An Analysis of The Baptist Faith and Message 2000
By Russell H. Dilday
Retired Distinguished Professor of Homiletics, Truett Seminary and
Special Assistant to the President Baylor University
Former President Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Editor’s Note: Adapted from a chapter in the forthcoming book, Stand With Christ: Why Missionaries Can’t Sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (Macon, GA:Smyth & Helwys, 2002) 800-747-3016.

POSITIVE FACTORS IN THE 2000 REVISION

1. ...the committee did not insert the controversial language of “inerrancy”...
2. Neither did the revisers insert more restrictive views of dispensational eschatology...
3. ...reinserting a statement that Baptists honor the principles of soul competency and the priesthood of believers.
4. The new document does address specific issues...of contemporary concern...
5. It defines the new version of the SBC more specifically.
6. Some editorial changes (i.e. gender-inclusive language) improve the form of the statement.

TROUBLING FACTORS IN BFM 2000

1. The deletion of the Christocentric criterion for interpretation of Scripture.
2. The diminishing of soul competency and the priesthood of the believer.
3. The trend toward creedalism.
4. The diminishing of the doctrine of the autonomy of the local church under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
5. The trend toward Calvinism and a mistrust of personal Christian experience.
6. The trend shifting Baptist identity from its Anabaptist, free-church tradition to a Reformed evangelical identity.
7. The narrow interpretation of the role of women in marriage.
8. The narrow interpretation of the role of women in the church.
9. The “Pandora’s Box” concern: repeated future revisions to include favorite opinions.
10. The false accusation of neo-orthodoxy.
11. The trend toward including a catalogue of specific sins.

The 293 “delegates” who gathered in Augusta, Georgia in May, 1845, to form the Southern Baptist Convention, made it clear that their new organization was focused on missions and education, not on doctrinal uniformity. Most delegates would probably have agreed on the basic principles expressed in the New Hampshire Confession of Faith (written 12 years earlier), yet they refused to adopt it, stating: “We have constructed for our basis no new creed, acting in this matter upon a Baptist aversion for all creeds except the Bible.” (W.W. Barnes, The Southern Baptist Convention, 118)

For 80 years, this non-creedal stance prevailed. No official convention confession of faith was officially adopted until 1925, when to settle a controversy, the Southern Baptist Convention reluctantly adopted The Baptist Faith and Message, prepared by a committee chaired by E. Y. Mullins. Basing it largely on The New Hampshire Confession of 1833, the framers carefully pointed out that the statement was merely a "confession" of what most messengers at that annual meeting understood to be the general beliefs of Baptists. The preamble made clear that this “confession” was not intended to be a creed, nor was it to be used to enforce conformity of belief: “Confessions are only guides in interpretation, having no authority over the conscience . . . they are not to be used to hamper freedom of thought or investigation in other realms of life” (Quoted by Jesse C. Fletcher, The Southern Baptist Convention, 143).

The 1925 Baptist Faith and Message was approved by a vast majority of the messengers, but as historian W.W. Barnes reported, “It was received by the churches with a loud outburst of silence.” Southern Baptists largely ignored it because they rightly understood it be a non-binding expression of one group of messengers meeting in one session of one annual convention. It might be useful as a consensus statement of widely held convictions, but it had no authority whatsoever.

Thirty-eight years later, it was adopted again after minor editorial revisions. The Baptist Faith and Message 1963 (as it was called) was adopted by the Convention, but it was still circulated as an incomplete and fallible consensus of opinion. “They are statements of religious convictions, drawn from the Scriptures, and are not to be used to hamper freedom of thought or investigation in other realms of life” (Baptist Faith and Message 1963, Preamble).

