April 24, 2000
Gage: Baptist churches not reaching 'pagan' culture
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___DALLAS--Even though total numbers of baptisms in Southern Baptist churches have increased over the last decade, Southern Baptists aren't effectively reaching the "pagan, unchurched culture," according to Texas-based evangelist Freddie Gage.
___The generally unacknowledged fact, he said, is that the majority of baptisms performed in Southern Baptist churches are either rebaptisms or baptisms of children of churchmembers.
FREDDIE GAGE
___Perhaps as few as 5 percent of all baptisms represent conversions of people from totally unchurched or "pagan" backgrounds, Gage said. No specific statistical data is available to prove or disprove this estimate, which is based on Gage's nearly 50 years of experience as a Baptist evangelist and his conversations with pastors and evangelists. Researchers familiar with Southern Baptist life concede the estimate is believable, though undocumented.
___A study of 1993 baptisms in Southern Baptist churches did find that 60 percent of those baptisms were rebaptisms. In follow-up interviews with a representative sampling of individuals baptized in Southern Baptist churches during that year, Home Mission Board researchers discovered only 40.5 percent had been baptized as a result of a first-time commitment to Jesus Christ.
___Based on Gage's calculations, if the number of total baptisms is reduced by 60 percent to eliminate rebaptisms and then another large percentage is taken out to account for "biological baptisms"--the conversion of children reared in the church--there's only a small percentage left to account for the conversion of those outside the church.
___Meanwhile, the number of unchurched people in America continues to grow each year.
___One out of three American adults is unchurched, according to the Barna Research Group, the nation's leading monitor of statistics related to evangelical Christianity. That's about 70 million adults--equivalent to the combined populations of Texas, California and New York.
___Further, the likelihood of a non-Christian making a profession of faith in Christ decreases dramatically after age 14, Barna reports.
___For that reason, Gage is concerned that Southern Baptists ought to be doing more to reach unchurched youth with the gospel.
___The number of unchurched or "pagan" youth baptized in Southern Baptist churches is probably less than 5,000 per year, Gage estimates, based on the assumption that only about 5 percent of reported baptisms reflect conversions of the totally unchurched. In recent years, Southern Baptist churches have baptized about 94,000 youth between the ages of 12 and 17 each year.
___That estimated number of unchurched youth baptized by Baptists is about how many teenagers nationwide commit suicide each year, and it's fewer than the number of teenagers who are killed in homicides each year.
___"We have lost the past generation of youth, and unless a spiritual awakening and revival comes, we will lose this present generation of youth," he warned.
___This ought to be an indictment against Southern Baptists who want to bask in their correct doctrine while not producing converts, Gage said.
___While affirming he is an "inerrantist with a capital I," that is not enough to ensure an emphasis on evangelism, he said. "In the 21st century, Southern Baptists will have to deal with dead orthodoxy and five-point Calvinism. There is not a nickel's worth of difference between liberalism, five-point Calvinism and dead orthodoxy. They are all enemies of soul-winning.
___"Today we have truth without passion, tears, fire, zeal, mercy or grace for the lost, unchurched world," he added. "We are no longer fishers of men but keepers of the aquarium. So often we are simply swapping fish from one bowl to another. There are no new born-again fish."
Among SBC churches in 1998:
___287 churches baptized 100 or more people.
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