Book Description

Is the 'Full Gospel Baptist Church' truly Baptist, or is it Pentecostalism in disguise? Is the growing trend towards women serving as preachers and pastors biblical? Is the 'mega-church mania' that is sweeping the country doctrinally sound? Dr. Burwell not only addresses these issues, but he also issues a stinging indictment against the leadership of the National Baptist Conventions for their failure to develop and adopt doctrinal stances on these and other controversies. Falling prey, he says, to the fear of another convention split, the leadership has chosen to hide behind the veil of autonomy, sacrificing doctrine on the altar of dollars. As such, the National Baptist church has lost its identity and its distinctiveness. In a call for doctrinal integrity, Sho Nuff offers a biblical examination of more than a dozen major and minor controversies from a uniquely National Baptist perspective. Dr. Bill Burwell is a former Black nationalist who was converted to Christianity in 1978, after serving as co-founder, professor, and chairman of the Afro-American Studies department at California State University, Northridge for ten years. Leaving his pursuit of the PhD degree at the University of Southern California, and resigning his tenured position at the university in 1981, Dr. Burwell became a full-time seminarian pursuing the Master of Divinity Degree at Talbot Theological Seminary in La Mirada California, where after assisting in the development of a Minority Ministers Program; he briefly joined the faculty teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate level. After organizing and serving as Pastor-Teacher of the First Berean Christian Church in Los Angeles for eight years, Dr. Burwell left the pastorate and embarked upon the unique ministry of a full-time teaching evangelist. In addition to serving as a commentary writer for the NBC, USA Sunday School Publishing Board, he was a regular lecturer for more than six years at the National Conference of Christian educators held each December at the World Baptist Center in Nashville, TN. Over the past seventeen years he, with his faithful wife Kathy at his side, has traveled more than a million miles in the USA, the Virgin Islands, and Germany serving as Christian education consultant and lecturer to dozens of local Baptist district associations, state and national conventions. He and his wife Kathy currently reside in Palm Springs, California where they play active roles in the lives of their eight children and thirteen grandchildren.