Until recently, the one confession of faith adopted in 1925 and slightly updated in 1963 was deemed sufficient. However, in the two decades from 1970-1990, a radical shift took place. In the late 1970s, a well-organized, well-financed cadre of ultra-conservatives launched a crusade to win control of the Southern Baptist Convention. Their secular political strategy worked. By the 1990s the fundamentalist organizers had put themselves into positions of leadership and control of convention decision-making. During the past ten years, these new SBC leaders have radically changed the denomination’s institutions and agencies, and they are now solidifying their political successes by rewriting the convention’s history from their perspective and by revising the convention’s faith statement to reflect their narrow ultra-conservative beliefs.

In 1998 and again in 2000, high profile personalities in the “take-over” party of the convention engineered significant revisions in the Southern Baptist Convention’s confession of faith, which had served the convention well for 153 years. This revised statement of faith, called The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM2000), is being used as an official creed to enforce loyalty to the party in power. To refuse is to risk isolation or even expulsion from the denominational circle.

POSITIVE FACTORS IN THE 2000 REVISION

            Admittedly, there are some positive elements in BFM2000 that should be acknowledged.

1. To the surprise of many, the committee did not insert the controversial language of “inerrancy” into the section on Scripture, which would have further divided the constituency. It does seem curious, however, that since so much of the twenty-year controversy centered on enforcing the use of the term “inerrant” to describe the nature of the Bible, it was now apparently deemed unnecessary.
2. Neither did the revisers insert more restrictive views of dispensational eschatology, as some had feared. During the fundamentalist attack on the convention, seminary professors who did not affirm dispensational eschatology were criticized as liberals and were cited as examples of why the take-over was necessary. But, again, this was now not considered important enough to include. (It is telling, however, to notice that many of the recent faculty additions at Southwestern Seminary, including the new provost, are graduates of Dallas Theological Seminary, a recognized center of dispensational interpretation.)
3. At the last minute, following growing criticism of its deletion in their first draft, the committee did strengthen the document by reinserting a statement that Baptists honor the principles of soul competency and the priesthood of believers. However, critics point out that their substitution of the plural form “believers” distorts the true meaning of the “priesthood of each believer” (see “Troubling Factors” number 2 below).
4. The new document does address specific issues that the revisers consider to be of contemporary concern such as sexual immorality, adultery, homosexuality, pornography, and abortion (Section XV). However, the inclusion of such current specifics to the exclusion of others can also be seen as a weakness (see number 9 below).
5. It defines the new version of the SBC more specifically. If there remains any ambiguity about the future direction of the SBC under its current hard-line leadership, this document unflinchingly clears the air.
6. Some editorial changes (i.e. gender-inclusive language) improve the form of the statement.

TROUBLING FACTORS IN BFM 2000

1. The deletion of the Christocentric criterion for interpretation of Scripture.

BFM1963 reads, “The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.” BFM2000 substituted, “All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is himself the focus of divine revelation.”

BFM2000also deleted from BFM1963, “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.”

This revision discards a very important hermeneutical principle. Baptists (and most evangelicals) have valued what is called the “theological principal” of biblical interpretation. This principle teaches that the Bible is a book of faith, not just history or philosophy. Therefore, the Bible cannot be fully understood from the outside by grammar, logic, rhetoric, and history alone. It must be understood from its center—Jesus Christ. This biblical center yields itself best to those who have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and whose interpretations are enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

This “theological principle,” expressed in the Christocentric language of BFM1963 declares that the guiding key to biblical interpretation is the Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him as a criterion, or standard, we understand the Bible to be unified, self-consistent, and coherent. Jesus said, “The Scriptures . . . bear witness to me” (John 5:39). Therefore, we are to interpret the Old Testament and the rest of the Bible in the light of the life and teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, illuminated by our own direct experience with the living Christ. Martin Luther was right in insisting that the Bible must always be understood from its center, its heart, its Christ.

“All our talk about God must be anchored in what we know of him in Christ; otherwise, we shall arrive at an unworthy view of God. Why do we say of our God that he is love and not hate? Because of what we see in Christ. . . . if we do not begin from the holy love of God made known to us in Christ, we shall find ourselves in difficulties when we come to fill out our understanding of God” (Allen Sell , quoted by Roger Olsen, “Theology for the Rest of Us,” Christianity Today, April 22, 2002, 68-69).

