Theology/Bible

Calvinism and the SBC

Last Fall, I wrote about the “Building Bridges” conference that was held in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. Featured speakers included Calvinistic Baptists and non-Calvinistic Baptists. The presentations from that conference are being published as a collection of essays, and the book is available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue. Ed. Brad J. Waggoner and E. Ray Clendenen. B&H Academic, 2008.

Here is the table of contents:

THE CURRENT CLIMATE

Ed Stetzer, “Calvinism, Evangelism, and SBC Leadership”

THE HISTORICAL RECORD

David S. Dockery, “Southern Baptists and Calvinism: A Historical Look”

Tom J. Nettles, “A Historical View of the Doctrinal Importance of Calvinism among Baptists”

GENERAL EVALUATION

Malcolm B. Yarnell III, “Calvinism: Cause for Rejoicing, Cause for Concern”

Jeff Noblit, “The Rise of Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention: Reason for Rejoicing”

THE ATONEMENT

David P. Nelson, “The Design, Nature, and Extent of the Atonement”

Sam Waldron, “The Biblical Confirmation of Particular Redemption”

THEOLOGICAL STEREOTYPES

Chuck Lawless, “Southern Baptist Non-Calvinists—Who Are We Really?”

Nathan A. Finn, “Southern Baptist Calvinism: Setting the Record Straight”

ELECTION AND CALLING

Ken Keathley, “A Molinist View of Election, or How to Be a Consistent Infralapsarian”

Greg Welty, “Election and Calling: A Biblical Theological Study”

WORKING TOGETHER TO MAKE CHRIST KNOWN

Daniel L. Akin, “Answering the Call to a Great Commission Resurgence”

Tom Ascol, “Working Together to Make Christ Know: Considerations for the Future”

3 Comments

  • David (not Adrian's son) Rogers

    I didn’t get to attend the conference, but I did download the podcasts of the lectures. They were interesting, but I think it would have been more helpful if there had been responses to each person’s lecture. Each speaker wrote his paper without knowledge of what the other was doing. Thus the coverage of issues was less than comprehensive.
    I recall that Jeff Noblit focused on reasons for rejoicing about the rise of Calvinism in the SBC, but some of his reasons were not unique to Calvinism. I am decidedly not a Calvinist, and I agreed with many of them and do not think that they can be uniquely attributed to Calvinism. Thus, some of his lecture contributed less toward understanding Calvinism.
    Also, I wonder how clearly some of the lectures were understood. Some of the language used was technical theological jargon, and I wonder if those unfamiliar with the issues would have been aware of what was being discussed. I think the conference would have been greatly helped if there would have been an introductory lecture which laid out the basic issues in overview, especially for those not yet familiar with the issues of debate.
    Of course, I am assuming that the table of contents listed above covers all the lectures that were presented. (I know that there are podcasts of all of these lectures along with Q and A sessions.)

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