BAPTIST FAITH AND MESSAGE CHANGES: Good or Bad?

                                          by Glen Pence

Retired Pastor and Hospital Chaplain

Introduction

At the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando, Florida in June, 2000, a revised Baptist Faith and Message was presented and adopted, in spite of protests from some of the messengers.  Were the changes made from the 1963 statement justified?  Were they good or bad?

I think those questions now have to be addressed in the light of a resolution adopted by the Oklahoma Associational Directors of Missions on August 25^th.  It calls for the churches to “seriously consider the adoption of the June 14, 2000 revision as their generally accepted confession of faith.”

Churches must seriously study the changes made to see if they wish to stay with the 1963 statement, or adopt the 2000 statement, or write their own, or to have none at all.  For the first 80 years of our existence as a convention (1845-1925) we got along very well without a written statement of our beliefs.  Now, in the next 75 years we have had three!

In 1925 a Statement of Faith was written by a committee chaired by the great Baptist theologian at Southern Seminary, Dr. E.Y. Mullins.  The crisis that called for the writing was evolution.  In 1963 that statement of faith was revised by a committee chaired by Dr. Hershel Hobbs, then pastor of the First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City and President of the Southern Baptist Convention.  The crisis then was over a book, The Message of Genesis, written by Dr. Ralph Elliott, professor at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City, and published by Broadman Press.  The 2000 statement of faith is a revision of the 1963 statement and was written by a committee chaired by Dr. Adrain Rogers, pastor of Belvue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee.  This 2000 statement was not called forth by a particular crisis, so the question needs to be asked, “Why a revision at all?”

Not many changes were made.  In fact, most of the articles were not changed at all.  However, the changes that were made were significant and direction changing for the convention, and if adopted by local churches will affect future generations for many years to come, because it will lock them into fundamentalism.  Individuals and churches need to seriously consider if that is the direction they should go or not.  I personally cannot vote to adopt the 2000 statement of faith.

Perhaps a word should be said about the composition of the 1963 and 2000 committees.  The 1963 committee, chaired by Dr. Hobbs, included the presidents of each of the state conventions and was representative of all parts of our convention.  The 2000 committee was entirely composed of one theological viewpoint: fundamentalism.   Therefore, the 2000 statement of faith is increasingly narrow.

During this study I will be quoting Dr. Hershel Hobbs often.  He was the chief writer of the 1963 statement.  In my judgment in our 155 year history as Southern Baptists we have never produced a pastor/theologian/statesman of his intellectual and spiritual stature.  We were fortunate to have him in Oklahoma most of his long ministry.

Dr. Hobbs died November 28, 1995 in Oklahoma City at the age of 88.  Now efforts are being made by fundamentalists to discredit him and his theology.  A fundamentalist Nashville pastor, Jerry Sutton, has recently called Dr. Hobbs “theologically naïve.”  This same pastor wrote a book telling why fundamentalists had to take over the Southern Baptist Convention to “save it from liberalism.”  This past week a Texas Baptist Committee studying the seminaries was told by the seminary presidents that Hobbs was “duped” by neo-orthodox individuals who heavily influenced the 1963 document.  Chairman Bob Campbell of the Texas Committee said the committee responded by asking: “Do you know who you are calling neo-orthodox?  All the presidents of the state conventions.”

I am here to refute those charges against Dr. Hobbs.  When I was a very young pastor he took the initiative to reach out to me when no one else in Oklahoma county did.  I was fortunate to have him as a friend and mentor.

Here was a man smart and disciplined enough to graduate from Howard College in two and a half years with a straight A average (as did his young wife, Francis).  He was valedictorian of his class in Southern Seminary.  He earned his Ph.D. in New Testament interpretation from Southern at age 31.  His professors were Dr. A.T. Robertson (the leading New Testament Greek scholar in the world at that time) and Dr. E.Y. Mullins (brilliant Baptist Theologian).  At age 37 he was pastor of the second largest Baptist church East of the Mississippi, the Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, Alabama.

At age 41 he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City where he was pastor for 24 years (May 1949 – January 1973), and pastor emeritus for another 22 years (January 1973 - until his death on November 28, 1995 at 88 years of age.)

