By Charles Quarles, Dean of Louisiana College Caskey School of Divinity
Southern Baptists are a scrappy bunch. We have never been ones to walk away from a good fight.
The problem with being scrappy is that we are sometimes a little too eager to jump into the fray. I fear that Southern Baptists are about to step into a battle without properly calculating whether the conflict is wise.
The looming conflict to which I refer is the battle over Calvinism. Like any battle this conflict could potentially escalate into an all-out war. Even as I write, battle lines are being contemplated.
Many fear that this battle has the potential to divide our national convention, fragment state conventions, and split local churches. While war has not yet been declared, the distinct sound of sabers rattling can be heard.
Before Baptists enter this conflict, I want to urge caution. Battles are not to be entered lightly.
In the 5th and 6th century BC, the Chinese military strategist and philosopher, Sun Tzu, wrote The Art of War. The book explained military strategies that still guide the American military today.
Sun Tzu’s is perhaps best known for this wise advice: “Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all!” This advice is normally reduced to the old adage: “Choose your battles wisely.”
The wise general does not fight every battle. He carefully calculates which battles are worth fighting in order to accomplish his ultimate cause. He has the wisdom to walk away from the skirmishes that may cost much without really contributing to his primary mission.
The wisdom of this principle is affirmed by the teaching of our Savior himself (Luke 14:31) who urged kings to count the cost before they go to war.
Although I have strong convictions about the biblical and historic Baptist doctrine of election, I am convinced the battle over Calvinism is an unwise battle for Baptists.
The number of American fatalities in the Civil War exceeds that of any other conflict in our history. The War Between the States taught us that battles between brothers are usually the most costly.
Similarly, the conflict over Calvinism will likely result in many casualties and, tragically, it will be a battle between brothers.
Brothers will become enemies and friends will become foes. Those who should be fellow-soldiers and allies in another conflict will engage each other. By the time the smoke of the battlefield clears, we will grieve too late at the toll the battle has taken.
What then is the battle we should wisely choose? The battle we must commit to is the age-old battle for the Bible.
Though Baptists claim to have won that battle, we didn’t. It is critical that we renew our commitment to that battle and fight it without distraction especially at this moment in history.
The claim that Baptists did not win the battle for the Bible will probably puzzle many readers. However, evidence to support this claim is plentiful.
For the last three years, Louisiana College has administered a newly-developed BASE (Belief Assessment of Spiritual Essentials) exam to incoming freshmen to determine how well they understand the essential doctrines of the Christian faith.
These are not the lofty doctrines that only erudite ivory-tower theologians discuss and debate in the back rooms of dusty libraries; these are essential gospel truths that a person must understand and believe to be considered truly Christian.
Such doctrines include humanity’s sinful and lost condition, Jesus’ identity as God, the necessity of faith in Jesus for salvation, and our Lord’s bodily resurrection.
Here are some of our discoveries:
• 78 percent believe that all people are basically good and have no real need for a Savior
• 65 percent cannot identify a simple definition of new birth in a multiple-choice question. They think that being “born again” means experiencing reincarnation or transmigration in which a person who has died returns to earth in another life form so that they can make up for the sins of the past.
• 54 percent think that faith in Jesus is unnecessary for salvation. In their view, as long as a person believes in a god and has fallen in love with him, her, or it, he is right with that god.
• 42 percent believe that people go to heaven because of their personal morality rather than because of Jesus’ sacrificial death.
• 32 percent do not know that Christianity affirms the Deity of Jesus Christ, even though the NT repeatedly insists that faith in Jesus as God is necessary for salvation.
• 25 percent do not know that Christianity claims that Jesus literally rose from the dead.
Overall, our freshman scored an 67 percent on the BASE exam, a failing grade, despite the fact that 90 percentpercent of the college’s incoming freshmen claim to be Christians and nearly 60 percent of them grew up in our own Louisiana Baptist churches!
Baptists seemed to have declared our victory in the battle for the Bible prematurely. We failed to recognize that real victory does not arrive with completion of an air campaign. Victory comes only after the long, arduous ground war.
True victory in the battle for the Bible did not arrive when the convention reasserted its commitment to our Baptist confession and began to elect denominational leaders who revere God’s word.
Real victory in the battle for the Bible will come only when Baptist pastors faithfully expound God’s word every Lord’s day and when Baptist church members diligently study the Scriptures as an act of personal devotion.
V-day will not arrive until those who claim to be God’s people know and cherish the fundamental teachings of the Bible.
When an entire generation that sits in our churches is completely unaware of the most essential truths of our faith, will we turn from proclaiming the glories of Jesus’ deity, the grace of an old rugged cross, the power of an empty tomb, and the necessity of faith in Jesus, to fight over divine mysteries that none of us can fully comprehend?
In the face of enormous threats from universalism, naturalism, atheism, and mysticism, will we battle each other over Calvinism? I hope not. We Southern Baptist scrappers do not need to go looking for a new fight. We need to renew our commitment to an old one.
Charles Quarles is Vice President for Integration of Faith and Learning at Louisiana College and Dean of LC’s Caskey School of Divinity.