(Satire) Are Baptists Saved..?

Are Baptists Saved..?
by Phil Brewer
"Tip-toe through the tulips..." --as sung byTiny Tim

Three Years in a Row--Then I was Persona Non Grata... For three years straight I was invited to Carson City, Nevada to be the speaker for the Southern Baptist (SB) State Conference. But I was given the left foot of fellowship when they found out I was a classical pentecostal.

Free at Last..! They didn't find out until after the third year that my third-generation Southern Baptist preacher Dad had, as a teen in Appalachian Eastern Kentucky--after experiencing the Holy Spirit's (John 16) drawing, conviction, and conversion to Christ, and later, as a young SB minister, having had a transformational mind-renewing (Romans 12:1-2; Acts 1:8, 2:4; Ephesians 5:18-19) Holy-Spirit-Baptismal epiphany (receiving God's gift of a devotional speaking-in-tongues prayer language, and finding his first authentic and meaningful koinonia-fellowship in Christ with MacArthur Jollay, an Assemblies of God pastor in London, KY) jumped the SB ship and joined the AG--later becoming the AG District Superintendent for the State of Kentucky.

Healthy Dissilusionment..! Prior to his being baptized in the Holy Spirit, Dad had already left the SB rejecting (intelligently and accurately) the erroneous cessationist Baptist teaching that "...that which is perfect is come" meant the (1) closing of the New Testament Canon, and/or (2) the ending of the Apostolic Age (90-95 A.D.). Dad had been a good Bible student already, as a young man, and correctly realized that "tongues shall cease...when that which is perfect is come" refers to the Second Advent of Christ--not the above-mentioned (1, 2).

(The Humor of Christ. When Dad was driving me from Pennsylvania to Florida for my matriculation into college at 17 years old, he laughingly told me, "The Bible states in that passage that 'when that which is perfect is come' knowledge shall also cease...so according to the Reformation Theology T.U.L.I.P. types, we haven't needed Preaching or Teaching either for almost 2000 years...!" We shared a good laugh over that silliness.)

Joyless Crutch-ianity. For three years the Nevada pastors had set up private counseling sessions with me-to complain about their joylessness, spiritual powerlessness, purposeless de-motivation--wondering if they were actually on the positive (implanted heaven chip) side of Louis Berkhoff's robotized Calvinistic, Double-Decree Predestination foolishness and scripture-twisting--versus the condemned to H-E-double-hockey-sticks (the bad place) hinderparts of tulipville.
After my (documented theological alien) disclosure, I enjoyed the Nevada Baptists' facial expressions (picture the constricted affect of someone who'd inadvertently popped a whole jalapeno--or a vegetarian being told the soy burger he'd just gobbled amidst belches was Black Angus steak). One angry Baptist yelled at me, "I don't CARE what the Bible says--tongues are of the devil..!"

Find the Already Found. One year I was invited (once and only once!) to hold an elective seminar at the California State Youth Conference at the Saroyan Theater in Fresno, California. There were about 3000 Lutheran college and high school students in attendance. The huge banner stretched across the front of the stage read, "Finding the Found."

{Tip-Toe Through the TULIPS. In Reformation T.U.L.I.P. Theology, the Elect--who were elected billions of years ago in the mind of God--only need to be Found. If you're not sure the ones you've located belong to the Found--that's okay--they can join the choir, play in the praise band (regardless of character), and help you, the pastor, pay the light bill. Inform your congregation that they hopefully have already been unconditionally elected (yes, implanted in the predestination sense with what I like to call in computer lingo a heaven chip) via God's limited atonement--Jesus, you know, didn't die for everybody, sorry--then that's okay--and even regarding these folks you're really not sure if they'll make the short list--i.e. be, in fishing lingo, big enough to keep.}

Pre-programmed Anyway. Missionary work and evangelism are only going-through-the-motions anyway. The grace--that God sics on The Elect (yes, this is theological elitism!) cannot be resisted by them--yes--they are programmed to persevere. (Yes, Harold Camping Rick Warren, John MacArthur, Dallas Seminary, and all the faithful Reform Theology folks shuffle to this party line.)
Tony Campolo was the main speaker and did his famous "It's Friday--But Sunday's Comin" sermon--based on a something he'd heard a pastor-friend preach in Philadelphia.

