Monday, September 18, 2006

4% of SB Pastors "don't know"


BP had an interesting article today citing that 10% of Southern Baptist pastors considered themselves to be 5-Point Calvinists, or, more simply, Calvinists. 85% of SB pastors claimed not to be Calvinists, 1% did not answer and 4% said that they did not know. Of all of these numbers, only one is disturbing to me and that is the fact that 4% of pastors did not know if they were 5-Point Calvinists or not. Are you kidding me? I guess 4 out of every 100 pastors either a) do not care about theology, or b) are simply ignorant. Any SB pastor should at least know what Calvinism is and somewhere along the line think to themselves, "that's where I stand," or "that's not me."

As for me, I am not a '5-point Calvinst." I'm closer to a 4. Therefore, I would be in the 85% of pastors that claimed not to be a Calvinist...but at least I know that I am not. I wonder how those 4% of pastors did in their Systematic Theology classes? Since how we live our lives in practice should be a result of applying our theological beliefs, when one does not have an opinion on the doctrines that the TULIP touches (doctrines of God, Salvation, Man, etc) that leaves one to wonder what are they preaching?

3 Comments:

Blogger Matthew Celestine said...

Some Christians (particularly pastors, for some reason) like to avoid having strong opinions on controversial issues.

6:51 AM, September 19, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Since many SBC churches do not require their pastors to be seminary-trained, I think much of that 4% may be due to sheer ignorance.

Love,
The Five-Pointed Paedobaptist

P.S. If you change your mind on the whole paedobaptist thing for Jackson, give me a call and we'll set you up!

9:07 AM, September 19, 2006  
Blogger Charlie Wallace said...

I agree with both of you...except Drew's last comment.

4:44 PM, September 19, 2006  

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