Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Spencer Journal! I want to begin this article by paraphrasing Carl F. H. Henry who said, We must settle the identity issue, and in doing so, coalesce, otherwise we will become by the 21st Century a wilderness cult in a secular society, with no more public significance than the ancient Essenes in their Dead Sea caves.

      Recently the Kentucky Baptist Convention commissioned a study by Lifeway Research regarding the spiritual maturity of Southern Baptists in Kentucky and some of the results were very disturbing. Some of the results were published in our state paper, the Western Recorder, and they were very disturbing as they showed a weakness in biblical doctrine. Among the findings of Kentucky Southern Baptists: 24% believe we may be able to earn our salvation; 38% believe that Jesus may have committed sins during His time on earth; 64% believe that we may need to continually work toward our salvation or risk losing it.

      Recent studies and polls have shown that we in the Southern Baptist Convention have settled the issue of the inspiration of scripture, and that is good as far as it goes, but lip service is not enough. Authority implies sufficiency. Some claim to believe that the Bible is inspired, but also put an equal emphasis on reason and tradition which, more often than not, conflict with the divine revelation. When this happens reason and tradition must be jettisoned in favor of divine revelation. When the church marries the spirit of the age, she will find herself a widow inside of one generation. History has shown us that whatever one generation tolerates, the next will accept as normal.

      As Jesus said, new wine will burst old wineskins, but old wine will do no harm to new wineskins. Getting back to believing and preaching our historic distinctives will settle the identity question. The old wine of our historic distinctives will do no harm to any new convert or church were they to be believed and taught. Our Baptist forbears knew this and they did not go to church to be entertained or to get their "felt needs" met,...they went to give thanks for what they had already received and to worship the living Lord in spirit and in truth. They knew what they believed, and why they believed it.

      It is in keeping with the Great Commission that we as Kentucky Baptists endeavor to use all scriptural means to connect the unsaved with Jesus Christ, but we should also reconnect with the historic distinctives that have made us what we are. We cannot, and we must not, lose our Baptist identity and for that reason we must embrace, once again, our historic distinctives. The purpose of the J. H. Spencer Historical Society is to preserve and promote our history, heritage and distinctive beliefs.

      It seems to me that rather than making disciples, we are producing susceptibles instead. A generation of Baptists who have not been taught what distinguishes us from other denominations will be susceptible to every religious fad and carried about with every wind of doctrine that comes along.

      We should never forget our history, nor our heritage, and realize whom we represent in the world. We need to get back to the place where we preach our historic distinctives with authority and without being ashamed of who and whose we are. As Buell Kazee once said, "Baptist are unique or we are nothing at all."

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