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I am a Recovering Southern Baptist. I have experienced the wrath that can be shown. I also received the "left hand of fellowship."

I know of a local (HP) SBC church where a young tennager (male) entered for the youth group meeeting for the first time and was automatically called "faggot" by some members of that group. Who would want to associate with people who stereo-type like this? This same church also preaches hatred for non-christian people (at least those that are not like them).

I believe these statistics show that people are looking for something more meaningful than just a hand raising, shouting type of religious experience. There is more to faith than the outward signs. There has to be something inward.

Way back when I was a believers, I was a member of a local SBC member church. When I was baptized, the church was progressive, and the Convention was a lot more relaxed than it is today.

When the fundamentalists started taking over, life became pretty uncomfortable for anyone who didn't toe the line. I've never regretted walking away from my association with the SBC.

Darryl and Eric, You both have summed it up nicely. I was reared in the Baptist faith and am now happy to be "Free at last, free at last".

Rather than teaching and practicing God's love, they taught fear. God's going to get you philosophy. Since fear rarely works on teens or adults, I managed to make my escape then.

To this day I find them to be the "fire and brimstone" kind, still teaching fear, judgement and intolerence. People are taking off their blinders and seeing the poorly disguised hate for their fellow humans who do not fit into a neat, little pigeon hole of their approval. Folks are edgar to hear of and experience God's love and acceptance.

If attendees at the SBC want to get to the bottom of the "recruitment" problem, they need only to look inward.

One further thought, related to the title. Any Southern Baptist recruiter who dares to come knocking at my door will pretty quickly regret it. I have certain methods for upsetting their little apple carts pretty readily, I can tell you...

Eric, share some of your methods. I am btoth serious and curious! {:o)~

Eric,

Why don't you simply tell them God isn't good enough for you?

Darryl, my means of upsetting door-to-door God-salesmen is in fact pretty simple. I tell them I'm an atheist (which I think surprises them because many have never heard of such a thing, and because they would never expect anyone to admit such a horrible thing in public), then I bring out my Bible and start showing them things they've never dreamed of being there.

Like God sending bears to tear apart children, the 2 psalms where the writer looks forward to washing his feet in his enemies' blood, God ordering Ezekiel to cook his food using human dung for cooking fuel... and so forth.

Anyone who still hangs around after that... well, they get my special treatment. We get to discuss why I think Christians should support universal abortions. That usually kills the conversations pretty effectively. {;-)

Eric, in reference to your usage of 2 Kings 2:23-24 about the children and the bears, it is important to look at the original word usage to get the entire meaning (as you know ancient Hebrew is not the same as modern English). The "little children", according to Strong's concordance is translated from the Hebrew "qatan" for little and "na'ar" for children. Qatan can mean abbreviated in age or importance. Na'ar can also mean a young man or servant. Notice that it does not necessarily convey the idea of small, innocent schoolchildren like so many seem to take this passage. Furthermore, in the context of the passage, Elisha's bald head clearly was a symbol that he was a prophet of God. The situation was probably one in which young men who were unimportant or low-class (qatan) servants (na'ar) saw Elisha and clearly understood the symbolism of his bald head and proceeded to mock his relationship with God, indirectly mocking God Himself. I hope this clears up the passage that you quoted and helps one understand that God does not take mockers of Him lightly.

Brian, I don't know what country you live in, but in America, we have something called freedom of speech. It seems evident from this passage that the Bible says God doesn't care for such a thing. Are you saying that it's fine with you if God kills anyone for expressing their opinion?

Note: I've had this conversation with a few religious door-knockers already. The readers here can just imagine how fun it is to bother me with this stuff on a quiet Friday evening. {;-)

Eric, I understand in America we have freedom of speech however that's kind of straying from the point of my previous post. The point that I was attempting to make was that God executed judgement towards this group of people at this point in history because He was mocked. Clearly God did not see this event as merely an expression of opinion, rather, it was an assault on who He was. I understand from your previous post that you are an athiest so I don't expect you to agree with me, my point though is it's not our decision nor do we have the authority to decide what actions God may take in a particular circumstance. Because God is soveriegn He does not ask us what we think He should do in a particular situation.

But didn't he/she also give us free will and the ability to think, and therefore question things, including him/her and his/her actions?

Ah, now it does get interesting! We have one using a more universial wording for the Christian God, noting the he/she pronouns. I love this type of interaction. I just hope that it does not get ugly as I have been in those type discussions in the past.

One thing that has always made me curious is the fact that many (most?) SBC churches report a membership way larger than their attendance. I grew up in a small town in the mountains of NC. I checked some of the church membership totals of those congregations where I know either first hand or from family the number of people who attend.

One church has about 30 that attend, yet 350 on the membership rolls. Another has about 75 in attendance, yet over 400 members.

Another recent example that has been in the news. East Waynesville Baptist Church, the church whose pastor disfellowshipped the Democrat members, reports 405 members. However, the newspapers report that half the church left over the issue...in total 75 people. I guess lying is not a sin :-), or at least not as great as loving someone of the same sex.

So, my point is that I think the number of Southern Baptists have been greatly inflated. Add to that that most SBC churches, not all, are full of 65+ adults and few young people. Perhaps some of our SBC friends could clarify why the rolls of churches (even in Greensboro) are padded.

One other interesting note is the fact that there are churches listed on the SBC website (with membership numbers) which are no longer affiliated with the SBC. For example, College Park Baptist in Greensboro.

What's up with that?

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