  Struggle with regenerate church membership has long history, experts say Written by David Roach | TEXAN Correspondent Posted Friday, May 09, 2008 Although Baptists have always been convinced that regenerate church membership is the biblical standard, they have worried since the 1600s that the standard is eroding in churches, say several Southern Baptist seminary professors and pastors. Regenerate church membership is the doctrine that all members of a local church should be born-again believers who have been baptized by immersion following their conversions to Christ. “The concept of a regenerate church membership reflects the idea of a believers’ church,” said Jason Lee, associate professor of historical theology and assistant dean of theological studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. “Throughout the New Testament, the church is seen as a group of believers intentionally gathered together for the purpose of worship and ministry. This worship includes hearing the Word of God proclaimed, partaking in the Lord’s Supper and baptizing new believers. These activities should only be done by those who have experienced the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ.” Lee explained that when non-believers are allowed to become church members, other areas of the church such as the ordinances, church discipline and unity are compromised as well. Christians began to compromise regenerate church membership in the Middle Ages, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and everyone was baptized as an infant and considered a member of the church, said Tom Nettles, professor of historical theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. During the Protestant Reformation, leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin challenged the idea that the true church was made up of all citizens in the secular state, said Nettles, who taught church history at Southwestern from 1976-1982 and co-authored “Baptists and the Bible” with the late L. Russ Bush. Yet the Reformers did not go far enough because they saw the true church as a secret group within the state church, he said. Anabaptists were the first group to argue that local churches should be comprised only of people who give evidence of being born again and have been baptized, he said. While he does not believe Baptists descended from Anabaptists, Nettles said the first Baptists adopted regenerate church membership based on the influence of the Anabaptists. From the inception of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, Southern Baptists were committed to the idea of having a church of believers only. William B. Johnson, the first SBC president, defended regenerate church membership in his 1846 book “The Gospel Developed.” “What then are the scriptural materials of a church of Christ?” Johnson wrote. “Evidently penitent, believing sinners, baptized upon a profession of faith in Christ, conscious subjects, capable of being taught all things which Christ commands.” William Williams, another early Southern Baptist and one of the founding professors at Southern Seminary, endorsed the same doctrine in his 1874 work “Apostolic Church Polity.” “The members of the apostolic churches were all converted persons, or supposed to be converted,” Williams wrote. “In various epistles they are addressed as ‘saints,’ ‘faithful brethren,’ ‘the sons of God,’ ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus.’ The many exhortations to a godly life and a holy conversation presume that they are ‘new creatures in Christ Jesus;’ and the motives by which they are enforced are such as could be expected to have no force upon any other presumption.” THE ‘NEW MEASURES’ As early as the 17th century—the same century in which the very first Baptists lived—Baptists began to feel concern over the decline of regenerate church membership. However, Nettles believes the greatest threat to regenerate church membership emerged in the 19th century when the evangelistic methods of Charles G. Finney came into popularity. The “new measures” sought to draw sinners to salvation through the use of emotional and social pressures along with the preaching of the gospel. For example, Finney asked people feeling convicted of sin during revival meetings to sit in a designated place known as the “anxious bench.” During a worship service, the preacher would appeal directly to the anxious bench and other attendees would focus their attention on praying for those seated there. Baptist state newspapers from the mid-1800s recount stories of how the new measures resulted in unsaved people being added to church membership roles, Nettles said. The practice of accepting those who profess faith during the emotionalism of a revival meeting—without further counsel to sense whether their decisions are credible—continues to encourage acceptance of unregenerate church members, he added. When scores of people are reported to have been converted through evangelistic efforts, but few remain committed church members months later, such methods “pervert our churches,” Nettles said. In his 1879 commencement address at Southern Seminary, President James P. Boyce expressed concern that Southern Baptists had impure churches because they were admitting people to membership who gave no evidence that the Holy Spirit had changed their hearts and saved them. Boyce told seminary graduates that a successful pastorate was one where nearly all church members evidenced their salvation by daily commitment to Christ. In their book “Firefall: How God Has Shaped History Through Revivals,” co-authors Malcolm McDow and Alvin Reid acknowledge that the evangelistic methods introduced in the 1800s “have been the source of controversy from Finney’s day until ours.” While noting Finney’s use of separate meetings to give counsel as to how one might be saved and house-to-house visitation where instruction was given concerning personal salvation, the authors agree that Finney’s views gave impetus to a more man-centered focus on revival. “Finney himself admitted later in ministry he overemphasized the role of man in salvation,” Reid told the TEXAN. “No doubt the long-term impact of the new measures was to lead to manipulation of people by more than a few and an unintended consequence of Finney’s ministry was a rise in unregenerate members.” Reid said he finds fault with both extremes—those who taught that God would have to send revival if steps one, two, and three were followed, and those who so opposed the emphasis as to not call people to salvation. “Although some have swung the pendulum too far the other way in our day, I do think many times we have watered down the gospel in our well-intentioned evangelism, and I do think our church rolls are absolutely filled with lost people,” concluded Reid, who said he agrees with the call for a resolution on the subject at this year’s SBC. Southern Seminary’s Nettles said organizational unity took precedence over rigorous membership standards or the practice of church disciple for fear of causing division in the early decades of the 20th century. Even the well-intentioned development of the Cooperative Program in 1925 emphasized united support of missions and less attention to enforcing a regenerate church membership, Nettles said. “Anything that would diminish membership, anything that would create division or had the potential for schism or controversy within congregations was seen as detrimental not only to the Baptist witness in that location, but the Baptist witness worldwide,” Nettles said. “So the concept of a disciplined church membership began to fall even more with the necessity of having the right numbers for the support of the Cooperative Program as it developed.” Nettles stressed that the Cooperative Program was not to blame for the decline in regenerate church membership. “I’m ISSUE: CONTENTS
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