Mainstream Messenger
Vol. 1, No. 3 November 1998
FACING FUNDAMENTALISM
by Bruce Prescott
Mainstream Baptists are not here to fight
fundamentalism. We’re here to face "F"undamentalism.
Forty years ago, many Mainstream Baptists would have been
called fundamentalists. We affirm the same fundamentals of the faith that were held by men
like E.Y. Mullins and Hershel Hobbs. Mullins chaired the committee that drafted the first
Baptist Faith and Message statement in 1925. Hobbs chaired the committee that reaffirmed
it in 1963.
Today, Mainstream Baptists are called liberals, infidels,
skunks and barnacles. These epithets spew from the mouths of a new breed of Baptists that
seized control of Baptist institutions in the 1980‘s. This new
"F"undamentalism is distinguished from the fundamentalism of Mullins and Hobbs
by its lack of tolerance for diversity and dissent.
Mainstream Baptists cherish liberty of conscience. We recall
the birth of our tradition in congregations that dissented from the dogmas of corrupt
churchmen. We celebrate diversity and respect dissent. That is why all Mainstream Baptists
are opposed to creeds. Instead of creeds, we adopt confessions:
"Confessions are only guides in interpretation, having
no authority over the conscience . . . and are not to be used to hamper freedom of thought
or investigation in other realms of life. . . . If this be denied or ignored, then the
statement becomes a creed." (H. Hobbs, The Baptist Faith and Message, p.
12)
"F"undamentalists are creedal people. Creeds are
written to enforce uniformity. They provide a rationale for religious intolerance.
SBC "F"undamentalists have used convention
resolutions, peace committee reports, and now amendments to the Baptist Faith and Message
in creedal fashion.
Faculty at Southwestern Seminary have been told to sign on to
the family amendment or resign. Two professors, Dan Kent and Alan Brehm, have resigned.
Others may follow.
Mainstream Baptists are powerless to stop this wave of
religious persecution. Too many of us have been complacent. That complacency makes us all
complicit with the tyranny of "F"undamentalism.
To face "F"undamentalism, we first have to face our
own complacency, our own fears, our own resignation and despair of effecting change.
Then we have to find the courage to stand face to face with
intolerance, arrogance, ridicule and rejection. No one volunteers for such duty. It is a
summons to deny yourself, take up a cross and walk where Jesus walked.
Only the jolt of conscience that comes when a persecutor must
face victims with the courage to stand on their convictions and suffer for them willingly
— only sacrificial love — has any power to open a heart and mind that has been
closed to the truth.