Excerpt from David Cloud's book: ""The Path from Independent Baptist to the Shack, Rome and Beyond"
TREACHEROUS WATERS is a perfect description of evangelicalism in general and of the Southern Baptist Convention in particular. These are permeated with ancient and end-times heresies (2 Timothy 3:13) and fables (2 Timothy 4:4).
I almost entitled this report “The Treacherous waters of the Southern Baptist Convention,” but I decided against it, because the report is not for Southern Baptists or evangelicalism at large. I don’t think there is any hope for them. They mock and malign and ignore the warners. They hide behind the impressive size of their denominations and movements and the brilliance of their scholars and refuse to heed godly reproof. They are like the rich man whose wealth is his strong city (Proverbs 18:11). Like the Laodicean Church, they are “rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing,” so what possible need would they have of correction? So there is no hope.
No, this report is for the Bible-believing fundamentalist churches that still have any sort of spiritual/doctrinal backbone but are in danger of the treacherous waters through an ineffective separatism. It is for Bible-believing churches that still have the wisdom to listen to Bible-based, well-documented warnings.
My challenge to these churches is this: The only way to be protected is to keep your boat entirely out of these waters. Education, reproof, and separation are the divinely-ordained means of spiritual protection.
My warning to these churches is this: Every fundamentalist and Independent Baptist church that does not take Biblical separation seriously today and does not make the effort to practice EFFECTIVE separation will be well down the emerging evangelical path within 15 years. And if the church itself is not emerging by then, many of the current and future members will be.