The choice to delete this Christological principal of biblical interpretation is, to many, the most serious flaw in BFM2000. It appears to elevate the Bible above Jesus and ignores the fact that He is not only “the focus of divine revelation” but is also Lord of the Bible. Critics say: “I’ll bow down to King Jesus, but I will never bow down to King James. This amounts to nothing less than idolatry. It is pure bibliolatry.”

The revisers defended their deletion in their press release of June 5, 2000: “This statement (Jesus is the criterion) was controversial because some have used it to drive a wedge between the incarnate word and the written word and to deny the truthfulness of certain passages” (ABP, June 5, 2000). Ken Hemphill explained the deletion of the Christocentric criterion, calling it “a loophole to avoid the plain teaching of certain biblical texts which persists among moderates . . . . it is used by some unprincipled Baptist scholars to ignore difficult texts which they did not believe to reflect the character of Jesus” (Baptist Standard, February 26, 2001, 3).

But surely this crucial Christological principle treasured by Baptists and other evangelical conservatives over the years should not be abandoned just because some misguided interpreters are said to have abused it. Reflecting on this change, an editorial in Christianity Today claimed the revised confession “is poorer without the rich Christocentric language of the earlier statement. Jesus Christ is surely the center of Scripture as well as its Lord. One can affirm this while also welcoming the clear affirmation of the Bible as God’s infallible, revealed word” (Christianity Today, August 7, 2000, 36).

2. The diminishing of soul competency and the priesthood of the believer.

“Soul competency” is the view that the redemptive and revelatory work of Jesus Christ allows an individual believer to go directly to God through Christ without any human mediator. “The priesthood of the believer” is the view that through Christ each believer—both clergy and laity—is a priest, responsible to God for interpreting and following the Bible and for interceding on behalf of others. Both E.Y. Mullins and Herschel Hobbs named “soul competency” the most distinctive doctrine among Baptists. But Southern Seminary President Al Mohler, a major voice, if not the primary composer on the revision committee, has recently denounced these two historic Baptist convictions—especially as a previous Southern Seminary President, E.Y. Mullins, espoused them.

In his Founder’s Day address at the seminary, March 30, 2000, Mohler said that Mullin’s emphasis on soul competency has “infected” the SBC with an “autonomous individualism” that undermines biblical authority to this day. He accused President Mullins of steering the SBC off course by making personal Christian experience more important than biblical authority. He warned that soul competency “serves as an acid dissolving religious authority, congregationalism, confessionalism, and mutual theological accountability” (Southern Seminary Magazine, June, 2000).

An even stronger condemnation of these two distinctive Baptist doctrines appeared in the Winter 1999 issue of the seminary’s theological journal written by Sean Michael Lucas, associate director Southern seminary’s Center for the Study of the SBC:

For over 70 years, Southern Baptists have harvested the shallow discipleship and vapid theology that resulted from sowing Mullins’ theological seeds of experience. It is time to return to the founders of the SBC trained in the hardy doctrinal tradition of the Princeton theology.

Following this line of thought, BFM2000 at first deleted the following references to these doctrines in BFM1963:

Baptists emphasize the soul’s competency before God, freedom of  religion, and the priesthood of the believer. However, this emphasis should not be interpreted to mean that there is an absence of certain definite doctrines that Baptists believe, cherish, and with which they have been and are now closely identified.

But when they saw this deletion, many Baptists raised an outcry of disapproval. So, less than an hour before the report was brought to the convention for approval, the following was grudgingly reinserted: “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.”

