I’ve never quite got over my amazement when brother Christians cross major doctrinal boundaries in their search for a church home. One example I read of recently was a group of Episcopal nuns (who knew?) who hopped back across the Reformation River to become Roman Catholics. I guess if you want to be a nun you don’t have all that many options. While I understand their frustration with the doctrinal shenanigans of Episcopalians, and I do acknowledge that the river is pretty narrow at Episcopal Town, it’s still startling to imagine either their slight regard for their former doctrinal beliefs or their ignorance of their new ones.

Southern Baptists certainly have their own examples of this syndrome. Crawford Toy, a Southern Seminary Old Testament professor, was fired from his position at Southern in 1879 because he’d adopted a Darwinian hermeneutic of the book of Genesis and a skeptical interpretation of Old Testament prophecy. Professor Toy, by all accounts a brilliant scholar, ended his career at Harvard University, and as a Unitarian. Surely he could not have taught at Southern without at least claiming some allegiance to the doctrinal beliefs of Southern Baptists. Losing his job at Southern would understandably move him from our denomination. How could it move him to a church that denies the deity of Christ unless his doctrinal beliefs were never compatible with Southern Baptists?

We’ve all seen more contemporary examples in the aftermath of Southern Baptists’ 20th-century reformation. Several who claimed, while employed by Southern Baptists, to be centrist in our denomination ended up being right at home in the most liberal denominations of our day. It is hard to understand how they can lead a church or ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention at one point, and cheerfully affirm a shockingly different doctrinal view only a short time later. Can we say, with 1 John 2:19, that they were never “of us” denominationally?

On a smaller scale, most of us have acquaintances who leave our churches to join pedobaptist churches or those that teach that a redeemed person can become apostate. Sometimes they come back to Southern Baptists unaware that they’d ever crossed a doctrinal line.

Of course there is a difference between those who carefully consider the decision they’re making before changing denominations and those who are unaware that they are making a significant change. For one thing, the careful thinkers are actually converting and are unlikely to return to their former beliefs.  

Truly, I’m not upset with people who change denominations or religions. It is often a good thing, a clarifying thing, when people visibly identify with others who share their faith and practice. At other times it is a revelation of just how loosely some of our church members are connected to the rest of us. The fact that we have all seen this happen should lead us to consider how we assimilate members.

First, we must own our own identity. I am not terribly worried about churches that call themselves “Community Church” or “Happy Church” or whatever. But if Happy Church (it’s a real church; I’ve been there) is also a Southern Baptist church, how is that conveyed to members? I’ve been a member of one church that slowly backed out of being called “Baptist.” In that church, our Sunday School class was full of fine and mature believers who had no idea that our church was Southern Baptist. Our Baptist identity was invisible in the budget, never mentioned from the pulpit, and no part of our missionary efforts. Denominational identity can also be neglected in nearly the same way by First Baptist Church of Anywhere, and I’ve seen that happen. People know that FBCA is “Baptist” but often have no slight idea of what that means. Regardless of name, church leadership must identify with and explain their church’s affiliations if that identity is to be of any use.

Second, we must make disciples of our members. An evangelistic church that is not investing heavily in developing mature believers is not a Great Commission church. If we believe that being a Baptist church is actually our best effort to apply biblical teaching to how we do church and missions, it’s worth teaching our people those biblical precepts with as much fervor as we promote attendance, worship, giving, or any other thing. The Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life reports that 55 percent of Evangelicals either don’t know (15 percent) or say that Mormons are Christians (40 percent). This may indicate a lack of knowledge about Mormonism, but likely also hints at a poor understanding of what Christians believe.   

Within Christianity there is a common thought that denominations divide rather than clarify. Sadly, this is true when denominations or churches do not teach or “own” their beliefs. It is certainly the opposite of clarity when every church or Christian, regardless of label wants to take a cafeteria approach to doctrine. Denominational syncretism is far more dangerous to every strain of biblical Christianity than is denomination hopping by ill-taught members. Vaguely identified churches truly do make irrelevant a Christian’s choice between, say, Methodism and Lutheranism.

For Baptists, the differences do matter. Axiom VI of the Great Commission Resurgence document many Southern Baptists affirmed last spring says:

Baptists have always been a people committed to building local churches that reflect as closely as possible the faith and practice of New Testament churches. We sense numerous threats to contemporary Baptist churches including worldliness, laziness, faddishness, heterodoxy, arrogant sectarianism, and naive ecumenism. Our churches must be committed to a biblical orthodoxy that informs every aspect of church life. Sound doctrine must guide every priority our churches embrace and every task they undertake.

In the spirit of laziness or naive ecumenism, a cafeteria Christian may attend a Baptist church on Sunday morning, enjoy the free-wheeling worship of an Assembly church that night, and take communion at an Episcopal church on special occasions. His actual membership could be with any of those congregations. What’s wrong with that? Well, it’s not illegal. But it is equivalent to saying “Yes, salvation is wholly the work of God and we are secure in our salvation, but we can still lose it according to our own will” or “Baptism is only for those who profess a saving relationship with Christ, but it’s also for babies who cannot profess anything” or “No, church ritual such as baptism, does not redeem you, but it also does.” Shame on all us if we don’t know the differences.

If there were no denominations, only churches called “Christian,” we’d have to invent something to denote the location of local fellowships relative to important doctrinal and interpretive issues. Our labels, whether we wear them on our front doors or just in our practice and preaching, can clarify important things about a congregation without masking its unique make up or ministry. If churches have convictions about basic biblical teachings, division or whatever more palatable thing you want to call it is inevitable. We can be, and largely are, unified with our brothers with whom we agree on the person and work of Christ, but that does not mean that we will conduct our ministries in identical or even compatible ways. I don’t call that division but rather two groups of churches or believers interpreting the Bible for themselves. 

This does not apply to heretical Christian cults such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, by the way. They aren’t Christian denominations because their teachings about the person of Christ are not from the Bible. That is not to say that no one who attends such a congregation is redeemed. Some cult members do not accept or know the foundational teachings of the group. I guess this is similar to Baptists who don’t know or accept what their own church teaches.

If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, I call you “brother.” If you additionally believe that baptism is an outward work of obedience to show the already accomplished work of the Spirit in your life, I say “amen, God be praised.” If you also believe that the Bible teaches that a person, once redeemed by the blood of Christ, can do something to undo that redemption, I’ll say “I disagree. And God go with you as you find another church that affirms and teaches that same doctrine.”