The liberal Baptist Center for Ethics has an interesting article on some recent controversies between the SBC and its liberal splinter group, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. In the midst of this, the author wonders:
“Perhaps one reason Southern Seminary’s Russell Moore recently urged Southern Baptists to have lots of children is because that would likely ensure growth and thus ‘prove’ that the SBC is theologically correct. After all, research has demonstrated that the decline in mainline churches is actually the result of lower birthrates and not because people are leaving the churches in protest of the theology.”
Well, no. The BCE doesn’t get it. Here’s the nasty little secret behind my plea for more child-friendly SBC churches: Babies are a blessing.
Too many SBC churches believe the culture that babies are a burden, babies are a curse. Yes, babies will keep one from living out all of one’s dreams of self-actualization. God doesn’t want you self-actualized. He wants you blessed. There’s a difference. And churches filled with people who despise babies because they want more freedom to pursue the American dream are not going to be evangelistic churches. The self-interest that sears over the joy of birth will sear over the joy of the new birth.
As Don Williams once put it, “I believe in love. I believe in babies.” And I believe they go together. I don’t just hope for a more child-friendly SBC. I hope for higher birth-rates in the CBF. I’ve been to three CBF General Assemblies and saw everything from vestments to tie-dye T-shirts, but not a stroller in sight. Perhaps churches filled with babies would make the CBF, and the SBC, less grumpy…and more blessed.
