Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Seminary, recently stated, “The Southern Baptist Convention may be top-heavy, bloated, and unfocused, but it is premature to write its obituary.”

Christine Wicker, writing in the June 6 edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, commented, “What Baptist leaders have known for years is finally public: The Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination in decline. Half the SBC’s 43,000 churches will have shut their doors by 2030 if current trends continue.”

Wicker cited three reasons for the decline of evangelical churches in America. First, she faults Alcoholics Anonymous with their aberrant teachings of religious pluralism. Wicker explained, “Instead of asking alcoholics to be saved, AA asked them to call on a god of their own understanding.”

Wicker added, “There was no doctrine, no institution. No demand for monetary support. Tens of millions of addicts and other troubled people used this ‘door knob god’ to build new lives. Nothing like that kind of open-ended faith had ever been experienced before. And so the role of the church as interpreter of God’s truth and the Bible as its sole repository lost power with millions.”

The second reason for the decline according to Wicker came from within the church and had to do with evangelicals becoming less willing to proclaim that salvation is through Jesus Christ only.

“The idea that only one little part of one kind of religion as the only way to God has begun to seem more and more unlikely. It has begun to seem rude. Un-Christian, even. And evangelicals, who don’t like being boorish any more than anyone else, have become less and less willing to relegate their neighbors to hell,” Wicker reasons.

Thirdly, Wicker cites the Pill as having undermined evangelical Christianity. The Pill lessened the pressure to abstain from sex before marriage. Millions of couples engaging in illicit sex kept coming to church and while evangelical leaders maintained their convictions about abstinence, they did little to thwart the sexual revolution and thus contributed to the hypocrisy of the church.

Wicker concluded her analysis by remarking, “Evangelical faith is failing in so many other ways that a growing number of Christians believe a New Reformation is needed. If they are correct the Southern Baptist Convention is unlikely to lead that reformation. Let’s hope it is at least around to participate.”

In the same vein earlier this month, Hannibal Books published “Witness to the Truth” by veteran secular and SBC journalist Louis Moore. Moore’s book is promoted as “The gloves-off, unvarnished truth about the church in today’s world … told through the eyes of one who’s seen it up close.”

In Moore’s book he likens the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC to “the revolution trumpeted by the pigs” in George Orwell’s classic work “Animal Farm.”

Having read “Animal Farm” while a student at Mercer, I recall that the book is actually a parable about the Russian Revolution and illustrates how a revolutionary government could be worse than its monarchist predecessor.

Manor Farm was owned and operated by Farmer Jones. The downtrodden animals on Jones’ farm did not like the way they were abused and mistreated. Ultimately, the animals rebel, get rid of Farmer Jones, and take over the farm thinking it will be the beginning of a life of freedom and equality.

The name is changed from Manor Farm to Animal Farm. The pigs, led by Napoleon and Snowball, take charge and begin to take special privileges for themselves. The farm dogs are enlisted as enforcers to quell any dissent. Orwell’s chilling parable is an alarming satire of idealism betrayed by power and corruption.

In his book Moore recalls, “I wondered out loud if the moralistically high road of the Conservative Resurgence would eventually falter, crash, and burn, with the new SBC leadership falling into the same self-perpetuating patterns and bureaucratic behavior as the moderates they replaced.”

Moore continues, “Regrettably, the early ideals of the Conservative Resurgence have not happened. Yes, on paper the SBC espouses a more conservative theology. And yes, the Republicans have replaced the Southern Democrats in the seats of power in the denomination. Yet in so many ways, the denomination is exactly what it was when the moderates reigned supreme.

“I saw conservatives who once disdained the moderates’ love affair with statistics instead fall in love with and try to manipulate these numbers themselves. I saw conservatives who once lamented moderate control of the press and lack of transparency in the denomination turn and advocate more press control and more secretiveness than the moderates ever could have dreamed.”

I think Moore went farther than the truth in some of his analysis, but his book does contain truth and some of it was bitter to swallow. Has the Conservative Resurgence made a difference for God and for good? Absolutely! I hate to think where we would be today if it were not for the Resurgence. I suspect our fate would be sealed and our doom secured.

However, we must constantly examine ourselves and make sure we have not become pig-like. We must remember that the local church is the true “headquarters” of Baptist life. Those of us in denominational life must forever guard against becoming bureaucrats and remember that we are servants. We must remember that every dollar given in the offering plate must be used with discretion and good stewardship to advance the Kingdom of God; and we must be transparent and open with all of our constituents.

Yet, I am reminded of the words of Vance Havner, who once said of Southern Baptists, “We are many, but not much …. We must remember that God can do more with a yielded minority than with an unwieldy multitude.”

However, I am convinced that God is not impressed with our numbers as a denomination or worried about our recently reported decline in membership. What He is looking for is a handful of dedicated people like Gideon’s band of 300 men who defeated the Midianites without a weapon in their hands.

I still believe Southern Baptists can become the people that God will use to bring revival to America. The challenge for us is to pray, see ourselves as God sees us, repent of our sins, throw caution to the wind, link ourselves with His omnipotence, and live passionately for Him as His ambassadors (witnesses) in this world.