July 7, 1998 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Pastor Jerry Falwell and a group of members of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, attended the Southern Baptist annual convention this year and voted as messengers. They gained voting status by donating to the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (SBCV). A portion of Thomas Road Baptist Church’s tithes and offerings thus goes into the Southern Baptist Cooperative Program. In the July issue of the National Liberty Journal, Falwell praised the Southern Baptist Convention, claiming that its six national seminaries "have fundamentalist presidents and faculties." Falwell erroneously defines fundamentalism merely as a belief in key biblical doctrines such as the inerrancy of Scripture and the deity and vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ. In reality, fundamentalism has always been characterized not only by commitment to biblical orthodoxy but also by separation from unorthodoxy. (See the article "Is Fundamentalism Merely a Belief in the ‘Five Fundamentals’?" in the O Timothy Computer Library or the "Fundamentalism" section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life web site.)

The Southern Baptist Convention does not practice biblical separation or discipline, and even its most conservative leaders reject the label of fundamentalist. To our knowledge, not one of the modernists which permeate the SBC have been disciplined out of their churches, nor have the churches which provide homes for the heretics been put out of the convention. Southern Baptist congregations are literally filled with heretics. Former president Jimmy Carter is a Sunday School teacher in an SBC congregation, yet he is modernistic in his theology and believes that Mormons are genuine Christians. President Bill Clinton is a member of an SBC congregation, yet he has done more than any former president to defend abortion and to exalt homosexuals to power in the United States government. Many women have also charged him publicly with adultery. Evangelist Billy Graham is a member of an SBC congregation, yet he has done more than any other man alive to break down the walls between true churches and false and to confuse the Gospel by holding hands with heretics such as the Pope of Rome. He has sent thousands of "converts" back into Catholic and modernistic churches to be devoured by wolves. These are just a few examples.

The SBC recently confirmed its relationship with the very liberal China Christian Council. (See article in the "Southern Baptist" section of the End Times Apostasy Online Database.) The SBC also recently confirmed its relationship with the very liberal World Baptist Alliance through which SBC congregations hold hands with modernistic Baptist groups such as the Baptist Union of England. The SBC even has a formal ongoing dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church.

Many of the state conventions aligned with the SBC are openly modernistic in spite of the "conservative takeover" and all of them represent an unscriptural mixture of modernism and orthodoxy. (We have documented this in the article "When Was the Southern Baptist Convention Rescued from Modernism?" which is in the O Timothy Computer Library and the "Southern Baptist" section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life web site.)

The Southern Baptist Convention prominently supports radically and unscripturally ecumenical organizations such as Promise Keepers (which has a Roman Catholic on its board of directors and which has Roman Catholic priests as speakers at some events). Southern Baptist pastors are supporting members of ecumenical clergy associations throughout the land, and through these forums they hold hands with modernists, Catholic priests, Seventh-day Adventists, charismatics, baptismal regenerationists, and other false teachers. Southern Baptist congregations are often at the forefront of supporting local ecumenical events.

At best, the most conservative Southern Baptist leaders are New Evangelical. None of them are biblical fundamentalists. It is no wonder that Jerry Falwell is comfortable with the Southern Baptist Convention. He has been a New Evangelical for many years, and he is blissfully leading many rebellious and ignorant independent Baptist pastors into the New Evangelical camp.

In a statement to the Associated Baptist Press, Falwell said: "While THOMAS ROAD CHURCH CONTINUES ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH AND SUPPORT OF BAPTIST BIBLE FELLOWSHIP missionaries and other independent Baptist missions, we have also officially thrown our enthusiastic support behind the historic and unprecedented conservative 'revolution' which has taken place within the SBC during the past 20 years. MANY OF OUR SISTER [BAPTIST BIBLE FELLOWSHIP] CHURCHES HAVE DONE THE SAME AND MANY MORE WILL IN THE MONTHS AND YEARS TO COME."

Many Baptist Bible Fellowship men PRIVATELY say they are opposed to Falwell and others within the BBF who are like-minded with Falwell, but little or nothing is said PUBLICLY AND IN PRINT to separate the BBF from Falwell and his New Evangelical compromise. In fact, in recent years some key BBF leaders have joined hands with Falwell’s organization. These include James Combs, former editor of the Baptist Bible Tribune, and Dr. John Rawlings, who pastored Landmark Baptist Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio, for 43 years.

It is not only independent Baptists aligned with the BBF who are joining Falwell in his rush to compromise. Many others are doing the same thing. Falwell also claims to be associated with the Southwide Baptist Fellowship.

My independent Baptist preacher friends, don’t follow a crowd to do evil. The New Evangelical philosophy has destroyed the spiritual power and discernment of thousands of churches. Independent Baptists who follow this error will be destroyed, too.

See "When Was the Southern Baptist Convention Delivered from Liberalism?" in the Southern Baptist section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life Web site -- http://www.wayoflife.org/

See also "Jerry Falwell: The Billy Graham of Independent Baptists"