According to former President Jimmy Draper, who said Monday “We have reached a place that our spiritual forefathers feared.” “We need to admit that the problem with America today is not the government or the politicians,” Draper said. “It is not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John McCain. It’s not the senators or representatives. The problem is not the educational system or the economy. It’s not the liberals or the abortionists. The problem lies with us.” “We conservatives claim to have the truth and we think we are rich in spiritual position and power, but yet we are cold, complacent, impotent and unattractive, and irrelevant to the world,” Draper said. “I hate to say it, but we are not plateaued. We’re not even just declining. We’re in a free fall.” “You know why we don’t win the lost?” Draper asked. “Because we don’t like them. They are different from us. We don’t care for them. We have no real love for them.” “People just don’t touch eternity when they are around us,” Draper said. “We’re too self-absorbed.”
Do you know what? He’s right. I hope every member of every SBC Church in the country hears what he has said.
Filed under: Biblical Studies Resources
I was chatting with a colleague who studies the differences between American and Canadian Evangelicals and she was saying pretty much the same thing. “The dirty little secret of the evangelicals is that we don’t really want the mess of getting anyone saved.” My gut feel is that this is at the heart of some of the anti-emerging church backlash, the emerging church, for all its problems, at least likes the lost and spends time with them, and in my experience is not bad at bringing the lost into Christian community. I wonder if the emerging church isn’t a bit of a slap in the face so that the whole evangelical movement can start moving towards a more balanced approach to mission and life. But then again I’m a hopeful dreamer.
[...] Jim West: According to former President Jimmy Draper, who said Monday “We have reached a place that our [...]
Not denying the insular, self-absorbed nature of much of the SBC or Christianity for that matter, but I do wonder at “the problem with America” and “we conservatives”.
America is not an SBC country. No earthly country is supposed to be. Baptists are traditionally staunch advocates of “separation of church and state”. Americans, Christian and non, are generally supposed to adhere to the separation. Thinking the SBC or Christianity in general is going to bring Heaven on Earth is wonderfully amillenial, but ignores history and a lot of the NT.
Conservatism is not a Christian philosophy. Non-Christians can also apply. And there are elements of conservatism’s “tough love” approach that don’t mix well with Christianity’s care for widows, orphans, and the poor, or the Lord’s insistence on working with someone who comes to you in sincerity as long as they keep coming back to you in sincerity. And maybe after they’re proved insincere, too.
I read this from Mr. Draper and I see the failure of the Moral Majority and twenty years or more of so-called Religious Conservative Politics. It was doomed to failure because it is self-absorbed about all the wrong things for Christians to be deeply concerned with in the first place.
[...] He was soon followed by another former president of the SBC Jimmy Draper who observed, “We have reached a place that our spiritual forefathers feared.” “We need to admit that the problem with America today is not the government or the politicians,” Draper said. “It is not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John McCain. It’s not the senators or representatives. The problem is not the educational system or the economy. It’s not the liberals or the abortionists. The problem lies with us.” “We conservatives claim to have the truth and we think we are rich in spiritual position and power, but yet we are cold, complacent, impotent and unattractive, and irrelevant to the world,” Draper said. “I hate to say it, but we are not plateaued. We’re not even just declining. We’re in a free fall.” “You know why we don’t win the lost?” Draper asked. “Because we don’t like them. They are different from us. We don’t care for them. We have no real love for them.” “People just don’t touch eternity when they are around us,” Draper said. “We’re too self-absorbed.” [HT: Zwinglian] [...]