This last-minute reversal was at first welcomed by critics, but they soon discovered that the reinserted wording had been subtly changed. The committee substituted the plural “priesthood of believers” in the place of the singular form in BFM1963, “priesthood of the believer.” In so doing, the revisers again expressed their mistrust of personal, individual experience, focusing instead on accountability to an approved denominational belief system. This in essence rejects the historic Baptist doctrine of the priesthood of each individual believer (singular), replacing it with a more Reformed doctrine of the priesthood of believers (plural). Al Mohler defended the reinterpretation: “It is dangerous to say the priesthood of the believer. It is not just that we stand alone; it is that we stand together—and we stand together under the authority of God’s word” (Baptist Standard  July 17, 2000).

Other defenders of the revised plural form say the singular wording of BFM1963 leads to “a kind of private interpretation which, while adhering to an ambiguously crafted ‘criterion’ of Jesus Christ, eviscerates the biblical doctrines” (Biblical Recorder, July 29, 2000, p.3).

But one Baptist editor countered:

While I am content to stand before God under the authority of Scripture, I can do so whether I’m alone or in a crowd of all 15.8 million Southern Baptists. While I appreciate the committee’s efforts to at least partially restore a pair of key Baptist doctrines, I am confident it is not dangerous to be a lone priest/believer in the presence of Almighty God through the power of his Holy Spirit. (Baptist Standard, July 17, 2000).

3. The trend toward creedalism.

BFM2000 deleted the following passage from BFM1963 that the 1963 framers hoped would protect the confession from becoming a creed that enforces doctrinal uniformity: “Such statements have never been regarded as complete, infallible statements of faith, nor as official creeds carrying mandatory authority (Preamble).

Furthermore, the revisers inserted in BFM2000 language never before used in a Southern Baptist Confession of Faith: “Baptist churches , associations, and general bodies have adopted confessions of faith as a witness to the world, and as instruments of doctrinal accountability. We are not embarrassed to state before the world that these are doctrines we hold precious and as essential to the Baptist tradition of faith and practice” (Introduction, BFM2000).

Jim Dennison, the pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church, Dallas, proclaimed, “For the first time, the denominational faith statement is intended to be an ‘instrument of doctrinal accountability.’ For whom? By whom? . . . And for the first time, this faith statement is said to be ‘essential to the Baptist tradition of faith and practice.’ Essential for what? For whom? Simply put, a document which elevates such a human statement of faith to this level of authority cannot be understood to be Baptist” (Sermon, July 15, 2000).

Already BFM2000 is being used improperly to restrict representation on SBC committees and boards, and to measure the orthodoxy of associations and local churches. Already, home and foreign missionaries are being pressured to endorse the new statement or face uncertain consequences. Already, SBC representatives are trying to enforce state conventions to comply with the new directions of the SBC by pressuring the states to adopt BFM2000.

It is no surprise then to see this creedal coercion now being aimed at local autonomous congregations. Headlines are being made in Florida and North Carolina where Baptist associations are threatening local churches with dismissal if they do not endorse the BFM2000.This should raise the hackles of every true Baptist!

Two related questions arise from the concern over creedalism: (1) “Should seminary professors be required to sign this and any future revised doctrinal statements?” Seminaries accredited by the Association of Theological Schools are expected to have a statement of faith as an objective standard by which they evaluate the teaching of professors. The institution’s faith statement serves to protect professors from unfounded accusations of heresy. Before the political take-over of the convention, all six of the SBC seminaries had adopted BFM1963 as their doctrinal guideline. (The Abstract of Principles was an additional statement of faith at Southern Seminary.)

Now, after 153 years of satisfactory reliance on it as a guideline, two quick revisions have been made in BFM1963. Should current teachers who were contracted to teach under the 1963 guidelines be forced to comply with the 1998 and now the 2000 revisions? It would seem unethical, if not illegal, to breech a contract and require such compliance. While new teachers employed after the revisions were made could legitimately fall under the new guidelines, those already contracted should be “grandfathered” and allowed to continue under BFM1963.

(2) Should those who are being forced to affirm the new doctrinal statement do so “as a matter of conscience” or instead, as in the past, should they be asked “to teach in accordance with the statement?”

