Church planter shares on Reddit that NAMB recruiter told them not to worry about SBC ban on alcohol. Alcohol ban ‘will probably be going away in the next couple of years,’ Redditor claims NAMB said.
Reddit’s WallStreetBets shot to prominence as the community of investors punished Hedge Funds shorting Gamestop stock (or should I say Gamestonk?). Another Reddit community might expose doctrinal laxity in church planting efforts of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Bonus: the thread compares NAMB’s extravagant spending on some church plants to spending like a “drunken sailor.”
NAMB’s doctrinal laxity was highlighted in a post in r/SouthernBaptist titled, “Church planter in residence at an SBC church in WA state. Struggling with whether or not to go through the accreditation/ assessment process.”
The thread is illuminating about NAMB’s reputation in the church planting community. According to one reddit user, “NAMB’s pragmatism and drunken sailor spending are bad for the SBC, but that’s a criticism of their offer. For the recipient, the process gives you good information, and it’s pretty good money, with fewer strings than other places. The Convention fights might mean the punchbowl gets taken away in a couple of years, and some new networks will form. But if you’re planting right now, it probably remains a good deal.”
And then the church planter considering NAMB drops the bombshell. The redditor writes, “It’s been a strange process. As an outsider coming in I’m actively being told not to worry about specific theological issues I may have as they really aren’t a big deal. One that came up right away was the restriction on alcohol. The assessor practically said that I shouldn’t even worry about it as it’s more of a southern cultural issue and will probably be going away in the next couple of years. Makes it hard to know what exactly I’d be committing to.”
This is only a message board post. However, given the problems at NAMB and the growing number of documented cases of doctrinal failure on the part of NAMB—it might be time for NAMB to come out with a statement regarding what it tells church plants about the SBC’s stance on alcohol.
The reddit thread and a screenshot of it were first posted at CR:V. They have done a great job finding a number of NAMB church plants with women pastors and documenting the doctrinal issues swirling around NAMB. You might want to check out more of their work.
Also, what do our Southern Baptist readers think about NAMB’s alleged thinking on alcohol and the SBC? Will the alcohol ban be going away in the next few years?
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I’m confused. Do Baptists have an actual ban on alcohol? I thought we taught that drunkenness was a sin, “do not get drunk on wine” – Eph 5:18, but is there an actual ban? I speak as someone who supports discouraging excessive alcohol; it’s probably caused more family problems than anything else.
Maybe he’s talking about communion. I read online about some old Baptist churches that still use wine for Lord’s Supper. They resisted stopping that during prohibition and the temperance movement, like the Catholic and some mainline churches, and just kept rolling with the wine. They’re still using it.