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Originally Posted by KMK 
I agree with Bill that it is a wonderful document and I doubt I will ever mine all of the treasures therein. I do not understand its disdain among contemporary Baptists.
I must say that the LBC is a cause I am proud to champion. Forget Purpose Driven, spiritual gifts tests, Seeker Sensitive worship etc. If we are going to impact our society with any man-made program, let it be the LBC!
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I "confess" (there you are Rich) that as a lifelong Baptist, my first reading of the 1689 came in connection with my pilgrimage from 4-pt to 5-pt Calvinism and separation from a mainline denomination just a few years ago. Being "well read" in theology and biblical studies does not always translate into knowing ANYthing about Baptist history. The pernicious legacy of independency caused many of us to think of ourselves as "evangelicals who happen to attend a Baptist church," even when we were the pastors of them teaching membership classes!!! In my experience, SBC folks really cherish that Baptist moniker. However, conservatives in the ABC like me were often so ashamed of the association that we ran as fast as we could to common evangelical convictions and, other than baptism, pretty much ignored "Baptist" identity. "Don't call ME a Baptist, I'm an evangelical."
With Bill, it is my present conviction that without confessional integrity we will be prone to stray to the right or the left.
This morning, one of my management employees (a Baptist minister's wife with a MBA) got into a conversation with me about evangelical Christian colleges. My contention was that without a confessional boundary, they will either tend towards the polarity of Joel Osteen and subjective experientialism run amuck or they will drift into heresy, spon fed by the "evangelical" profs with their newly minted secular terminal degrees. Here in So. Cal, for example, I know of one large Christian college that has pretty much embraced the egalitarian line, destructive critical assumptions, and tolerance for a number of post-modern heresies.
No, Marty and Scott, I'm not anti-intellectual. We need the highest level of academic prep for our seminary profs. However, recently we have witnessed again how difficult it is for even our confessional brethren to stick to the Bible and how easily they go "off the reservation." Since most of the evangelical liberal arts colleges don't even have a confessional boundary, the potential for straying is markedly increased.
It is always possible that running away from the fires of the mainline so recently, I still smell the smoke on my clothes everywhere and wrongly assume that a confessional solution will "fix" the problem. However, in my opinion (after more than a half century of church involvement), Baptists without a confessional subscription will be rank liberals in a short period of time.