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Mohler
is right, CBF members say on question of Biblical authority By Russell D. Moore This
article was published June 30,
2000 by Baptist Press, the official news agency of
the Southern Baptist Convention ORLANDO,
Fla. (BP)--Even in their outrage over the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message
statement, many Cooperative Baptist Fellowship members at the group's General
Assembly could find one area of agreement with SBC conservatives. The
question of biblical authority is "what it all comes down to" in the
debate over the new confessional statement. Stan
Hastey, CBF member and head of the Alliance of Baptists, also agreed with
conservatives who maintain that the BF&M discussion demonstrates that the
inerrancy controversy was theological and not just political. "Al
Mohler is right," Hastey said. "It has been a battle for the Bible and
is about the inspiration and authority of the Bible." Calling
the Bible "everything it claims to be, but nothing more," Hastey
suggested that Baptist adherence to the Reformation principle of Scripture alone
as final authority has proven not to provide "an adequate basis of
authority for Baptists." The inerrantists in the SBC, he said, "cannot
abide the discomfort of the discrepancies in Scripture." Hastey
said that differences with conservatives go beyond the question of biblical
inerrancy. When asked whether those who do not come to faith in Christ will go
to hell, Hastey replied, "I don't know." He said he believes that
Jesus is the fullest revelation of God, but, unlike the SBC leadership, he does
not believe this means "we ought to be aggressive in evangelizing those in
world religions." Longtime
CBF leader Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler said she agrees that the differences
between the SBC and the CBF over the new Baptist Faith and Message represent a
fundamental difference between the two groups' views of authority. "We
see our authority in Christ," Crumpler said. "Southern Baptists see
their authority in the Bible." "I
know Jesus personally," Crumpler maintained, when asked what she knows of
Jesus apart from Scripture. Gary
Parker, CBF Baptist Principles Coordinator, said that CBF Baptists and SBC
Baptists have "two different visions of Jesus." The new Baptist Faith
and Message is "a denigration of Jesus," he said. "There
is a place to call this heresy," Parker said of the BF&M's assertion
that the Bible is itself God's revelation and not merely a record of God's
revelation. "I
may become a Christian and never see a Bible," Parker asserted. "Peter
at Pentecost preached out of his own experience with Christ." Rev.
Kristina Yeatts, associate pastor of First Baptist Church, Clayton, N. C.,
agreed with the messenger to this June's SBC meeting who asserted that the Bible
is inspired and points to Christ, but is nonetheless "just a book." "They
[SBC conservatives] says it is God's word, fully inspired, everything it says we
should do," she said. "But it is a book with the biases and traditions
of biblical days." "It
is a book to guide us, but it's just a book," she said. Like
Hastey, Yeatts said her disagreement with SBC conservatives extends to questions
of evangelism and the exclusivity of Christ as well. "I
believe you need to have a personal relationship with Christ, but I would never
say someone couldn't be led to him in other ways," she said. "Jews and
Buddhists are missing out because they are not Christians, but I wouldn't say
they are not going to heaven. I know if I was in the same situation I would take
great offense if someone told me that." Karen
Massey, professor at Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology and board
member of Baptist Women in Ministry, agreed that the controversy is about the
Bible. "God's
Spirit blows where it will," she said. "If we're all honest, we all
pick and choose what fits our experience" from different passages of
Scripture. "Unfortunately,
Baptists have seen God defined just by Scripture," she said. "God is
bigger than the Bible." Amy
Joyner, a Wake Forest Divinity School student from Sanford, N.C. agrees that her
view of the Bible is quite different from that of the Southern Baptist
leadership. "They
act like you can't be a Christian and believe in evolution, for instance,"
she said. "The Bible is not a science book. It is a book of faith." Previous article |