Does this sound like someone who could be “duped”?  Does this sound like someone who would be “theologically naïve”?  Here was a man elected to be president of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma (1957-1958), and president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1961-1963).  Here was a man who was preacher on the Baptist Hour for eighteen years (1958-1976, three years beyond his retirement).  His sermons were heard by 50 million people each week all around the world!  These were totally new sermons never preached in his church in Oklahoma City.  He gave a full day a week to the preparing and recording of these sermons.   Weekly he flew to Fort Worth to record these sermons.   Was this a man who could be “duped?”  Was this man “theologically naïve”?  I think not!

Here is a man who wrote and published fifty three books, mostly detailed Bible studies, in forty five years, all while pastor of First Baptist Oklahoma City.  Thirty were written before retirement and twenty three after.  This does not count the 112 volumes of Sunday school lessons he wrote over twenty eight years for the adult life and work curriculum of the Sunday School Board.  This Sunday School commentary is still being published from his many books and writings, all of which are housed at the library at Oklahoma Baptist University.  Dr. Hobbs devoted another day a week to the writing of these Sunday School lessons.  Do you seriously think this man was “duped” and “theologically naïve?”

For thirty four years Dr. Hobbs wrote a weekly article for the state Baptist papers all across the convention.  All were written under the title “Baptist Beliefs.”  No one was an authority in Baptist beliefs like Dr. Hershel Hobbs.

It is incomprehensible to me that anyone could think this man “theologically naïve” or “duped.”

There is a sense, however, in which he was naïve.  He gave his life to theologically educate Baptists.  He expected them to withstand fundamentalism.  They did not.  He was naïve in that he tried to remain friends with fundamentalists, even having Dr. W.A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, preach his funeral.  He expected Christian brothers to be Christian in their actions.  He was wrong.  He misinterpreted the mean spirit of fundamentalism.

Dr. Hobbs consistently distanced himself from the label, “fundamentalist.”  He chose instead to call himself a conservative, albeit a “progressive conservative.”  He positioned himself as a center-of-the-road man.  He said it this way: “The greater body of Southern Baptists have always been a conservative people not given to extreme positions in theology either on one side or the other.  They have been, so to speak, a middle-of-the-road people.  At given times, the theological road has turned either to the right or to the left, but Southern Baptists have remained in the middle of the road.  No Southern Baptist is justified in disturbing the fellowship by seeing how near the edge of the pavement on either side he can come and still remain on the road” (President’s address to SBC, 1962).

If Dr. Hobbs was naïve it was in that he did not think Southern Baptists would ever be moved as they have been from the middle to the far right.

Hear Dr. Hobbs as he gave the first lectures in the Hobbs Lectureship at Oklahoma Baptist University in 1980.   He speaks of the committee working on the 1963 statement of faith.  “The committee was ever mindful of the unity in diversity of Southern Baptists with respect to various sections of the Convention territory.  A good example of this is the statement on the Lord’s Supper.  About 11:00 o’clock on night we had completed the statement on “Baptism.”  Since we were physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted, I suggested that we wait until the next morning to take up the statement on the “Lord’s Supper.”  When we assembled the next morning one member asked if he might read a prepared statement on that ordinance.  It was closed communion of the most rigid sort.  After a moment of silence another member spoke: ‘That statement pleases me very much.  It will please the people of my state, for that is exactly what we practice.  But we must remember that we are not drawing up a statement for the Baptists of one state or section.  This is to be a statement for all Southern Baptists.  And it must be flexible enough that all of them may be comfortable with it.’  After much discussion, such a statement met with agreement.”

I am sure Fundamentalists are comfortable with this narrowing of the 2000 statement of faith, but I am not comfortable with it at several points.  That is what I wish to address now.

Let us now note and study these changes from the 1963 statement to the 2000 statement.

I.  CHANGES IN THE PREAMBLE

Both Dr. Mullins and Dr. Hobbs stressed the importance of the preamble.

Hear Dr. Hobbs again as he delivered the first Hobbs Lectures at OBU in 1980, “No one should lose sight of the fact that the preamble to the statement, protecting the individual conscience, is a vital part of the overall statement of, ‘The Baptist Faith and Message.’  If we ignore it and seek to enforce any one of the seventeen articles, then the statement becomes a creed.  And Baptists are not a creedal people.  Without this preamble the Southern Baptist Convention would not have adopted the statement.  Therefore, no person or group of persons has the right to ignore it.”

The first change from the 2000 statement was to omit this statement from the preamble:  Baptists are a people who profess a living faith.  This faith is rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ who is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.”  Therefore, the sole authority for faith and practice among Baptists is Jesus Christ whose will is revealed in the Holy Scriptures.

