mymojo wrote:And saying these guys aren't baptist is like saying the 911 hijackers weren't muslim. They may not sync up with our particular idea of what "baptist" means, that doesnt mean the term does not apply. This argument requires knowing what their core dogma and practices are.
Respectfully, the single largest Baptist organization is the Southern Baptist Convention. The precepts of the SBC are pretty much mirrored by every other Baptist affiliation of churches.
Here is a link to the SBC doctrinal details. By tradition, Baptist churches are affiliated with a larger convention, which enables the affiliated churches to pool resources for such things as funding missionary work, and governing missionary behavioral expectations, and stuff like that; but each individual church is responsible for its own church government. However,
all of those affiliated churches must be in line with the teaching of the larger convention in order to be members
of that convention. These general guidelines are true of pretty much all Baptists churches... ...except one: the WBC. The WBC does not follow the spiritual guidelines necessary to a Baptist church. They are not in affiliation with any
other Baptist church.
The WBC is made up entirely of Fred Phelps, his children, their spouses, and
their children. Most of the members do not hold down productive jobs because they are always traveling to new locations for protests. Nearly every penny of the church's revenues derive from lawsuits, the proceeds of which are used to fund their protest activities. They are in the truest form NOT a Christian church, and they are NOT Baptists. They are an income generation machine which makes good money from spewing a message of hatred and intolerance.
With all due respect, I don't think you have a complete understanding of exactly who WBC is and what they do, and I believe your understanding of the Baptist approach to church government to be incomplete, and for that matter, what it means to be a Christian. Baptists are Christians first, and anything
else second. This is also true for members of pretty much any other Christian denomination. WBC "Baptists," on the other hand, are completely willing to deny anything Jesus said if it conflicts with anything
they say.
I have had this conversation with them, and I have heard their representatives do as much on the radio. In other words, as people who deny Christ when his words conflicts with their own message of hate, they are by definition not Christians, and therefore, not Baptists (nor Presbyterians or Lutherans or Methodists or Catholics or any other denomination of Christian).
Please understand that I am not trying to preach Christianity here. I am trying to clear up a misunderstanding which causes apostates like the WBC to be lumped into true Christianity. It is a categorical error to do so, and it would automatically invalidate any argument one would make on a claimed knowledge of what it is to be a Baptist, or any other kind of Christian, for that matter.
