Conservatives and Moderates: Where We Differ on the Bible

by   James C. Hefley                                                                                                                            Vol. VIII, No. 10, Nov./Dec. 1995

"Norman" and I were fishing buddies at Ouachita Baptist College (now university) over four decades ago. We graduated and went our separate ways. I became a writer and produced over 75 books on Christian issues and subjects. He dedicated his life to the pastorate, chaired the SBC Executive Committee, and retired as senior minister of a large, wealthy Baptist church.

When the SBC controversy erupted, I became identified as a conservative and he as a moderate. My "Truth in Crisis" chronicles of the controversy - so I have beet told - persuaded many messengers at annual conventions to vote conservative.

Norman's congregation became a bellwether church for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, designating hundreds of thousands of dollars each year through the CBF.

Norman often came into the SBC press room conventions in the early years of the controversy. We would chat briefly about old times at Ouachita. Only once do I recall him speaking about the growing conflict. He said something along this order: "All Southern Baptists believe the Bible. We just believe it in different ways. So why do we have to fight?"'

He was simply voicing what many, many Southern Baptists were saying back then, and what many are still saying now.

Are our differences on Holy Scripture so great that we must divide into different camps, the old Southern Baptist Convention vs. the new Cooperative Baptist Fellowship? Reluctantly and painfully, my answer is yes.

I'm not claiming that every foot soldier in the CBF holds to an unorthodox view of Scripture. Many do not. However, the water hits the proverbial wheel when these professed Bible believers see no problem in electing or appointing theological liberals to positions in denominational agencies and Baptist seminaries and colleges.

"Unity amidst diversity," they say, "is what makes our Southern Baptist wheels go round."

But how much diversity can we accept? How far can we allow the parameters to be pushed back?

Virtually all of our founding SBC "fathers" held that the Scriptures were absolute truth and without error. Take just a sampling of declarations:

Jeremiah B. Jeter, first president of the SBC Foreign Mission Board and editor of the Virginia Baptist Herald:

"...The more carefully the Scriptures are examined, the more obviously their entire inspiration appears. It is really wonderful to notice how, amid the conflicting systems of science, philosophy, and politics, the inspired writers steered their course, without falling into errors, which would have discredited their inspiration, such, for example, as abound in all the systems of heathen mythology. Let us, then, reverently receive the Scriptures as an authentic and perfect revelation from God, interpret them by the laws which common sense and careful study supply, and live according to their directions, and we shall not fail to secure a blessed immortality." (1882)

Basil Manly, Jr., long time professor of Old Testament at Southern Seminary and author of the seminary's "Abstract of Principles,” which faculty members still required to sign:

"The difference between an inspired and uninspired Bible is of a momentous character. ... An uninspired Bible, whatever its excellences might be, would have three serious defects:

“First, it would furnish no infallible standard of truth. It would leave us liable to all the mistakes incident to failure of the writers, to their errors in judgment, or their expressions of correct thought. It would furnish no principle of accurate discrimination between the true and the false, the divine and the human.

Second, it would present no authoritative rule for obedience and no ground for confident and everlasting hopes. ... It would give no firm ground on which to base our convictions, to build our hopes, or to order our life.

Third, it would offer no suitable means for testing and cultivating the docile spirit, for drawing man’s soul trustfully and lovingly upward to its Heavenly Father." (1888)

John A. Broadus, long-time professor of New Testament at Southern Seminary (Broadman Press is named for him and Basil Manly):

"The inspired writers [of the Bible] learned many things by observation or inquiry, but they were preserved by the Holy Spirit from error, whether in learning, or in writing these things .... Most cases of apparent disagreement in the inspired writings have been explained, and we may be sure that all could be explained if we had fuller information .... There is no proof that the inspired writers made any mistake of any kind." (1892)

