The Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M) study committee members demonstrated they heard the concerns of Southern Baptists across the nation by adding an amendment to the proposed statement.
Noting the report had been widely discussed across the denomination since its release on May 18, Adrian Rogers, chairman of the committee, said in a prepared statement on June 12.
Some of the discussions dealt with the absence of soul competency and priesthood of believers in the preamble.
Proposed revision amended
So, during the second day of the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) annual meeting on June 13-14, the committee came to messengers with an amendment to the preamble that said: “Baptists cherish and defend religious liberty and deny the right of any secular or religious authority to impose a confession of faith upon a church or body of churches. 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.”
The recommendations of the study committee appointed by SBC President Paige Patterson were overwhelmingly approved by convention messengers, who soundly defeated three attempted amendments.
Leading Baptists agreed afterward that the debate clearly capsulized the tensions seen in the SBC during the last 20 years.
From one perspective, Southern Baptists have cemented their conviction that the Bible is the supreme revelation of God and Jesus Christ. From another perspective, the SBC has elevated the Bible to be more sacred and authoritative than Jesus.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is what it all comes down to. The issue is whether the Bible is the Word of God or merely a record of God’s Word,” Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary, Louisville, Ky., said from the platform at one point during the debate.
He was responding to a motion from the floor by Anthony Sizemore of First Baptist, Floydada, Texas, who attempted to restore the Baptist Faith and Message section on Scripture to its 1963 language rather than the language proposed by the study committee.
The 1963 version described the Bible as “the record of God’s revelation of Himself to man,” while the new version said the Bible “is God’s revelation of Himself to man.” The 1963 version identified Jesus as “the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted,” while the new version said, “All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.”
“The Bible is not merely a record,” Mohler said to a standing ovation from convention messengers. “It is the revelation of God. It is always a triumphant moment when this convention states clearly its belief that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God. … Pray tell, what do we know of Jesus apart from Scriptures?”
Role of the Bible
Sizemore, along with others, argued that the committee’s proposed changes would elevate the Bible above Jesus.
“I believe the Bible is God’s Word, and I strive to obey the standards it prescribes,” Sizemore said. “The Bible is a book we can trust. … That being said, the Bible is still just a book. Christians are supposed to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, not a book.
“I implore the messengers of this Southern Baptist Convention to look closely at a major doctrinal change” found in the committee’s proposal, Sizemore added. “For one must see that the Bible is a record of what Christ has done. Christ is the revelation of God. He is not the focus of divine revelation. … We must be careful not to elevate the written word above the One to whom it points.”
Sizemore’s amendment was soundly rejected by messengers, as was an earlier amendment proposed by Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Wade had suggested restoring two paragraphs from the preamble to the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message.
The study committee had begun the morning by offering an additional two sentences to the preamble inserting the words “soul competency” and “priesthood of believers” but noting that these liberties should be tempered by “our accountability to each other under the Word of God.”
Wade proposed going a step further toward the 1963 preamble by reinserting these sentences: “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.
“A living faith must experience a growing understanding of truth and must be continually interpreted and related to the needs of each new generation. Throughout their history, Baptist bodies both large and small have issued statements of faith which comprise a consensus of their beliefs. Such statements have never been regarded as complete, infallible statements of faith, nor as official creeds carrying mandatory authority.”
The amendment is “crucial,” Wade said, to affirm the supremacy of Christ. “We are indeed people of the Book, but we are also people who bow only before Jesus Christ.”
The amendment also is needed to prevent the Baptist Faith and Message from being used as a creed, Wade argued.
The study committee’s new preamble replaced the 1963 language with this statement: “Baptist churches, associations and general bodies have adopted confessions of faith as a witness to the world and as instruments of doctrinal accountability.”
Members of the SBC study committee strongly urged messengers to reject Wade’s amendment.
“All of us believe in the lordship of Jesus Christ,” Land explained. “But we believe the only Jesus Christ we can know is the Jesus Christ revealed in Scripture.
Wade’s amendment was supported by Bruce Prescott, a member of First Baptist Church, Norman, Okla., and director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists.
“There is a difference in the way we understand soul competency in the old Baptist Faith and Message and the new version that is being proposed,” he said. “Soul competency as defined by E.Y. Mullins and Herschel Hobbs was soul competency under God. That means we are responsible to Jesus Christ. Soul competency as defined by this committee … is soul competency under the church. That means we are accountable to each other’s interpretations of the Word of God.”
Also during the hour-long presentation and debate on the Baptist Faith and Message revisions, messengers rejected an amendment offered by Jim Goodroe of First Baptist Church of Sumpter, S.C. Goodroe wanted to amend Article 7 on baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
He argued the language, carried over from 1963, endorsed only closed communion, the belief that those partaking in the Lord’s Supper must be members of that local church. Study committee members argued that was not the case and that Goodroe’s amendment would remove any requirement for believer’s baptism before partaking of the Lord’s Supper.
In interviews afterward, both Wade and study committee members characterized the floor debate over Jesus versus the Bible as illustrative of the differences in SBC life.
The question, he said, is “Can you have a high view of the Bible but have a higher view of Jesus?
“It all comes down to this: The Bible, as high as we hold it as a source for doctrinal understanding — Jesus Christ is the criterion by which we interpret the Bible.”
If Jesus is not the guiding principle for biblical interpretation, Wade asked, “then who or what is?”
That question was put to four members of the study committee during a news conference minutes later. Mohler spoke for the committee to explain there were “dangers” in the language identifying Jesus as the criterion for biblical interpretation.
Christ versus Scripture
Noting Southern Baptists believe in a biblical interpretation based on Christ, he said, “the danger is when Christ is set against Scripture.”
Making Jesus the criterion by which the Bible is interpreted allows anyone to assert anything and claim Jesus told them that was truth, he suggested.
Others opposed to the committee’s recommendations refuted that notion, claiming the words of Jesus in the New Testament, for example, must be given precedence when conflicting passages are found in the Old Testament.
The Bible is not a “flat” document, argued Wayne Ward, emeritus professor of theology at Southern Seminary, during a speech on the convention floor.
“You could follow Moses and stone adulterers,” he said. “It would clear out Congress and empty some pulpits,” but it would not be true to the greater revelation of God found in the New Testament.
“The Bible is Scripture, God’s written Word, yes, but it does not say anywhere, ‘Believe on the Bible and thou shalt be saved.’ We have to decide whether we’re going to stop in the Old Testament with Moses or whether we’re going to go on and interpret Moses by Jesus.”
Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Seminary and a member of the SBC study committee, said in the news conference that this debate formed a “magnificent textbook illustration of why we had a denominational struggle.” (News Network)
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