I personally see absolutely nothing wrong with that statement and it concerns me greatly that it would be omitted.  I am absolutely dumbfounded that the statement was omitted.  I am stunned that any one who claims to be a Christian or a Baptist would omit that statement.

Are they afraid of a growing faith?  Do they already have all the insights and answers and need to grow no more in spiritual knowledge.  Does their 2000 statement contain it all?  Surely not because they did include the statement “That we do not regard them as complete statement of our faith, having any quality of finality or infallibility.”  So why did they leave it out?  I would welcome an answer from them.

Another sentence omitted from the original draft was:  Baptists emphasize the soul’s competency before God, freedom in religion, and the priesthood of the believer.  Again, I cannot comprehend this sentence being omitted by a true Baptist!

I want you to listen carefully to a statement by Al Mohler, a member of the 2000 revision committee and present President of Southern Seminary.  “Soul competency is an acid dissolving religious authority, congregationalism, confessionalism, and mutual theological accountability.”  That, to me, is a very scary statement.  Of course for pastoral authority to be installed as fundamentalists wish, then soul competency, priesthood of the believer, and religious freedom have to go!  Hear John Yeates, editor of The Baptist Messenger.   “There have been many of those who want to hoist priesthood of the believer, soul competency, and religious liberty as banners and shout, ‘all you good Baptists come over here and stand under these flags.’  What they fail to acknowledge is that these terms have been culturally redefined to embrace some fadish theological decisions, so we don’t fly under those banners any more!”  I say if you are not flying under those banners then stop calling yourselves Baptists!  This is the man who said he would decide what he wanted Oklahoma Baptists to hear.  This is not free and fair press.  This is the philosophy now behind The Baptist Messenger.

Dr. Hobbs, in his book The Baptist Faith and Message, published by Southern Baptist’s Convention Press in 1971, said, “Soul competency is the foundation upon which the document rests.”  Dr. Hobbs spoke to the Southern Baptist Convention on June 20, 1995.  It was his last address to the convention.  He died November 28, 1995 in Oklahoma City at 88 years of age.  That sermon was entitled, “Empowered in our Distinctives.”  I quote from that sermon.  “In 1908 a book by E.Y. Mullins, called The Axioms of Religion, was published.  In 1978 I had the privilege of revising that book, and Broadman Press published it.  In his book, Dr. Mullins set forth six axioms of religion.  An “axiom,” as you know, is a truth so evident that it does not need any proof.  For instance, the first one was that a “holy and loving God has the right to be sovereign.”  In that book, Dr. Mullins raised the question, “What is the one distinct contribution that Baptists (not just Southern Baptists, but Baptists in general) have made to the religious thought of mankind?”  He played around with the various obvious answers like baptism by immersion and the autonomy of the local church.  Then, he finally concluded that the one distinct contribution Baptists have made to the religious thought of mankind is the competency of the soul in religion.”

Dr. Hobbs went on in the sermon to define what is meant by soul competency.  “What the competency of the soul in religion means is that every soul is made in the image of God, not as a puppet but as a person, and has the right of choice.  All are capable of having direct dealings with God without an intermediary, such as a pope or a church or a government or any other intermediate body.”  “God is sovereign, yes, but human beings are free.  God made it so in His sovereignty –He did it – and so it is that we can have direct access to God for ourselves.  But remember, we are responsible to God for what we believe, what we say, and what we do – whatever it may be.”  “The competency of the soul in religion means, beloved, that I am responsible to God and to God alone.”  Concerning the revision and writing process in producing the 1963 statement, Dr. Hobbs said, in that last sermon, “We spent more time on what I called ‘The Preamble’ than we did on all the rest of the document put together.  Why?  Because we were trying to protect the individual conscience of every one of us.  Anytime somebody tries to coerce you into believing something that you do not believe, that person ceases to act like a Southern Baptist – because we are responsible primarily to God.”  “…each of these 17 articles goes right back to the fact that I must face my ultimate judgment before God.”

The 2000 committee, under great pressure from Baptists, and at the very last minute (the night before the statement was to be presented to the convention) did add this sentence, “We honor the principles of soul competency and the priesthood of believers, affirming together both our liberty in Christ and our accountability to each other under the Word of God.”

Why would a real Baptist have to be forced to include this statement in a Baptist confession of faith?  How could a person be a real Baptist and want to omit it?  Somehow I have difficulty believing Al Mohler’s explanation of  how the statement was originally left out.  “When we pulled concepts from the 1963 statement, that is just one paragraph that didn’t get included in the report.”  I like Lavonn Brown’s  insight as he replied, “My comment is that that doesn’t say much for soul-competency; it does say something about the competency of the committee!”

