Spiritmech inspired me with his Catholic thread. I've been thinking about doing this so here it is. I'd appreciate it if this didn't turn into a debate thread.

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/tca_carltonfirstbaptist.aspx


From First Baptist to the First Century

By Clark Carlton
In June of 1986, I attended the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention as a messenger from my home church. The temperature in Atlanta was hot, but not nearly as hot as the temperature inside the World Congress Center as Baptist moderates tried in vain to prevent a fundamentalist takeover of the Convention. As I sat in the convention center, I became convinced of one thing: the Southern Baptist Convention was in dire need of a reformation. I longed for the advent of a new Martin Luther, who would nail his ninety-five theses to the front door of the First Baptist Church of Dallas and mark the return of Baptists to their spiritual roots in the Radical Reformation.

The following August I moved to Wake Forest, North Carolina and began my studies as a Raymond Brian Brown Memorial Scholar at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Within two years of my first and only trip to the Southern Baptist Convention, however, I would be officially received into the historic, Orthodox Christian Church and would be preparing to transfer to St. Vladimirs Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. What happened? How could a fire-breathing, radical free-church, dont tread on me, Southern Baptist end up in a liturgical and hierarchical church, especially one so foreign to my Southern/American ethos?

I recount the story of my pilgrimage, not because my story is particularly important, but because of the importance of the issues associated with that move. These are not matters of obscure, theological debate. In the final analysis they have to do with what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven (Matt. 7:21).

My pilgrimage was influenced by many people, both evangelical and Orthodox, whose spiritual honesty and integrity were a beacon of light. To all of those who, knowingly or unknowingly, helped me on my journey, I owe a debt of gratitude. I can only hope that this article might help someone else find that Pearl of Great Price.

One final word of introduction to the reader: Whatever is true, whatever is good, whatever is beautiful in evangelical Protestantism has its source in the historic Orthodox Faith. One thousand years before the birth of Martin Luther; fourteen hundred years before the creation of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Fathers of the Orthodox Church had already wrestled with and decided the most important doctrinal issues facing the Christian Faith. Whenever an evangelical Protestant professes faith in the Trinity and in the Divine Manhood of Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God, he is unknowingly confessing the Orthodox Faith! This is an invitation for evangelical Protestants to return to their historic roots. CLICK HERE FOR REMAINDER!!!!

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