Editorial

Niceness is breaking out in South Carolina Baptist churches. I pray the rest of the Southern Baptist Convention is not next.

Who can be against niceness? Well, me—if being nice precludes telling the Gospel truth about the sinful condition of humanity and the eternal destination of those who remain in their sin, and if niceness means pastors must set aside— even for just a day—their prophetic role to their church members.

While Florida Baptist churches are being encouraged June 1 to pray for rain in response to our statewide drought and wildfire danger, many South Carolina churches will be observing “Say Something Nice Sunday” (SSNS). The movement started two years ago at First Baptist Church in Charleston, S.C., and has widened to include various churches in Charleston County, including the Charleston Baptist Association, the Charleston Atlantic Presbytery (Presbyterian Church USA), and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina, according to a news release by Mitch Carnell, a longtime member of First Baptist Charleston and a communications expert.

Carnell also reports a 2007 South Carolina Baptist Convention resolution, “Unity in the Body of Christ,” supported the goals of SSNS. In fact, the resolution doesn’t actually call for a special Sunday and merely “proclaim[s] our intent to foster a climate of Christian communication that brings honor to our Lord through encouragement and love.” Carnell says the SCBC will be asked in November to make the first Sunday of June SSNS, and a resolution has been proposed to the Southern Baptist Convention.

Why fear churches resolving to be nice for one Sunday of the year?

SSNS “will be different from all of the Sundays that have preceded it. It will be a friendlier, more cheerful and more affirming day. Gone will be the rancor and demeaning verbiage,” Carnell explained in a May 12 news release.

“The congregation of First Baptist Church Charleston wanted to change the negative tone of much of the Christian discourse. It passed a resolution calling for at least one day when Christians would not say anything derogatory toward any other Christian or Christian body, but instead would say only nice things,” he said.

I realize I run the risk of appearing to be mean spirited and belligerent by opposing niceness. This editorial certainly wouldn’t be welcomed on SSNS.

Of course, I do not oppose niceness. Nor do I disagree that too much Christian communication is often harsh, unloving and not winsome.

Still, there is great danger in the desire to be nice rather than “negative” in the spiritually perilous times in which we live. This is no time to lose our prophetic nerve—which the world will always view as “negative,” “derogatory,” and “demeaning verbiage”—when the signs are all around us that our nation is speeding in its descent into unbiblical morality. More critically, a lack of prophetic nerve in the pulpit is especially undesirable when the evidence of spiritual illness in our churches is all too clear.

I exchanged e-mail with a friend about SSNS, asking his opinion. I wondered if I was just being curmudgeonly in my evaluation.

Not wanting to be named, my modest friend replied (some might say sounding negative):

“How can you preach the whole counsel of God? Moses is (of course) out. The prophets are way out. The Psalms won’t work either, unless you carefully navigate them (too many imprecatory ones). The Proverbs would have to be skillfully cut apart (too much about what “the fool” does in his folly). The Song of Songs won’t work because Solomon compares his bride to those she surpasses in beauty. Job? Oh, man. But the gospels are out, too. Jesus is consistently denouncing the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes; He even speaks negatively to the woman at the well! What part of the Apostle Paul can you possibly preach? 1 Cor 13? Yes, but only if you take out how Paul is speaking negatively about the Corinthians’ lack of love. James is just as bad, with his call to the rich to howl and his rebuke of the adulteresses in love with the world. 1, 2, 3 John is consistently calling people ‘of the spirit of antichrist’ and in the way of Cain. The Revelation? Please.

“And, what does one do if the Ku Klux Klan burns a cross in your town on ‘Say Something Nice Sunday’?

“Pastor: ‘Their robes sure are nice and white.’

“Congregation: ‘Ironed, too! Pretty!’”

I asked First Baptist Charleston pastor Marshall Blalock, who is a member of the Say Something Nice Committee, whether SSNS will preclude Gospel preaching.

“Preaching the Gospel, even telling the truth to sinners about hell and judgment, is always a positive thing. I would never characterize the Gospel as ‘negative.’ We are bound to speak the truth in love. ‘Say something nice’ is a catch phrase to remind people to have their conversations filled with grace, as we are directed in Scripture,” he told me, noting that his church would be launching a new evangelism effort the same day as SSNS.

I’m delighted to know that the Gospel is not perceived as negative and will not be precluded in Blalock’s church. Carnell’s answer to my query, however, contained the uncertain sound that I fear will characterize many churches signing on to SSNS.

“When you tell people that God loves them and He wants the very best for them and that Jesus stands eager to receive them, you have done the nicest thing that you could possibly do,” he said.

Paraphrasing John 12:47, Carnell continued, “Jesus said, ‘I came not to condemn the world, but through me the world might be saved.’ You can certainly tell them the consequences of not accepting Jesus, but first of all, in my opinion, they need to know about His love for them.”

Never mind the Good News of Jesus’ love includes the bad news of man’s separation from a holy God; Jesus’ love has no meaning in the absence of the truth of our wickedness. Carnell should consult Jesus’ words before and after John 12:47:

“I have come as a light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me would not remain in darkness. … The one who rejects Me and doesn’t accept My sayings has this as his judge: the word I have spoken will judge him on the last day” (John 12:46, 48, HCSB).

Saying persons rejecting Jesus “remain in darkness” and will be judged certainly will not pass a politically correct niceness test to the unregenerate ears of today.

SSNS literature on the FBC Charleston Web site includes a devotional that asserts, “Followers of Jesus are compelled by the force of His teachings to constantly strive to encourage other believers and nonbelievers.”

Contrary to the implications of Carnell’s statement and the SSNS devotional, Jesus did not avoid saying tough things that will certainly be perceived today as negative. Remember, He called the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” (Matt. 3:6) and His cleansing of the Temple didn’t come with a smiley face (Matt. 21:12-16; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-47).

A faithful pastor cannot preach the Gospel to unbelievers, let alone exhort and, dare I say, rebuke, backslidden and unregenerate church members, while satisfying a politically correct standard of niceness. This is the sort of niceness we could do with less of in our churches and nation.

I pray “Say Something Nice Sunday” does not spread to Florida and the Southern Baptist Convention. I fear participating churches may be unwittingly promoting something eternally harmful—a Gospel-free Sunday.