Note the words the 2000 committee added.  “affirming together both our liberty in Christ and our accountability to each other under the Word of God.”  Hear another Hobbs, my brother-in-law, Dan, a layman from the First Baptist Church in Norman, concerning this statement.  “That is having it both ways.  That is having freedom on the one hand, and accountability to fellow church members on the other hand.  Am I free under this statement to be a priest to God and to interpret Scripture for myself if I am indeed accountable to fellow Baptist church members?  What happens when they have a split vote?  What if they vote that I am wrong?  Does this absolve me of my priesthood before God?  The majority has been known to be wrong…This is an oxymoron and cleverly worded.  It says ‘you are free all right, just as long as you don’t do what other people don’t want you to do’.”

I also have questions about two phrases they added, “…our accountability to each other” (especially in this context) and using confessions as “instruments of doctrinal accountability.”  It appears to me that these additions make this confession a creed.  It appears to me that the addition of language holding believers “accountable to each other” when defining “soul competency” and the “priesthood of believers” implies some form of hierarchical authority within the church and denomination.  We are not accountable to an associational missionary, or a state executive secretary, or the executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention.  We do not work for them.  They work for us!  They are accountable to the churches!

The Southern Baptist Convention can approve a resolution, but it cannot force it on a state convention, association, or local church.  Nor can the Southern Baptist Convention adopt a theological statement and then enforce it on a state convention, local association or local church.  All of these bodies are supposed to be autonomous.  They may accept the resolution or the theological statement, but they do so voluntarily, not under pressure or coercion!  They are also free to reject the resolution or theological statement.  The Baptist General Convention of Texas has shown how autonomous it is by officially rejecting the 2000 statement and the 1998 article on the family.  It continues to operate with the 1963 statement of faith.

Much more needs to be said, but time and space prevents it, so let us move now to changes made in the first of the now eighteen articles, the article on Scripture.

ll.  CHANGES IN THE ARTICLE ON SCRIPTURE

Article one concerns the Scriptures.  The first article of any confession of faith should begin with God, not Scripture.  When Dr. Hobbs wrote his book Fundamentals of our Faith in 1960, his first chapter was about the Bible.

In 1963 he was the chief writer of the Statement of Faith and Message and he followed the order of the statement of 1925 that had article one as the Scriptures.  But when he wrote What Baptists Believe in 1964,  he corrected the order by having the first three chapters refer to God:  God the Father, chapter one; Jesus Christ, chapter two; God the Holy Spirit, chapter three; The Bible, chapter four.

Both the 1963 and 2000 statement begins with scripture, so let us note that article.  There are two changes in the article on scripture and they both are of concern to me.

The 1963 statement read “The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God’s revelation of Himself to men.”

The 2000 statement leaves out the words “the record of.”  You may ask, “What’s the big deal?  Why worry about dropping three little words?”  This may sound to you like nit picking theology like that of hundreds of years ago that debated how many angels could stand on the head of a pin.  I assure you  these three little words are important.  Omit them and the meaning of the statement is suddenly changed.  The statement then means that the Bible is the (italics mine) revelation of God, not a revelation of God.  This suddenly elevates the Bible above Jesus!  It becomes a denial that Jesus is God’s supreme revelation of Himself.

We Baptists have always lifted up the Bible.  We get scared if we think someone is denying or degrading our Bible.  This fear is what was appealed to by fundamentalists in 1979.  They shouted that there were people in the Southern Baptist Convention that did not believe the Bible because they would not use the word “inerrant.”  They bussed in thousands of people to the Conventions for years to elect a president who would hold up the Bible.  I assure you I love the Bible as you do, but we must not lift the Bible above our Lord!  Remove the words “the record of” and you elevate the Bible above Jesus.

There is nothing wrong with the phrase “the record of.”   “Record” is the right word.  In fact, I would like to call the Bible “the written record” of God’s revelation of Himself to man.  The Bible is a (italics mine) revelation of God, but it is not the revelation.  Yes, the Bible is God’s revelation to us, that is why we call it “The word of God.”  It is the word of God, it does not just contain the word of God, but it is also a record of many revelations that God gave across the centuries.  According to Paul in Romans 1:19-20 God’s created universe is a revelation of God’s power and even His Godhead.  Psalm 19 spoke beautifully of God’s revelation in nature and also in scripture.  The supreme revelation of God, however, is Jesus.

