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CBF
“moderates” declare solidarity with secular humanists in new book By Russell D. Moore LOUISVILLE,
Ky. (BP)--Several leading Baptist moderates affiliated with the Cooperative
Baptist Fellowship have joined with secular humanists in a newly released book
to call for a common view of religious liberty that includes abortion rights and
opposition to the growing public influence of conservative evangelicals. The
volume, "Freedom of Conscience: A Baptist/Humanist Dialogue", is
edited by Baptist Paul D. Simmons and published by Prometheus Press, one of the
nation's largest publishers of secularist books. Simmons,
a former ethics professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a leader
in the effort by Kentucky Baptist moderates to form a Baptist Seminary of
Kentucky as an alternative to Southern Seminary's conservative direction since
the election of a conservative president in 1993. The
book also includes chapters by prominent Baptist moderates such as E. Glenn
Hinson, Molly T. Marshall and Robert S. Alley and secular humanists such as Paul
Kurtz, founder of Free Inquiry, a national magazine for atheists, agnostics and
humanists. Both Hinson and Marshall also are former faculty members at Southern
Seminary. The
book project flows from a "Cooperative Baptist/Secular Humanist
Dialogue" Oct. 6-7, 1995, on the campus of the University of Richmond. "I
have not come to bury humanism but to praise it," Simmons remarks in the
opening chapter, titled, "Thank God for Humanism!" Simmons reassures
those who "feel some objection to my invocation of deity" that he
means no offense. Instead, Simmons asserts that he and his fellow Baptist
moderates found the meeting with the humanists to be "a welcome retreat
from the angry invectives and false accusations" of the SBC conservatives
now represented on the trustee boards of the convention's seminaries. A
key component of Baptist/humanist consensus on religious liberty, Simmons
writes, in the right to legal abortion. The Supreme Court should safeguard legal
abortion out of a commitment to religious liberty, he maintains, since those who
seek to outlaw or restrict abortion are attempting to impose a dogmatic
religious view on the consciences of pregnant women. "The
abortion clinic becomes a battleground over religious liberties; but only one
party is attempting to coerce the other," Simmons writes. "At what
point is religious intolerance to be restrained?" R.
Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary, described the book as
representing "the logical conclusion to the liberal Baptist trajectory,
common ground with humanists and their secular agenda." "The
most tragic aspect of this book is the fact that it is so difficult to
distinguish the Baptists and the humanists from each other -- they sound so much
alike," Mohler lamented. "Southern Baptists wondering what the past 20
years of controversy were all about will find all they need to know in this
book." Simmons,
countering "right-wing evangelical Christians" who "are devoted
to doctrinal orthodoxy as a test of both good morals and true faith,"
writes that the Baptists and humanists represented in the book agree that
neither personal salvation nor belief in God is "a prerequisite to being
moral." Simmons argues that humanists are not opponents of Jesus since they
"frequently follow what Jesus had to say while rejecting the Resurrection
and Ascension as mythological fantasy." Pointing
to Thomas Jefferson as an example of modern secular humanism, Simmons writes
that Jefferson, who edited a version of the New Testament that removed the
miracles and the resurrection of Christ, "was no enemy of Jesus but was an
opponent of bad morals and irrational beliefs." Similarly,
Simmons criticizes conservatives who would deem liberal Baptist Carlyle Marney
to be "outside the faith when he confessed he found the very idea of
resurrection difficult to believe" except for twice a year, at Easter and
at the death of a friend. Baptist
moderates and secular humanists can find common ground, Simmons concludes, in
articulating a common morality and in opposing the "theocrats and
church-over-staters" in evangelical Christianity. Simmons condemns, for
instance, the "ideological rigidity in the form of theological dogmatism
and narrow moralism" of the six SBC seminaries that has marked "the
end of what many regard as a glorious era in progressive theological
education" in SBC seminaries. Molly
T. Marshall's chapter focused on a Christian view of humanity and spiritual
formation. Marshall, professor of spirituality and worship at Central Baptist
Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Kan., criticized the evangelical doctrine of
salvation by faith alone as having "unfortunately, fostered a deep
suspicion about the efficacy of any human effort in matters of salvation." E.
Glenn Hinson, professor emeritus of church history and spirituality at the
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, asserts that humanism need not be
secular, but is a part of the Christian tradition as well. The
volume concludes with a joint statement, "In Defense of Freedom of
Conscience: A Cooperative Baptist/Secular Humanist Declaration," which was
adopted at the October 1995 meeting at the University of Richmond. The
statement calls for SBC seminaries to relax their confessional standards for
faculty hiring. It also affirms critical biblical scholarship, church/state
separation and pluralistic democracy. The joint statement was signed by Baptists
such as Simmons, Hinson, University of Richmond professor emeritus Robert Alley
and Stan Hastey, executive director of the Alliance of Baptists, as well as by
humanist atheists and agnostics such as Harvard University's Edward O. Wilson
and three editors of Free Inquiry.
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