Unregistered Baptist Fellowship

There were twenty Essays entered in the Crisis in the Church Project sponsored by The Trumpet and AVIDD (American Veterans in Domestic Defense). Judges were Pastor Jim Grove, Pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Loganville, PA; Wiley Drake, Pastor of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Vista, CA; Judge Roy Moore and staff of Montgomery, AL; and Jim Cabaniss and the AVIDD staff of Houston, TX.

Dr. W.N. Otwell, Pastor of the Heritage Baptist Church in Mt. Enterprise, Texas, and Josh Douglas Smith, a 23 year old free lance photographer and web developer from Berwyn, PA, tied for first place. Joey Faust, Pastor of Kingdom Baptist from Mansfield, Texas, was second. Four entries tied for third place: Pastor John Steven Brown, Everett Ramsey, Jimmie Warren and Alwyn Williams.

This all came about some months ago when Mr. Cabaniss sent one of the most startling e-mails to The Trumpet, with three of the most thought-provoking questions that we had ever considered. Those questions were pertaining to the Lord’s churches after the following statements.

“I am deeply concerned with the obvious erosion of the Christian Church in America. One does not have to be a Rocket scientist to notice that the Lord's Church is experiencing a diminishing image even among the Christian community.

“The news media, Hollywood, the pornography industry, the abortion - Planned Parenthood effort, the "Gay" and Lesbian agenda, the ACLU and certain other organizations are openly showing their intent to destroy the influence of the churches in our society. Even our government is now declaring that there is no God. For example:

“In the final minutes of Former Chief Justice Roy Moore's encounter with the Alabama's Court Of The Judiciary on Nov. 12, 2003, Attorney General Bill Pryor questioned Judge Moore under oath.

“Following is an exact exchange of Judge Moore's powerful witness. The Attorney General asked, "And your understanding is that the Federal Court ordered that you could not acknowledge God; isn't that right?" Judge Moore said, "Yes." Pryor continued, "And if you resume your duties as Chief Justice after this proceeding, you will continue to acknowledge God as you have testified that you would today?" Judge Moore, "That's right." Pryor, "No matter what any other official says?" Judge Moore replied "Absolutely."

“On the basis of that testimony the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed Chief Justice Roy Moore from office and stripped him of his reputation. Then they removed the Ten Commandments Monument from the Alabama Supreme Court Building.

“It is becoming clear that our Government has taken the position that there is no God, which also means, that to the government, there is no Jesus Christ either, and in the end it will mean no church in America as we have known it.

“Pastor Dixon, this is shocking to my family and me. I personally believe that the Bible believing and teaching Christian Church is the most important establishment of God in the history of the world. Please help me to understand what is going on in our Churches. Please consider the answer to the following questions:

1) What is the problem?

2) What is causing the problem?

3) What is the solution to the problem?”

Jim Cabaniss

Following is an essay submitted by Bob Patenaude .

Other essays will be featured in subsequent Trumpets.

CRISIS IN THE CHURCH

Submitted by Bob Patenaude

America's Sin In Forgetting God

By Evangelist Joseph T. Larsen

This article is from the July 1933 Moody Bible Institute Monthly

America’s greatest sin and the real cause of the present depression is forgetting God. That means failure to obey God, to listen to His Word, and to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Godlessness leads to disregard for law, corruption in politics, fraud in educational and state life, and hypocrisy in the Church.

America has forgotten God! Its parents, youth and citizens as a whole – these have forgotten God. Even ministers, educators and church officials have forgotten God. True, millions of Christians have not yet forgotten God, but the whole tendency in state life, school life, commercial life, and even in religious circles, is to forget God.

Though there are fifty million church members in the nation and many more Christians who are not church members, yet there are about seventy million outside the churches, living as if there were no God or hereafter.

America's History Has Been Phenomenal

From the first there were many immigrants coming to America seeking religious liberty. In godly worship they settled our eastern shores, then moved westward, until they settled almost three million square miles of territory. They built cities, made marvelous inventions, improved everything possible, and now support approximately 124,000,000! For 157 years, God has been the God of this nation, piloting us safely through the pioneer periods, the five wars for freedom of oppressed peoples; and as a culmination, the people following the recent period of prosperity, have turned largely away from God! Then came the events which brought a general depression!

How Does America Forget God?

By largely banishing the Bible from schools and by misinterpreting it in universities, criticizing it in theological seminaries and colleges, and scoffing at it among the infidels and atheists of the nation. False cults numbering nearly ten million are sweeping the land with propaganda of denial, deceit and devilish doctrines. Atheists, modernists and communists have formed a deadly alliance against God, Christ, the Church, and the Bible. "But he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shalt have them in derision."

Pleasure, newspapers, magazines, business and society have largely taken the preeminent place that God and Christian living ought to take. Crime gets the eye, not Christ! Society not salvation, business and not betterment of souls, money and not missions, earth and not Heaven is foremost in thinking. True, there are a few million Christians in America who still adore, worship and serve Him; but they are like salt in a rotting nation.

Judgment Is Coming

Ancient Babylon, Greece, Rome, Medo-Persia, Assyria, and other empires all forgot God, and have been ruined and forgotten; but only until the judgment!

Oh, citizens of America! Will you ever learn a lesson from past history, from experienced adversity, from former judgments on the nations, that forgetting God does not pay? Can the professing Church of today continue to exist if she joins the world, praises the communists and denies God's divine rulership?

Macaulay, the English historian, writing nearly one hundred years ago, said of America, "She will be pillaged and looted in the twentieth century by vandals, and forces within her will cause her destruction." Indications prove him to be right, and unless something can be done by godly people to stem the tide of lawlessness, communism, modernism and immorality, she will go the way of the ancient nations.

Will Christians, will governmental leaders, will its citizens awaken in time or too late?

What Will Cause America to Return to God?

Only a nation-wide revival of Christian teaching, the preaching of a crucified Christ, the return to the Bible, banishing communism, deposing false cult-teachings, baring worldly and sinful amusements, and all dangerous teachings in our public schools. God must find His rightful place in human hearts, the family altars must be restored, and the Church must cease pandering to worldly aspirations.

The prodigal son "came to himself," and America must come to herself. God's voice calls upon her to repent, confess her sins and return to the God of love and life. Mercy pleads with justice, grace pleads against judgment, truth opposes falsity, and wisdom foresees coming disaster, unless there is a change through national revival.

May God's faithful ones keep crying to God for a revival and "give him no rest" until He hear from Heaven with a mighty power as of old. Let us pray unceasingly, "Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?" (Ps. 85:6)

Bro. Bob Patenaude is a missionary to China. His e mail address is: panbobei@hushmail.com