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In 1995, Falwell praised Billy Graham for his “long and faithful ministry.” In 1997 Falwell’s paper boasted of three Billy Grahams at his Liberty University: Billy gave the commencement Franklin gave the prayer and William Franklin IV graduated that year. In his 1987 autobiography Falwell spoke of “my Catholic brothers and sisters” ( Strength for the Journey, p. Pastor Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in the 1980s as political action group, and it was eventually composed of 30% Roman Catholic. When I was saved in 1973, it was a conservative fundamental Baptist church. THOMAS ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH, Lynchburg, Virginia. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). Many independent Baptists are joining the Southern Baptist Convention because they are all moving along with the same spirit of apostasy. INDEPENDENT BAPTISTS JOINING THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION While I can’t blame my foolishness and rebellion on a church, there can be no doubt that a more biblical kind of church could have had a great influence on me for good.

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I was abused by pastors who didn’t preach the whole counsel of God, who didn’t rebuke sin forthrightly and didn’t warn of error plainly, seemingly fearing man more than God, who didn’t exercise discipline, who received people into the membership who had absolutely no intention of being faithful disciples of Christ, thereby polluting and weakening the spiritual atmosphere of the assembly, who let the deacons and their wives run the church, who didn’t deal with me wisely and carefully about being born again, instead, accepting a flimsy profession as salvation and receiving me into church membership when there was zero evidence that I had been converted, who never thereafter challenged my empty profession, who didn’t teach me how to be a serious Bible student and failed, therefore, to introduce me into the unspeakable beauty of God’s infinite Word (the Bible seemed, rather, to be a bunch of old stories that were irrelevant to my life), who depended on weak denominational literature instead of teaching the pure Word of God and all of the Word of God, who never supported a real foreign missionary and never even introduced us to one, leaving that business to a faceless denomination, who didn’t preach separation from the world, who allowed worldliness to run rampant among the youth-the youth who attended Sunday services but spent Saturday nights at rock & roll dances and drinking parties.

Thinking back on my childhood and youth in Southern Baptist churches, it is clear that I was terribly abused, but not sexually. But they are dealing with it in a typically ineffectual denominational way that fails to address the root causes, which are rampant unregeneracy among the membership, terrible worldliness, lack of courageous pastoral leadership, lack of serious discipleship, frightful biblical ignorance, and the near nonexistence of church discipline. Recent reports have found evidence of cover ups of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist congregations, and the Convention is trying to deal with it. An amendment was approved stating that sexual abuse is grounds for a church to be deemed “not in friendly cooperation” with the convention. “Southern Baptists acted in support of sexual abuse survivors, embraced ethnic and gender diversity and rallied around the Great Commission” (“Wrap-up: SBC supports survivors, embraced diversity,” Baptist Press, June 13, 2019). There were 8,183 messengers from associated churches (meaning churches that contribute to the SBC Cooperation Program). The 2019 annual Southern Baptist Convention was held in Birmingham, Alabama, June 11-12. I WAS ABUSED IN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION And I have found those reasons more compelling every decade.

I am thankful for the spiritual benefit I received growing up under the sound of the gospel and for the scriptural doctrine I was taught as a boy, and I am thankful for every good thing that God has done through the Convention, but there are some compelling biblical reasons why I never went back.

I grew up in Southern Baptist churches and many of my friends and relatives are still a part of the Convention, but when I was converted in 1973, I searched for a biblical church and joined a sound fundamental Baptist congregation (not all fundamental Baptists are sound!). Independent Baptists Joining the Convention I Was Abused in the Southern Baptist Convention