Baptist Battles: Social Change and Religious Conflict in the Southern Baptist Convention

Rating:
Summary: Baptist conflict understood
Review: "Baptist Battles" explains the roots of the conflict seen today in the Southern Baptist Convention. This conflict began in 1979, and resulted in the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC. The author studied that conflict from a social scientist perspective, and reports her findings in this book. The description of the conflict and struggle for power is fascinating. All Baptists should read this book in order to fully understand the fighting in the convention today.

Rating:
Summary: Underscores the Modernistic Rotting of Christian Churches
Review: This book is valuable in that it goes far beyond the conflict within the Baptist Church itself. It goes to the struggle over the very soul of Christianity. As emphasized throughout this book, nothing causes the decline of Christian churches faster than the undermining of the Word of God by theological liberalism. Witness the virtual disappearance of significant Christian practice and influence in western Europe. In this book, Criswell is perceptably cited (p. 81) in pointing out that the onset of theological liberalism, as exemplified by the so-called higher critical approach to the Bible, quickly led to a precipitous decline in church attendance, conversions, prayer meetings, missionary activity, etc. Worse yet, theological liberalism, or modernism, is often disguised with euphemisms such as "theological moderates". But Criswell (p. 84) is quoted as saying, "A skunk by any other name still stinks". Very well put!