Traditionally, SBC seminary faculty members were expected to “teach in accordance with and not contrary to the statement of faith.” This language was used intentionally instead of more restrictive words requiring teachers to “endorse the statement as their personal belief and commitment.” The latter wording would, of course, make the faith statement a creed, violating individual conscience.

As it was under the original wording, professors might have certain disagreements with the statement, but they could agree nevertheless to teach in accordance with it. Of course, if the gap between a teacher’s conscience and the adopted faith statement became so great that the teacher could not in good faith and honesty continue to teach in accordance with the statement, then the teacher would be expected to leave, or disciplinary action could be taken

 Al Mohler recently shifted from the historical position at Southern Seminary and now requires his teachers to, “hold these convictions as personal beliefs and commitments, not merely as contractual obligations for teaching” (Advertisement in Christianity Today).

4. The diminishing of the doctrine of the autonomy of the local church under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Other critics see in the BFM2000 an apparent weakening of the historic conviction that each local Baptist congregation is autonomous under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and free from denominational control. From their beginning, Baptists have resisted any kind of convention hierarchy that would mandate decrees from a central denominational office. They have fiercely defended the right of each congregation to make its own decisions as they believe God leads them—even if others think they are wrong. But BFM2000 signals a trend toward more authoritarian control over local congregations. As an example, along with the deletions discussed above, revisers also deleted from BFM1963 this phrase: “The church is an autonomous body.”

In place of the separate declaration of the principle of autonomy, one word was inserted in the existing article on the church, giving it what critics believe is a less important emphasis: “A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus is an autonomous local congregation.”

Also, BFM2000 limits whom a local church can call as its pastor. This is seen as a direct intervention in the church’s freedom to choose its own leaders, another violation of local church autonomy.

5. The trend toward Calvinism and a mistrust of personal Christian experience.

Features appear in BFM2000 that give for the first time a distinct Calvinistic slant to the statement. Al Mohler, a leading shaper of BFM2000, claims to be a Calvinist. It is easy to suspect that some of the changes are intended to redirect SBC theology toward what Mohler calls “the Calvinism of the original founders of Southern Seminary,” in contrast to the more balanced position of later Baptist theologians (i.e., E.Y. Mullins and W. T. Conner).

When Mohler was asked in a Texas meeting in September, 2000, if he were a “five-point Calvinist,” he replied, “I will fly my colors boldly. If you ask me if I’m a Calvinist, I’m going to have to answer yes, but that is not the first, second, third, or even fourth term I would use.” He continued by explaining that his beliefs are better described as “in the Reformed tradition.” He continued, “Every Baptist has to believe in predestination. There’s not a person in this room who doesn’t believe in limited atonement as opposed to universalism. . . . The difference is in how it is limited.”

In the same meeting, Paige Patterson said he and Mohler hold opposing views on the doctrines of election and predestination and he finds no biblical basis for the Calvinist opinion Mohler embraces. Patterson added, however, Calvinists strongly affirm the authority of the Bible, and that’s a greater point of agreement than the two points of disagreement. “I’d rather have Dr. Mohler hanging around my seminary than someone who had doubts about the Scriptures” (Baptist Standard Internet News, November 12, 2000, 4).

Another evidence of this Calvinist tone is the mistrust of personal experience as expressed in several of the revisions of BFM2000 (i.e. the removal of Jesus as the criterion of interpretation, diminishing of soul competency and priesthood of the believer, greater emphasis on creedalism and weakening of local autonomy, narrower expression of God’s fore-knowledge). Strict Calvinism minimizes individual Christian experience, making the essence of Christianity a set of unrevisable doctrinal propositions rather than a direct experience of grace or an encounter with the living Christ.

In a conference at Southern Seminary in February 2001, Al Mohler attempted to simplify the divisions in the SBC by characterizing the two opposing camps as the “truth party” vs. the “liberty party.” The first (his party) emphasizes the authority and inerrancy of Scripture while the second (those who opposed the take-over) emphasizes personal autonomy. His analysis echoes the Calvinistic preference for doctrinal propositions and its mistrust of personal Christian experience (Baptist Press, March 22, 2001).

