Bethel Baptist Church

Dr. Richard A. Harris. Pastor

 754 East Rockhill Road

Sellersville, PA 18960

 (215)536-9200

April 10, 1990

 

Dr. David Nettleton

Chairman, Council of Eighteen

Fellowship Baptist Church

4625 Cleveland Heights Blvd.

Lakeland, FL 33813

 

Dear Dr. Nettleton:

                                                             

 

We greet you in our Saviour's Name. May God grant you wisdom for the crucial decisions that lie ahead for our Association.

 

From the very beginning of our concern for the future of our Fellowship, we have tried to be open and honest in our dealings with issues. We have published our intentions in the Regular Baptist Review in order to keep y the Council and our fellowshipping churches informed. Every action we have taken has been clearly outlined and the reasons for them have been defined. Still, questionable and unnecessary comments have been made regarding our motives, goals and implied "hidden agendas".

 

It is in this same spirit of candidness and sincerity that we make this special request of you. Twelve to fifteen pastors of the Association Churches would strongly desire to meet with the members of the Council of Eighteen before the Annual Conference at Niagara Falls and I am making this formal request on their behalf. !n order not to interfere with the usual business of the Council and to not inconvenience men more than necessary, we believe Monday morning would be most appropriate, however, the time is at your discretion. Upon receiving an affirmative response from you, we will list the fifteen Pastors who desire to be present since the time of the meeting will determine who can attend.

                               

We recognize that there may be honest differences of opinion within a Fellowship and that is certainly not bad in itself. In this instance, however, our representative body, the Council of Eighteen, has chosen to publicly take sides, not as individuals but as a Council. !n addition, we have repeatedly heard from Council members that this is a personnel or personality issue and it is not. Our position has bean terribly misunderstood or misinterpreted over these past few years and f believe the Scriptural and Christ‑like thing to do is to talk face to face and to pray together for revival.

 

As Christian leaders, we can set an example for the entire Association as we precisely and pointedly present our position to one another. We do not intend to stray from the original and stated purpose of our Fellowship but neither do we wish to be misunderstood as if this were a personality issue. The crucial struggle to keep our Association on course ought to be the mutual aspiration of every one of us and no momentous conference such as this one should be entered into without thorough and careful discussion. I trust that our goal is the same. If our positions are different they should still be presented without rancor or personality conflicts. The messengers can then make studied and sincere decisions.

 

l wilt await your response and trust that it will be affirmative for the sake of the Association. Inconsistency with our past actions of openness, this letter will be published in the Regular Baptist Review. We look forward to a good meeting with the Council

 

His Servant

 

Dr. Richard A. Harris

Pastor

 

"The Warm-Hearted Church with the Heart Warming Message"

WHY THIS AMENDMENT?

L. Duane Brown, Ph.D.

The proposed amendment which will be voted on by the messengers at the 1990 General Association of Regular Baptist Churches annual meeting in Niagara Falls this June reads: NO SALARIED SERVANT OF THE APPROVED AGENCIES SHALL SERVE ON THE COUNCIL OF EIGHTEEN.

Why this amendment? First of all and most importantly, it focuses the elected leadership of our Association on the fact that it is an Association of churches, not agencies. The constitution of the GARBC states this: "Section 1. To maintain an Association of sovereign Bible believing, Christ‑honoring Baptist churches." True, agency men are members of local churches, but that is not why they are nominated nor why they are elected. However, they are officials salaried by agencies approved by the Association.

Secondly, it is PASTORS who are the gifts to the churches from the risen, reigning, and returning Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:11). Agencies and para‑church organizations should never compete with the local church! When agency leaders are nominated and elected, it is clear competition with the churches. We ought to practice in polity what we preach in doctrine!

Some have said that the churches should nominate whomever they wish and the messengers should elect whomever they desire. While this is ideal, it is not factual even now!

The constitution already sets limitations on who cannot be nominated or elected: no salaried servant of the Association shall be entitled to vote (Art. IV, Sect. 3) and only four of the eighteen Council members may be agency men (Art. IV, Sect. 1). So the proposed amendment does not violate the spirit of the constitution nor the philosophy of the Association. In fact, most of our local churches have "nominating committees" which limit who can qualify for office in local church elections!

Thirdly, this proposed amendment would eliminate a major CONFLICT OF INTEREST. To have agency men serve on the Council of 18, which examines and votes approval on their very own organizations, is certainly a conflict of interest. These agency men rarely leave the room when problems are discussed as well as when votes are taken. Even in the business world and academic circles such poor practices are not condoned. Our Association should be above reproach and "abstain from all appearance of evil" (I Thes. 5:22). Some have suggested that we have regional representation on the Council of Eighteen and this may certainly need to be discussed but this would not solve the immediate problem.

Fourthly, when Council members are agency men, it often prevents the Council from solving problems within the Association especially when dealing with the agencies. A case in point is the Western Baptist College use of faculty and trustees who are members of churches associated with the Conservative Baptist Association. A majority of the Council spoke against this compromising practice in the Council meeting of June 1988, but yet a year later in June 1989 still approved W.B.C. So out of step was the Council of 18 with the historic position of the GARBC, that the messengers voted 669 to 519 to instruct the Council of 18 to require W.B.C. to break from the C.B.C. compromise. This was the first time in memory the messengers overruled the Council of 18!