We must be very careful not to elevate our Bible over our Lord Jesus.

Hear a modern parable that I heard from Lavonn Brown.  He says that a young preacher goes off to seminary and leaves the girl he loves back in a little town.  He will not get to see her before the Thanksgiving break because of the involuntary vow of poverty most young ministers make.  After the third day at the seminary he gets a letter from his love back home.  It was a brief letter of only four or five sentences.  He read the letter repeatedly.  He kissed it and put it under his pillow as he slept.  During the following weeks he got more letters.  He exegeted every word.  He diagramed the sentences.  He preserved each letter that came.  His lover was a good writer.  She told him beautifully of her love and that she was preparing a place for him in her life.  He even indexed and cross referenced these letters and filed them according to both date and content.  Finally the Thanksgiving holidays came, but instead of going home to her, he stayed at school working on her letters!  He copied favorite passages and placed them in a gold leaf notebook for safe keeping!

If your response is “that is ridiculous; he is crazy!” then you are right on target.  However, many people make a subtle substitution at this point with the Bible.  They mistake the letter for the Lover.  They mistake the book for the Author.  And this is what as Baptists we must not do.

Now, let us look not at just three words that are omitted in the 2000 statement but at a critical sentence omitted.  It omits the sentence “The criterion by which the Bible is to interpreted is Jesus Christ.”  What is wrong with that statement?  Nothing!  It is a statement that was inserted into the 1963 statement, and it was written personally by Dr. Hobbs.  He felt that sentence had to be included in the article on scripture.  This is called the Christological principle of interpretation.  To reject this principle is erroneous and thus dangerous.  In place of the sentence about Jesus being the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted, this sentence was added: “All Scripture is testimony to Christ who is himself the focus of divine revelation.”  Charles Wade says, “The new sentence is acceptable on its own merits, but it is not acceptable as a substitute” (taken from Real Baptists: Spotlighting Changes in the Baptist faith and Message 2000, Sunday School lesson #3).

“Criterion” means “a rule or standard for making a judgment.”  To say Jesus Christ is the criterion is to say that he is the guiding principle, the standard, the benchmark by which the Scriptures are interpreted and understood.  The 2000 statement of faith removes Jesus from the exalted place as the one who guides our interpretation of Scripture. 

Jesus is greater than the Bible.  The Bible is not greater than Jesus.  I love the Bible but I do not worship it.  I worship God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Jesus said that he and he alone could reveal God to people, that is, he is the supreme revelation.  “All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father.  Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27-28).  In the next chapter (Matthew 12) Jesus claimed to be greater than their very revered things – the Sabbath and the temple.  He is also greater than the Scriptures.

In Matthew 5 (in the sermon on the mount) Jesus repeatedly said “You have heard that it was said…(and he would then quote the Old Testament – the only Scripture they had then) and then he would say, “but I say to you…”  He took the Old Testament Scripture, that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and replaced it with his word, his interpretation.  Yes, Jesus interpreted Scripture and His interpretation is our criterion, standard and benchmark.

Please understand the relationship of Christ to Scripture.  He came first!  Even before the Old Testament, for the Gospel of John in its opening word says, “In the beginning was the Word” … now, as much as I love the Bible, and as much as we are dependent on its record of the revelation for us to know God’s work in the world, that “Word” does not mean scripture; that Word is Jesus Christ!  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.”  That includes Scripture!  And then in v. 14 of that first chapter of John’s Gospel it is clearly stated that “the Word became flesh (not paper) and dwelt among us.”  Again, it is not talking about Scripture.  It is talking about Jesus!  John’s marvelous prologue to his gospel ends with v. 18, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.(NKJ)”  The NIV says, “has made Him known,” that is, has exegeted Him.

The Bible is part, and a vital part, of the revelation God has given us to know Him.  It is a revelation, but not the revelation.  Before there was a Book of Exodus, there was an exodus.  The Book of Exodus is the record of the event of the exodus.  It is the record of the revelation.  It is not the event itself.  There were prophetic voices before there were prophetic books.  Jesus lived, died on a cross, was buried and rose again and was preached and people were saved and not a single convert had in their hands a gospel account, a written account.  Jesus preceded the Gospels.  The Gospels were written 30 or more years after Jesus’ death and resurrection and ascension.  They were written when the apostles discovered Jesus was not coming back as early as they thought, and when they realized those who knew Him personally in the flesh were being martyred or were dying off and they wanted to be sure that the message would not be distorted by people who had not seen and heard Jesus personally.  So, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit they wrote what Jesus said and did and what was preached and how the Christian movement progressed.