J. M. Frost, founder and first executive of the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention:

"Inspiration ... is God's special work in the writer to guarantee the writing in making the record which God would have written. It comes by virtue of God breathing His Holy Spirit upon the human heart and mind, as one tells of the revelation which God has made and how God manifested Himself in history .... And because of this work of the Spirit, the writing bears the heavenly imprint. 'It is written,' has the fragrance of the heavenly fields and the flavor of the heavenly fruit." (1899)

John R Sampey, president of Southern Seminary, elected to three terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention:

"As to the inspiration of the Bible, conservatives hold that the writers were preserved from all error by the inbreathed Spirit guiding them. Radicals reject such a theory with scorn. Some liberals believe in a sort of inspiration which heightened the spiritual perceptions of the Scriptural writers, but did not preserve them from error." (1922)

B. H. Carroll founder of Southwestern Seminary, of whom George Truett said, "I am more indebted to him for reverence for God's Holy Word than I am to any other human being”:

"If the words of the Bible are not inspired, how am I to know how much to reject, and how to find out whether anything is from God'? When you hear the silly talk that the Bible 'contains' the Word of God and is not the Word of God, you hear a fool's talk .... The inspiration of the Bible does not mean that God said and did all that is said and done in the Bible; some of it the devil did and said. Much of it wicked men did and said. The inspiration means that the record of what is said and done is correct.” ( 1930)

The evidence is quite clear that our Southern Baptist "fathers" believed all the Bible to be true. If they were living today, they would identify themselves with our conservative camp.

Our differences are not merely political. The Peace Committee, with members from across the SBC spectrum, said the real controversy was over the Bible. Cecil Sherman, Coordinator of the CBF, told a meeting of Georgia moderates, "The theology of the two groups was, is, and will be quite different."

SBC conservatives – in the new SBC leadership – stand with the inerrantists of old. To cite only two:

Jimmy Draper, President of the Sunday School Board:

"The doctrine of inspiration simply says that God the Holy Spirit superintended. He overruled [the human authors'] imperfections, and did not allow these imperfections to intrude into the Scripture which they wrote."

Paige Patterson, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary: "Nowhere [in the Bible] can one find any hint of one biblical author questioning the veracity of another's contribution. Nowhere is there any indication of an approach to the hermeneutical task utilizing the kinds of presuppositions employed by modern historicist methodologists." The positions of most moderate scholars on the Bible are quite different. CBF leaders and their associated newspaper, Baptists Today, believe and declare that the Bible is errant many times over. The supposition that the Bible is all true, they, say, is heresy. Inerrancy is a "plague" upon Southern Baptists.

Dr. Henlee Barnette, emeritus professor of Christian ethics at Southern Seminary, declares this in the lead opinion article of the September 21 issue of Baptists Today. [See separate article in this Banner.]

“The Bible errant with many self-contradictions," Dr . Barnette declares. He cites as an example statements from Matthew's gospel and Acts on the death of Judas. "Matthew 27:2-5 simply asserts that Judas hanged himself; but Acts 1:18 states he fell down (‘flat on his face' in Greek) and his bowels burst out."

One doesn't have to be a Greek scholar to recognize that both statements can be true. Hanging means only that the betrayer fastened a noose around his neck and jumped from a tree or some other object around which he could tie a rope. Acts says he fell on the ground, his body split open, and his internal organs spilled out.

Matthew summed Judas' suicide up in only one word. Luke, in Acts, gave more details.

Dr. Barnette goes on to cite alleged errors by biblical writers in science and history. “Many earnest, faithful Christians," he concludes, "are being duped and misled by others who deliberately and arrogantly misuse the issue of inerrancy as a tool to deceive others for political power."

I don't doubt Dr. Barnette's sincerity. I do question his judgments upon the Biblical inerrantists in the conservative movement.

Could it be that they are following in the trail of our theologians and institutional leaders of yore? Could it be that belief in the truth of Scripture is essential to the survival of our denomination?

[Reprinted from The Indiana Baptist, October 1995]