Why could not the Council of 18 solve this problem? Certainly, one of the reasons was that two of the Council of 18 members are agency men whose organization (A.B.W.E.) has missionary candidates who are members of Conservative Baptist Churches! How could these two be objective and consistent in solving the W.B.C. problem when their own agency is involved in compromise? We need this amendment!

Passing the proposed amendment does not insure that all pastors will have convictions and wisdom to solve the tremendous problems our Association isfacing. However, they often do not have the same agendas which agency men have. However, Pastors can be more objective, more free from" friendship obligations."

Our Association has drifted so far from its heritage that we need to change the direction of its decline. Last year more churches were dismissed than were received into our fellowship. The emphasis and closer ties to the agencies often cause embarrassment to the Association. Are you pleased that one of our approved Colleges once invited a former President of the Southern Baptist Convention to speak?

To pass this proposed amendment will not solve the drift away from the "secondary separation position" which several of the agency leaders have publicly disavowed. This amendment is only a tiny step to restoring the testimony and the spiritual power which the GARBC once had. What we really need is a revitalized, independent Council of Eighteen that can give aggressive leadership. When we lose our DISTINCTIVENESS and our militancy as a separatist movement, we lose our power!

G. Campbell Morgan stated a truly marvelous insight on the cost of compromise and accommodation to the church. He wrote in 1924: There is a toleration which is treachery. There is a peace which issues in paralysis. There are hours when the Church must say NO, to those who would ask Communion with her, in the doing of her work, upon the basis of compromise. Such standing aloof may produce ostracism and persecution; but it will maintain power and influence. If the Church of God in the cities of today were aloof from the maxims of the age, separated from the materialistic philosophies of the schools; bearing her witness alone to the all‑sufficiency of Christ, and the perfection of His salvation, even though persecuted and ostracized and bruised: it would be to her that men would look in the hour of their heartbreak and sorrow and national need. The reason why men do not look to the church today is that she has destroyed her own influence by compromise.

May the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the church, bring our beloved Association back to the churches, back to its heritage and original purpose, spirit, and stand! We need revival! Be a part in a first, small step‑‑vote to pass this amendments.

SECONDARY SEPARATION

THE POSITION OF CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON.

Spurgeon wrote, "In order not to stultify my ministry I have severed my ties from those who err from the faith, and from those who associate with them."

Some have thought that Spurgeon went too far in that last phrase, but that is SECONDARY SEPARATION, and it is the position of the GARBC.

HEAR IT FROM A BUSINESS MAN. Henry Parsons Crowell (1855‑1944), known as the Breakfast Table Autocrat, because he was the father of the Quaker Oats Industry, teaches us a lesson. Ellsworth Day wrote of him in BREAKFAST TABLE AUTOCRAT (now out of print). An entire chapter is devoted to THE LEAVEN OF THE SADUCEES. Mr. Crowell was a leader in the Presbyterian denomination and in the Moody Bible Institute.

As the great denominations became more tolerant of liberalism and of outright apostasy, Mr. Crowell was given great insight in the defense of the Christian faith. Hear some of his remarkable statements and statements about him by his biographer.

Ellsworth Day wrote of him:

"He realized that not only must Faith be careful to select workers and leaders who are Bible believers: but these workers and leaders themselves must be intolerant of unbelievers in office."

"Faith must not support men in authority who, though they are themselves Bible believers, are tolerant of others in positions of trust and authority who do not so believe."

“Mr. Crowell saw that the battle against the Leaven of the Saducees was being lost in Christendom today by reason of TOLERANCE TOWARD BELIEVERS WHO WERE TOLERANT TOWARD UNBELIEVERS. "

Give us men today who are wise enough to know that the real traitor is the believer who cooperates with the unbeliever, especially in the realm of holy doctrine.

We, like Mr. Crowell, must stand against apostasy and also against believers who team up with apostates. Like Micaiah, we must rebuke Ahab, the apostate and also Jehoshaphat for his compromising alliance.

The battle lines are clearly drawn. We must not tolerate in our churches nor in our association, liberalism and apostasy ‑ and we must separate from those believers who are allies of evil men. That is SECONDARY SEPARATION. It is separation from disobedient believers. They are commanded to "come out from among them and be . . . . separate. (2 Cor. 6:14)"

SECONDARY SEPARATION IS SIMPLY TOTAL BIBLICAL SEPARATION ‑ ‑ FROM EVIL AND FROM COMPROMISE.

Dr. R.T. Ketcham, a former National Representative, insisted on SECONDARY SEPARATION when he penned these words: "These scriptures forbid (1) organic union or cooperation with unbelievers; and (2) organic union or cooperation with believers who insist upon and practice such union with unbelievers. The `brother' who will not separate is involved in these scriptures also. " (GARBC Literature Item #6 on Separation)

Dr. Paul R. Jackson, another former National Representative, also wrote plainly of this position:

"We do not mean isolation. We are to go to men with the Word of God, but we are not to go with men who walk contrary to sound doctrine."

"It is God's Commandment that we separate from our brothers when they walk in disobedience."

"We have a responsibility to walk separately from our brethren who insist upon being unbiblical. "

“Our whole proposition here is that God commands us to be separate even from our brethren when they walk in disobedience to the Word of God."

(Above quotes of GARBC Literature Item #12 on Separation.)

May God grant to us a clear and sound position and a firm and loving attitude in this matter.

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