In the March 20, 2006, edition of "The Baptist Heritage," Pastor Jerald Manley discusses the methods used to take good churches away from the old paths of the gospel into the new ways of modern compromise. He states: "In recent years, I have discovered that books exist that are expressly designed to guide church leaders through the most effective methods of achieving these doctrinal changes in ways that isolate and overcome the opposition until sufficient strength has been achieved to enable one ultimately to ignore the resistance. Boiled down to the last dreg of essence, these are means to use the finances of the conservatives of the congregation to pay for their own extinction. They are to be viewed, it is suggested, as the means to an end--their replacement."
Pastor Manley is right. I am seeing this process take place over and over again. Beware of a liberal pastor or of liberal leadership in a church who are taking the church into modernism. Oppose it up front and try to keep the church from going the way of the world. However, if you cannot get support for the truth from the congregation initially, you must realize that the position you and others like you hold will only weaken with time. Do not keep financing a church that is turning to modernism (while recognizing that some matters are not doctrinal issues). Find a good church in the area that you can support or help start a new church that will stay with the truth of the word of God some distance into the future. It is time God's people started fighting back.