Mohler’s Calvinist convictions shed light on his disparaging of E.Y. Mullins’ emphasis on Christian experience. Mohler blames Mullins’ emphasis on Christian experience for contributing to the “present state of theological ‘anemia’” among Southern Baptists: “Mullins set the stage for doctrinal ambiguity and theological minimalism. He was near the liberals in his approach” (“Introduction,” The Axioms of Religion, Broadman & Holman, 1997).

To suggest that E.Y. Mullins was a liberal who put personal experience above biblical authority, or that he made experience the central organizing principle of his theology is either a serious misreading or an intentional distortion of Mullins’ view. While rightly giving great importance to each believer’s personal encounter with Christ as a powerful apologetic tool, and while identifying a personal relationship with the living Christ rather than a list of propositional truths as the essence of faith, Mullins made it clear that experience must always be judged by the authority of the Bible. Christian experience must never be used to test the Scriptures; the experience of the Christian can at best only confirm them.

Experience would ever go astray without the ever-present corrective influence of the Scriptures, but the authority of the Scriptures would never become for us a vital and transforming reality apart from the working of God’s redeeming grace among us (Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression, 27).

For Baptists there is one authoritative source of religious truth and knowledge. It is to that source they look to in all matters relating to doctrine, to policy, to ordinances, to worship, and to Christian living. That source is the Bible (Cited in The Doctrine of Biblical Authority, Dilday, 110).

This Calvinistic mistrust of experience may have been one motive for minimizing and rejecting the emphasis on soul competency and the priesthood of the believer in BFM2000.

A second evidence of the document’s Calvinist drift is the inclusion for the first time in an SBC statement of faith a stricter definition of God’s foreknowledge. In the section on God, the revisers of BFM2000 added: “God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures.”

Also, in the sub-section on God the Father, the revised statement adds, “all knowing”to the other attributes. Many, probably most, Baptists believe God could control everything and everybody, but instead chooses to be in charge rather than in control of everything, as strict Calvinists propose. The Bible teaches that while God is all knowing, He often chooses to limit Himself in His relationship with the world.

The SBC has historically drawn from the best of both Calvinist and Arminian theology, benefiting from a continuing dialogue between proponents of both views. But these new additions tend to shut down any healthy theological discussion of God’s knowledge and human free will by an arbitrary vote of the Convention. This led the editor of Christianity Today to warn: “Shutting down the debate by convention fiat runs a serious risk. The ongoing debate gives teachers a chance to make their theology more fully biblical while remaining true to the tradition” (August 7, 2000, 37).

Many Baptists believe a confession of faith is more useful if it deals with central core doctrines, leaving believers free to differ over secondary details, including some features of Calvinist theology. We should follow the dictum, “In essentials—unity; in non-essentials—liberty; in all things—charity.”

6. The trend shifting Baptist identity from its Anabaptist, free-church tradition to a Reformed evangelical identity.

Some see the document’s changes as a watering down of historic Baptist distinctives in order to identify more closely with evangelical reformed theologians, “embracing their schools, and promoting their books” (Wayne Ward, Western Recorder, February 12, 1999). In order to join this circle, Baptists must de-emphasize such beliefs as the individual soul’s direct access to God, freedom from political or religious coercion in all matters of faith, a free church in a free state, and the supremacy of Scripture over all creeds, councils, conventions, or religious authorities.

This shift obscures the rich heritage Baptists draw from their English Separatists, Anabaptist, and free-church roots and link it instead with the American evangelical movement. Unlike Baptists, the Evangelical churches often “claim descent from one of the Protestant reformers, require adherence to a particular creed, or worst of all, seek political power to establish their church as a national church. This is not the Baptist way” (Wayne Ward, cited above).

