Characterizing the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) as a sufficient guide for trustees of Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) entities, the SBC Executive Committee, during its Feb. 19–20 meeting in Nashville, affirmed both the SBC’s trustee system of governance and its confession of faith, in effect suggesting that trustees do well when guided by the BF&M in crafting doctrinal policies.
The Executive Committee adopted its statement under an SBC bylaw requiring that the convention’s entities respond to motions referred to them from the preceding SBC annual meeting.
The Executive Committee, in response to a BF&M-related motion at last year’s annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., stated that it "acknowledges the Baptist Faith and Message is not a creed, or a complete statement of our faith, nor final or infallible, nevertheless we further acknowledge that it is the only consensus statement of doctrinal beliefs approved by the Southern Baptist Convention and as such is sufficient in its current form to guide trustees in their establishment of policies and practices of entities of the Convention."
The one-paragraph statement was adopted in response to a motion by Texas messenger Boyd Luter during the ’06 annual meeting. Luter’s motion called for a vote by messengers on any "doctrinal position or practical policy" adopted by an SBC entity, "which goes beyond, or seeks to explain the explicit wording of the duly constituted authoritative language of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000."
Such a vote, according to Luter’s motion, would become an amendment to the BF&M. If the vote failed, the entity’s "wording/policy would thereby be rescinded."
During the Executive Committee’s administrative subcommittee meeting, SBC President Frank Page spoke in favor of the Executive Committee statement, saying it would give guidance to SBC entities and to all Southern Baptists while not having an undue influence on them. Page added that it will help the convention stay focused on evangelism and missions. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. and Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Richard Land also spoke in favor of the recommendation.
Luter’s motion came several months after trustees of the International Mission Board (IMB) adopted a new policy disqualifying missionary candidates who practice a private prayer language and a new guideline that missionary candidates must be baptized in a church that practices believer’s baptism exclusively, embraces the doctrine of security of the believer and rejects a regenerative view of baptism.
IMB trustees, in responding to an SBC-referred motion during their Jan. 29–31 meeting in California, had stated that "(w)hile the Baptist Faith and Message represents a general confession of Southern Baptist beliefs related to Biblical teachings on primary doctrinal and social issues, the IMB retains the prerogative and responsibility of further defining the parameters of doctrinal beliefs and practices of its missionaries who serve Southern Baptists with accountability to this board." (BP)
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