LRP, WF, etc. In my elective, I spoke on the problems with dispensationalism, cessationism, and double-decree predestination--in light of scripture and the Classical Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. I also touched on the aberrant distortions and excesses of Latter Rain Pentecostalism (LRP) and Word Faith (WF) teaching (Beall-to-Branham-to-Copeland) which the classical pentecostals (e.g.: AG) had rejected from the late-Forties to the present day.

Showing the Mess in the Backyard. I also admitted that I had been disappointed (as had my ex-reform theology Dad) with the apparent spiritual impoverishment, dissipation, and deteriorating pneumatology of the classical pentecostals--including the AG--and my disillusionment with the tribal customs, impaired rapport, anemic fellowship, shallowness and superfciality of San Joaquin Valley Pentecostal Holiness, Pentecostal Church of God, and Assemblies of God churches--wondering if Ichabod (The Glory Has Departed) was truly inscribed over their front doors by God.

(One pastor of an older AG church bragged to me that he had kicked out several men who'd come to him and told him they thought God's glory had departed from his ministry and from the church. I was in a Christian Leaders' Support Group with this pastor for fourteen years and I believe those kicked-out men were no doubt correct.)

(Peoples Church had already become doctrinally and Pneumatologically compromised with a please-everybody-ecumenical-message and staff--and I'd already become jaundiced about the Episcopal churches I'd held seminars in--and Wesleyan (free will, responsiblity, sanctification-obsessed) Methodist and Nazarene groups I'd visited.)

Why All the Fuss..? In the seminar I focused on the obvious scriptually-based importance of devotional glossalalia and the intercessory comfort, divine communication, empowerment, and even my firm conviction regarding the cognitive and affective edification provided in the mind of Christ and the mind of the Spirit via the gift of devotional prayer in the Holy Spirit. I spoke of the Spirit of God as the non-modalistic Third Person of the Godhead--warning about the error of Jesus Only teaching.

Sound Pneumatology. The Holy Spirit is the Paraclete Who comes alongside to comfort, to instruct, to re-direct and correct with God's truth. The Holy Spirit's gifts describe the Giver and not the Recipient (contrary to Rick Yohn (nowadays Rick Warren et al) and all the evangelcal types who keep trying to help people discover their spiritual gift--as if they're administrating some sort of Personality Inventory). We looked at (Ephesians 4; Romans 12; and I Corinthians 12, 13), and the Apostle Paul's cautionary instruction (I Corinthians 14) regarding public-tongues excesses--while proclaiming that he spoke "...with tongues more than you all" in his private devotions before God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit--One God--in three distinct Persons. Some present seemed to have a light turn on in their minds--realizing that the limited and not that common public Gift of Tongues ("Not all speak with tongues") had been a red herring to the cessationist T.U.L.I.P.S.

The Big Question. At the Lutheran Conference I asked the group, "Why do so many evangelicals and ecumenicals fight against devotional tongues--and really bite-the-hand-that-feeds-them by fighting against God the Father's authentic gift of the Holy Spirit (not a scorpion, not a stone) and baptism by Christ into the power and work of God, the Holy Spirit..?"

Then I answered my own question, "Because Satan wants a powerless churchianity-...and he is deathly afraid of Christ-exalting, Holy Spirit-empowered believers who are supernaturally transformed and anointed to be witnesses for Jesus Christ--in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Keep the little do-gooder steeple boxes 'down in the vale' full of spiritual-dwarf gutless wonders playin' bingo..."

Will modern-day Uzzah's and Ananias and Sapphira's who malign the the Holy Spirit and, as profane persons, touch the presence of God--suffer the same tragic fate...?


(excerpt: Part One: Unpublished Work in Progress) Are Baptists Saved..? Copyright 2008 by Philip C. Brewer All Rights Reserved



B.I.B.L.E.
1. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth)
2. "Mental Floss to Prevent Truth Decay"