Also cited as evidence is its defense by Southern Seminary staff member Sean Michael Lucas: “it is time to return to the founders of the SBC trained in the hardy doctrinal tradition of the Princeton Theology” (Southern Seminary Theological Journal, Winter, 1999).

7. The narrow interpretation of the role of women in marriage.

Revisers included in BFM2000 the earlier amendment on the family adopted by the SBC in 1998. This amendment has received strong criticism focused mainly on two concerns.

The first is balance. The newly added statement on the family is longer and more detailed than the sections on God, Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit, or the Scriptures. The Baptist Faith and Message is intended to be a simple, condensed summary of core Biblical doctrines, leaving individuals free to apply and draw out the significance of these basic truths into more specific applications as cultural changes require. In the view of some, the new article is an over-statement giving unbalanced emphasis to one area above others of greater significance.

The second criticism is that the new statement is based on deficient biblical interpretation, adding some words not in the Scriptures, and selectively omitting other biblical teachings on the same subject. For example, the amendment does not make clear that the primary passage used (Ephesians 5:21-33) begins with the statement "Submit yourselves to one another." While it refers to the husband’s responsibility to love his wife, the amendment does not explain that the word for ‘love’ (agape) means an unselfish submission to another. Properly understood then, the passage also calls for equal, if not greater submission of husband to wife.

As it stands, the revision is a faulty, one-sided expression of male authority in marriage that is not biblical.

8. The narrow interpretation of the role of women in the church.

BFM2000 introduces a more restrictive view of the role of women in the church. In section VI on The Church, after weakening the statement on local church autonomy, the revision adds, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” This is the first time a Southern Baptist statement of faith has expressed such a restrictive interpretation of the Scriptures—an interpretation on which Baptists have always felt free to differ. Defending the new statement, the committee claims, “The Bible is clear in presenting the office of pastor as restricted to men. There is no biblical precedent for a woman in the pastorate, and the Bible teaches that women should not teach in authority over men.”(Baptist Standard Internet Report, November 11, 2000, 2).

Paige Patterson dismissed those who disagree by saying, “The problem is they have to argue with God, not with us.” Such language gives the impression that his is the only orthodox interpretation of the biblical passages. It arrogantly dismisses the viewpoints of other equally conservative, pious, informed interpreters who have an equally high view of biblical authority.

For example, other conservatives believe 1 Tim.2:21 (usually translated “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent”) is not prohibiting all women from teaching men, but is merely forbidding a wife from publicly rebuking her husband in the worship service of the church. They believe the passage is intended to protect the marriage relationship, not to limit a woman’s leadership role in the church.

Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 14:34 (“The women should keep silence in the churches”), the word “keep silence” in this verse means “keep silent in this one instance.” In verse 30, the same word is used for men who are to keep silent when another is speaking. Some conservatives believe the passage means wives are not to interrupt or correct their husbands publicly in church. Paul is preserving the marriage relationship, not restricting women from participating in worship leadership. After all, Paul acknowledges that women are to “pray and prophesy” in church (1 Cor. 11:2-9). When they do, they should wear proper apparel and appropriate hairstyles. Surely these interpretations by conservatives should not be condemned, but rather acknowledged as possibilities.

A recent article in Christianity Today (September 4, 2000, 105) reminds the revisers of BFM1963 that many denominations (Church of the Nazarene, Assembly of God, Church of God, Evangelical Free Church, The Salvation Army, and The Wesleyan Church) who are considered theological conservatives, share a long heritage of women pastors and preachers. These Christians base their view on what they consider to be a careful exegesis of the Scriptures. The article also notes that conservative television teacher, James Dobson, is happy to claim that his grandmother was the “primary pastor” of a local church. Dobson’s Focus on the Family allows women ministers.

The revisers are wrong; there is no “clear” statement in the Scriptures prohibiting women from serving in any church leadership position. Therefore, in the light of various interpretations by conservative scholars, the authors of BFM2000 should in all humility admit that their view is not the only legitimate one.

