The main problem with the Southern Baptists (I have been a member at times) is that most members no longer read their Bibles they read Lifeway articles about the Bible. They do not do Bible studies they do Lifeway magazine studies or studies based on the latest book of some popular Christian self help Guru. They do not have Bible teachers they have facilitators of Lifeway products. Don’t believe me? Take a show of hands at your Southern Baptist Church, Bible study or group and ask how many have ever read through the Bible even once in their lives. You might be surprised. Better yet, since “Christians lie through their teeth give your membership a quiz on the Bible and make them hand it in. I dare you! See if your congregation can even be called quasi biblically literate.

So is it any wonder why they buy fluff at Christian book stores and love self help books and the gnosticism written by postmodern heretics. How would they know any better? The owners of the book stores are just selling what people want in a very difficult business to survive in.

Half of the Southern Baptist membership are now given a watered down seeker sensitive sermon on Sunday so they do not even hear any biblical truth from their pastors. In churches with younger pastors many are now hearing a postmodern emergent church message that questions all biblical truth and replaces truth with post modern relativism and universalism. Why are Southern Baptist’s not questioning their teachers? Mainly because they never read or at least never understood their Bible.

The decline of the Southern Baptists is now inevitable. The question is, who will be taking their place? The answer in the South right now is probably no one. Less and less people are showing up regularly, the South is becoming full of cultural Christians.

I think the South is ripe for a major invasion of Calvary chapels. They should consider the south a major mission field. I just read a report that said the FBI reports that crime is higher in the Bible Belt then in most other areas in the nation” Is it any wonder?

Paul Proctor — Southern Baptists now in decline

And what about the books LifeWay offers on Contemplative Spirituality, aka, Spiritual Formation, from Emerging Church authors and leaders, many of whom reject absolute truth, downplay doctrine and encourage their readers to incorporate mantras and mysticism into their Christian walk?

One of the foremost authors and leaders of the Emergent movement, Brian McLaren, recently spoke at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois at the annual Shift student ministries conference. Here’s what the SBC’s own Baptist Press had to say about him:

McLaren’s views break harshly from traditional Christian theology that Jesus died on the cross as substitute for sinful humanity, taking the punishment that men and women deserved for their sin.

Yet, at this writing, his books are available for purchase at LifeWay Christian Stores.

I’m just scratching the surface here folks