Some benefits accrue to longevity and activity in the Gospel ministry.
If God blesses you with longevity and activity, you can sometimes observe
events of significance. Following is but one example.
On a phone call yesterday with a colleague in the Gospel ministry, I
related to him events that I saw unfolding in 1999. He recommended that I
record my observations for posterity, and this is that record.
Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending a conference hosted
by Pastor Christian Torres, who serves the Riverside Baptist Church in
Riverside, California. He hosted a two-day conference conducted by a longtime
friend, Dr. David C. Innes, the Hamilton Square Baptist Church pastor in San
Francisco, California.
Dr. Innes presented “What Is A Fundamentalist? A Seminar Focusing on
Biblical Fundamentalism.” Notes for the study and a plastic business card with
an embedded thumb drive containing many PDF documents were handed out. It was
the most beneficial treatment of biblical fundamentalism I have ever read,
heard, or experienced. I recommend contacting Dr. Innes or going to the Church
website (www.HamiltonSquare.org) to obtain the material, schedule a
seminar, or learn where the seminar is presented nearby. It is time well
invested.
After the seminar, I ordered David Beale’s latest book, Christian
Fundamentalism in America: The Story of the Rest from 1857 to 2020.” I
have a voracious reading appetite, so I am surprised halfway through Dr.
Beale’s book by the surprises he has in store for the reader. I anticipate
writing a review that will include my recommendation that every Baptist pastor,
including every Gospel minister who self-identifies as an evangelical, take the
time to read this well-researched book.
To borrow the phrase from the notorious Jen Psaki, let me “circle back” to
yesterday’s telephone conversation with Dr. Innes’s seminar and Dr. Beale’s
book on my mind. During yesterday’s telecon, I mentioned Jerry Falwell’s controversy
with the Teletubbies in 1999 and his arrival to speak at a fundamental Baptist
pastors conference in San Diego. The man I was talking to reminded me that he
also preached at that same conference.
The messages were outstanding. What was most memorable to me about that
conference was the presented music pageant, which reminded me of a ritualistic Greek
Orthodox liturgy. I had recently attended a Greek Orthodox funeral, and the
similarities were jarring to me, so much so that I recall mentioning it to a
pastor sitting near me.
Months later, I attended another fundamental Baptist pastors conference
in the Denver, Colorado, area. The music program presented the night the
keynote speaker delivered his address was a pageant that once more reminded me
of a ritualistic Greek Orthodox liturgy. For those unfamiliar with fundamental
Baptists, we are not much given over to anything like a liturgy, and our
spiritual lineage eschews formalism. Yet, there I sat, for the second time in
four months, watching a large fundamental Baptist Church performing a
ritualistic Greek Orthodox style music pageant for those in attendance.
Advance several months again, with me now attending a Southwide Baptist
Fellowship meeting at the once-famous Highland Park Baptist Church in
Chattanooga, Tennessee, a distinctively fundamental Baptist pastors meeting.
The essential difference between the pastors who gathered in Chattanooga and those
who had gathered in San Diego and Denver would be their alma maters and the looming
personality of the late J. Frank Norris. Norris did not figure in any way in
the spiritual ancestry of the fundamental Baptist preachers gathered in
Chattanooga, as he had figured in the spiritual lineage of the fundamental
Baptist preachers in San Diego and Denver.
Lo and behold, guess what I witnessed that evening before the featured
speaker’s message? You guessed it. The Highland Park Baptist Church featured a
music pageant almost identical to the two ritualistic Greek Orthodox-style
pageants I watched in San Diego and Denver. Not that the skill of the musicians
or singers lacked in any way. As previously, there was no issue with the
quality of the program. All three were produced and performed with skill and evident
commitment to excellence. The problem for me was the question of where this ritualistic
Greek Orthodox style pageantry came from.
After the service concluded, I sought out and introduced myself to the
music director of the Highland Park Baptist Church. He was most gracious. I
mentioned to him that the pageant presented that evening was most interesting.
He interpreted my comment as a compliment. I then asked him where it came from,
referring to the spectacle.
With glee, he said, “I got it at Jerry Falwell’s Super Conference. Isn’t
it great? Jerry got it from Jim Cymbala’s wife at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. She
said she got it from the Greek Orthodox Church.”
There you have it. Ritualistic Greek Orthodox style pageantry was
embraced by a Pentecostal Church and passed on to fundamental Baptist Churches
via Jerry Falwell’s Super Conference. If you think that demonstrates nothing
and portends nothing, you are admitting to possessing the spiritual discernment
of a flat rock. Jerry’s Super Conference was a bridge, a bridge to nowhere
good. Only the pragmatist would value a ritualistic liturgy borrowed by
fundamental Baptists from a Greek Orthodox Church, paying no heed whatsoever to
the centuries-old anti-Christian theological system that produced that liturgy.