Fisher Humphries gives a helpful summary of the components of revelation.  First, God gives a self-revelation in historical acts; the most important of these is the sending of Jesus.  Second, God inspires prophets and apostles to interpret the acts; an example is Paul’s assertion that Christ died “for our sins” (I Corinthians 15:1-7).  Third, a community of faith grows together around God’s revelatory acts as interpreted by these inspired people; that is what the early Christian churches did.  Fourth, the community creates written records of God’s revelation; that is what the Bible is.  Fifth, the community proclaims the revelation that God has given; God has used the church’s proclamation to bring us all into the community of faith. (From Sunday school lesson #2 in Real Baptists: Spotlighting Changes in the Baptist Faith and Message).

I do like a phrase added in the 2000 statement that was not in the 1963 statement.  Speaking of the Bible it was said “and it is totally true and trustworthy.”  That is what I have been saying all along!  The divine inspired Scriptures are true and trustworthy (Charles Wade).

I also like the fact that they did not include in the 2000 statement the word “inerrancy.”  This is in spite of the fact that several times after 1963 at the annual conventions efforts were made to amend the phrase “truth without any mixture of error, for its matter,” to “infallable” or “inerrant.”  The convention would not make those changes.  “Inerrant” is not a good word to use of our Bible today.  Most Baptists believe that the original manuscripts were inspired.  However, it is a moot question because we have none of those original manuscripts.  Apparently God did not think it necessary to preserve them for us.  We have ancient manuscripts but no original manuscripts.  The manuscripts we have are copies.  All of them have some kind of errors in them because of human copying and transmission.  These are not major errors, but they are errors.  We should not in all honesty use the word “inerrant” in speaking of the Bible we hold in our hand.  In fact, the inerrancy conference in Chicago listed several exceptions – inerrancy does not include spelling, grammar, geography, history, etc., etc.  If there are that many exceptions to the regular meaning of the word, then it is not a good word to use today, so I am glad it was not included in the 2000 statement of faith.  Charles Wade asks, “But why then all this talk for the past 20 years that if you won’t use the word “inerrancy” you are somehow not really a believer; you are not good enough to serve in a Southern Baptist agency or on an agency board?  Why all this pressure to use that word and now leave it out of the 2000 statement?  They know it is not a good word!”  (address to staff of Baptist General Convention of Texas).

It is a painful thing when you rightfully refuse to use the word “inerrant” and then they say you “Don’t believe the Bible.”  They can’t make that charge stick against me!  I am happy to use the words “inspired,” “true,” “trustworthy,” “reliable,” and “authoratative,” but I cannot and will not use the unbiblical word “inerrant.”

I love the Bible.  I have spent nearly 50 years reading, studying, proclaiming it and trying to live by it.  I have had the best job in the world.  People have paid me a salary and given me time to study the Bible and preach it.  But I do not worship the Bible.  I worship God as revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Dr. Hobbs, in his first lecture of the Hershel and Francis Hobbs Lecturship in Baptist Faith and Heritage at Oklahoma Baptist University, asked the question, “Whither bound are Southern Baptists?”  The date was October 14, 1980, the year after the Pressler/Patterson fundamentalist coalition had begun in earnest to take over the Southern Baptist Convention.  Hear Dr. Hobbs answer his own question in a warning.  “We must be true to our faith as found in the Scriptures.  We must proclaim it diligently.  We must not be side-tracked in conflict over the Bible.  We must proclaim it!  The Scriptures do not need defending, but declaring…And we must exercise constant vigilance in warding off the threats to religious freedom, both within our denomination and outside it, including the current drift toward creedalism.  We must not take this freedom for granted…The storm clouds of creedalism lower over our denomination.  Well intentioned people in contending for the faith in the Scriptures may discover that the good for which they strive may become the enemy of the best, namely, the competency of the soul in religion.”

Thank you for looking with me at the changes in the Preamble and the article on Scripture.  In future studies we will continue to look at changes in the other articles to see if these changes are good or bad.

Home     Join Us    Contents     Search

Online since April 7, 1999

E- mail questions or comments about this web site to bprescott@mainstreambaptists.org

Copyright © 1999-2003 MAINSTREAM OKLAHOMA BAPTISTS   P.O. Box 6371  Norman, OK  73070-6371 (405) 329-2266.