It grieves me to say this, but on Tuesday evening of the SBC meeting in San Antonio, our Convention took an action that I believe could be misunderstood, resulting in harm to our system.
It grieves me to say this, but on Tuesday evening of the SBC meeting in San Antonio, our Convention took an action that I believe could be misunderstood, resulting in harm to our system.
The convention passed a motion that asked our agencies not to set doctrinal standards other than those set forth in the Baptist Faith and Message. Many of us took this as criticism of the IMB for its stance on charismatic private prayer language (tongues), and the prohibition against beverage alcohol that most of our agencies have established. The convention may not have known about these issues. Neither are mentioned in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
First of all, our trustees cannot be instructed by the Executive Committee without opening the door to legal ascending liability. So the motion technically called their instruction a “guideline.”
In essence, the motion asked convention agencies to impose no doctrinal policies that go beyond the explicit language of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Rather than continuing to use the BF&M as the minimum standard on which we all agree (thus seeking to produce unity), the convention seemingly voted to ask that the BF&M should be the only doctrinal standard for all convention employees.
But we cannot say no to all doctrinal policies beyond the BF&M. The BF&M says nothing about abortion, gambling, charismatic practices, homosexuality, and a host of other issues that trustees have assumed were out of bounds for their SBC employees. Even the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy goes beyond the BF&M in a positive way. Our faculties do not sign that statement but we do expect it to characterize their beliefs, and we ask them about it, and we are right to do so.
In my view, it was a dangerous day for the SBC when that motion passed by a majority but with a substantial negative vote (including mine).
The purpose of the BF&M was flipped over from providing our base-line unity to setting some kind of upper limit on what we can ask of our employees.
We must not allow this motion to maintain a legal toe-hold over trustees and over administrators who are seeking to lead their agencies in service to the SBC and to Christ.
It is only a guideline, so they say: Stem-cell research is not mentioned in the Bible, nor in the BF&M. May we still expect our employees to speak to this issue? Yes, we must, we will.
Southeastern will continue to follow our charter, and our faculty will continue to sign the Abstract of Principles, as they have done since the school was founded.
Recently, the Faculty (minus one who is no longer here) added our signatures to the BF&M. We have a Faculty Profile document that requires membership in a local Southern Baptist Church while employed by Southeastern. Technically this violates the language of the motion that I voted against. Requiring such membership is not found in the language of the BF&M, but Southeastern expects this from our employees.
We are never again going to allow the BF&M to be ignored or signed with reservations of heart or mind (as was permitted in the past, a policy which almost destroyed us).
The Convention wants doctrinal orthodoxy. It wants doctrinal integrity. It wants a clear sound, a loving spirit, and a faithful great commission witness. That’s who we are as Southern Baptists. That’s who supported the motion. But for those who thought they had found a new way to approve beverage alcohol within our churches, or for those who thought they could use this guideline as a means of opening the door to charismatic issues, I believe Kelly, Mohler, and Akin spoke directly. We will not be legalists nor will we go contrary to the BF&M in setting our doctrinal standards. The BF&M is our covenant with the Convention to be faithful to the central biblical truths. We proclaim Christ alone as the way of salvation.
Thank you, Southern Baptists, for your support. We have certain doctrinal and moral guidelines in place already; we are open to considering additional ones.
Doctrine is capable of being misunderstood, however, and we will from time to time need to revise the BF&M (1925, 1963, 2000). The BF&M already functions as the guideline the motion requested. So, why this motion: was it only tongues and alcohol? I fear the legal liability that could be read into this motion by some secular court. May God protect the SBC legally and spiritually.
The Executive Committee is not a “super-trustee” board. It has no business acting as if that were its role. The President of the Executive Committee (currently Morris Chapman) is not a role that allows any verbal or active interference at all into the matters that lie solely within the purview of duly-elected SBC entity trustees. If we don’t like what is going on, we vote to replace the trustees. Then we allow the new trustees to set the necessary policies to correct the problems. We don’t try to legislate policies even if presented merely as a guideline from the SBC Executive Committee or from the Convention floor.
The SBC is by no means organizationally perfect, but it remains the world’s best hope of hearing the claims of Christ. Our Convention must not instruct our trustees explicitly about policies they set for their institutions. To do so violates ATS accreditation standards against outside influences, and opens up several legal issues for the IMB and other agencies.
We may not have gone there yet, but the Convention needs better counsel before voting on matters such as how the agencies should implement doctrinal guidelines from the Convention. We don’t have a problem as things stood on Monday. Why do I continue to feel we may have acted unwisely on Tuesday?