An editor of Christianity Today writes that this view restricting the role of women in the church is closer to the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic doctrines on the priesthood. He then warns: “Elevating this matter to the level of confessional status seems to us an unnecessary departure from the historic Baptist traditions: no previous Baptist confession has spoken to this matter directly” (August 7, 2000).

Curiously, there is no parallel prohibition in BFM2000 against the ordination of women to be deacons, although the New Testament names the diaconate along with the pastorate as a leadership position in the local church.

9. The “Pandora’s Box” concern: repeated future revisions to include favorite opinions.

Another source of dismay has been labeled “the Pandora’s box” concern. Those who believe BFM1963 did not need to change, worry about the recent trend of more frequent revisions, tightening up the confession of faith every few years by adding details. Believing “Pandora’s Box” has been opened, they wonder, “What’s next?”

Given the legalistic tendency of ultra-conservatives to impose narrow doctrinal interpretations, some fear there is a danger, even a likelihood, that other hard-line opinions will soon be added as future SBC committees keep tinkering with the statement. Remember, one of the new SBC leaders who had a major influence in the revision once said, “If we say ‘pickles have souls’ then the seminaries must teach that ‘pickles have souls’” (Fort Worth Star Telegram, October, 1998).

10. The false accusation of neo-orthodoxy.

BFM2000 dropped the term “record of revelation” from Section I on the Scriptures, explaining that the term is an example of “fuzzy, neo-orthodox-sounding language.” By this act, the revisers mean that those who call the Bible a “record” of revelation are thereby diminishing its authority. While it is true that the Bible is a revelation from God, it is also true that it is a record of God’s revelation. This is a valid evangelical and Baptist idea—not a liberal term belonging exclusively to the neo-orthodox movement.

Those who oppose the new BFM2000 defend the phrase “record of revelation.” They note that revelation first came through God’s mighty acts and words in the history of Israel and through the incarnation and ministry of Jesus Christ, God’s supreme revelation of Himself to humanity. The Bible shares in that revelation, but it is first of all, an inspired record of these divine revelatory acts. The phrase “record of revelation” is theologically accurate.

11. The trend toward including a catalogue of specific sins.

As stated above, a confession of faith is intended to be a condensed summary of core biblical doctrines, leaving individuals free to apply and draw out the significance and specific applications as cultural changes require. This is why the BFM1963 was reluctant to list specific sins to be opposed, focusing instead on general concepts such as greed, selfishness, and vice. To list, as the revised statement does, a specific catalogue of contemporary sins believers should avoid will soon encourage additional revisions from others who want their favorite sins included also—peccatum de jour—ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Critics of BFM2000 see this as a weakness.

            Southern Baptists at their best have been and always will be what John Newport called, “constructive conservatives” in theology. However, it is easy for this constructive form of conservatism to degenerate into rigid extremism. We should heed J.I. Packer in Power Religion, who warns of an evangelical drift into “Carnal Conservatism” whose characteristics are telling:

• Authoritarian styles of leadership
• The use of secular political strategies to organize and take control
• Fanning emotional fears by supposed conspiracy theories
• Government entanglements that reduce the church to nothing more than another special interest-group
• The use of peer pressure to enforce conformity, ganging up, ostracizing, withholding rewards from those who refuse to go along
• The total defeat of those who disagree (which the book calls an ugly denominational version of ethnic cleansing)

Several years ago, Al Mohler expressed similar concerns about the future of the SBC. Although recently he has been less than irenic both in his rewriting and defense of BFM2000, his earlier plea is noteworthy:

The future shape of the Convention must avoid the twin dangers of obscurantist, angry, and separatist fundamentalism on the right and revisionist compromise on the left. In between lies the evangelical option—an irenic, bold, and convictional posture which combines concern for orthodox doctrine with a spirit of engagement with the larger world and a missionary mandate (Christianity Today, September 4, 2000, 105).

To these words, most Baptists would say, “Amen.”

Updated Saturday, June 08, 2002