEREAS the president of SEBTS has been exhorted to repent of this insanely irrational decision, but he has refused to address the error contritely;
WHEREAS the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention spoke at and in cooperation with a cult, the International House of Prayer, and against much protest of discerning Southern Baptists, did so without receiving the public rebuke of Southern Baptist leaders;
WHEREAS the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention repeatedly claimed direct, divine revelation from God (outside of the Holy Bible) and it has become not uncommon for other Southern Baptist leaders to do the same;
WHEREAS the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention was exhorted to repent of these dangerous and insipid departures from Baptist orthodoxy but has refused to address these errors contritely;
WHEREAS we believe that the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program is a profoundly inefficient, wasteful, and ineffective use of God’s resources, as laid out in the book, The Cooperative Program and the Road to Serfdom;
WHEREAS we believe it is sinful to be poor stewards of God’s resources;
WHEREAS we believe we should not partner with those in such grievous evils;
WHEREAS we are told to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather to expose it;
WHEREAS we believe in the autonomy of the Baptist church, in which every local congregation under Christ is free to choose its own voluntary associations; WHEREAS these matters are just a sampling of the grave theological errors of the SBC;
WHEREAS we have waited many years to see repentance in our denomination and have exhorted them toward that end repeatedly;
WHEREAS we have already left the Montana Southern Baptist Convention and stopped supporting the Cooperative Program due to these unaddressed concerns for several years, patiently awaiting their repentance, without result;
RESOLVED, the Fellowship Baptist Church of Sidney, Montana, shall notify the Executive Board of the Southern Baptist Convention of our intention to no longer cooperate with any entity belonging to the Southern Baptist Convention;
RESOLVED, the Fellowship Baptist Church of Sidney, Montana, shall ask our elders to investigate membership in the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America (ARBCA) and report back to the congregation for further review; until that time, we shall be content with voluntary partnership and support of like-minded churches in Montana, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and our surrounding region;
RESOLVED, the Fellowship Baptist Church of Sidney, Montana, shall issue this statement of love for churches still cooperating with the Southern Baptist Convention, clarifying that we are not issuing an anathema upon many of the Bible-believing churches who continue to wait and watch the SBC in expectation of forthcoming repentance.
