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In August, the Sword of the Lord , Editor, Shelton Smith wrote an article on the compromised direction of Southwide Baptist Fellowship. The article is titled "Southwide Slants Its Slate of Speakers." Smith noted that when he was the moderator of the Southwide annual meeting in 1994, he felt as though he "had been thrown into a war zone" because of the battle that was ongoing over the type of speakers that would be invited. He said he "took considerable heat" for requiring that "the eleven speakers must all be solidly fundamentalist, separatist men." In his article he went on to say that "during the last five years there has been a growing aura of concern about what some of us perceived as a definite drift in the direction of the Southwide. . when the roster of speakers for the October 2002 annual Southwide meeting was made public in mid-July, our fears appeared more than justified! Listed among the speakers were two Southern Baptist men, and two or three independent Baptist men whose ministries are openly contemporary, and one other man who is a representative of an organization that could not be described as fundamentalist." [The Southern Baptists are John Phillips and Bill Stafford and Joe Jordan with Word of Life, which is non-denominational and heavily contemporary.] Dr. Smith explains that the Southwide Fellowship was founded by men who separated from the Southern Baptist Convention. Those men were John Waters, Harold B. Sightler, and Lee Roberson. The SBC did not want these men so these men formed the SBF.

Smith added, “despite the conservative resurgence in the SBC, there is much about the Convention for which we cannot give commendation and, consequently, much which sustains us in our resolve to be independent." Smith also warned about "the Saddleback and/or Hybels philosophy" and organizations like Word of Life, which is not a fundamentalist, separatist group. Dr. Smith also stated that he contacted current Southwide Fellowship leaders Gordon Godfrey (Marcus Pointe Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida), Gary Coleman (Lavon Drive Baptist Church in Garland, Texas), and David Bouler (Highland Park Baptist Church, Chattanooga, Tennessee), to share his concerns. They did not agree with him. Smith added, "This whole current scenario at Southwide is no longer merely a matter of drift or an isolated case; it is now, in my judgment, a deliberate and pondered course.”

To our readers I say let the record stand clear, this is not a new direction we are reading about in the South Wide Baptist Fellowship. This is the direction the Southwide fellowship has been going for years. I have been familiar with the Southwide Fellowship since my days at Temple. During my years as a student I remember receiving warnings from the then Pastor, J. Don Jennings, as well as other leaders that we needed to ‘keep our feet on the ground’ during the Southwide Fellowship meeting. As a precursor to the Southwide we were flat-out told that we would hear things that were not scriptural during the meeting. I told one leader that if they really believed that why didn’t they have enough guts to stop hosting the meeting on grounds of heresy. They would never do that. Instead they tried to control the preachers by assigning them topics. I well remember laughing when I heard that. I thought at the time, the leadership of this fellowship can not take preaching! But years before all of that, at a Southwide meeting in 1976 in Charlotte, Dr. Sightler refused to mount the platform until S. M. Lockridge got off of it. Sightler stated, “I won’t get on the same platform with that compromiser ”. No, Southwide is not doing anything new. Their direction has been muddled for years. For the record, I was bothered when Dr. Smith was the moderator of a BAPTIST fellowship while he did not pastor a Baptist Church.

In his August 30th, article Dr. Smith wrote, “some will no doubt think me harsh and judge me to be divisive or otherwise ill advised for speaking up. To the contrary, I cannot imagine myself, or any other fundamental preacher, for that matter, sitting quietly by while a major national fundamentalist institution is led off into left field by its leadership!” I would say to Dr. Smith, who cares what they think! If you are taking a stand on what is right, you should be deaf to the opinions and remarks of those who may not like it. We are living in an hour when standing for anything or standing against anything will get you labeled harsh, judgmental, divisive, and ill advised. It is my opinion that these middle-of-the-roaders learned this name calling tactic from the democrats who got it straight from the Devil. All of it will perish in Hell some day and in the mean time we should be glad that we don’t conform.

Dr. Smith as well as all of us should remember that the men who pioneered the Southwide Fellowship were called all of those names as well as many more. They did not let it slow them down. Instead it rallied and motivated them. Unfortunately we live in an hour where men like, Roberson, Sightler, and Waters are disappearing and being replaced by men who change colors like a chameleon depending on which camp or group they happen to be with or are trying to impress at the moment. As the Southwide fellowship nears its fiftieth birthday it is moving back to the very thing that it was created to leave when it got started. It is sad when this happens, but it is common. No doubt 150 years ago men wrote about Harvard, and Yale and Brown no longer being what they once were in terms of training preachers. Fellowships, colleges, and churches change. When the ball gets dropped someone else needs to pick it up and get it back in the right direction. I’m sure this will happen, it just won’t be called Southwide.

Pastor Steven E. Mays – Faith Baptist Church, Laurens, SC.
BroMays@FaithBaptistTrumpet.org