Questions about where liberal Baptists are headed? Read this!

by T. C. Pinckney                                                                                          Vol. XV, No. 4, April 2002

[Introduction: The following is excerpted from a release by the liberal Baptist press agency, Associated Baptist Press. Note that the speaker is Richard Clore, former pastor of Hull Memorial BC, Fredericksburg, and currently executive director of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Virginia. As such, his words are an authoritative statement of CBF policy. TCP]

Southern Baptist churches should consider "whether their decisions about missions dollars are outdated and unexamined" in light of recent decisions by SBC leaders, says the leader of a dissident group. Richard Clore, CBF of Virginia executive director, attacked recent leadership decisions requiring Southern Baptist missionaries to affirm the "Baptist Faith and Message," against endorsing ordained women as chaplains, seeking increased control in the affairs of a Baptist state convention in Washington, D.C., and refusing to recognize an alternative moderate state convention in Missouri.

"Surely, this is the time to examine your church's, and your own, commitment to the International Mission Board's and the North American Mission Board's approaches to missions," Clore said at the Virginia CBF's general assembly, held March 15-16 in Richmond. "It is time to re-examine whether it is faithful stewardship to continue giving millions of dollars to offerings that support them," Clore said.

"Does your continued giving to Lottie Moon [Christmas offering for international missions] help the IMB carry out their agenda to remove Jesus as the criterion by which we interpret Scripture and substitute for Jesus with a man-made document?" he asked, referring to one controversial revision to the "Baptist Faith and Message" adopted by the SBC in 2000.

"And, by your contributions to Annie Armstrong, are you helping NAMB in the devaluation of women in the work of God's kingdom, and in their brash power move on the District of Columbia Baptist Convention."

Clore also criticized SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman for refusing to accept funds from a new state group in Missouri that broke away from the conservative-dominated Missouri Baptist Convention. The SBC recognizes conservative conventions, however, that formed in reaction to moderate leadership in Virginia and Texas.

"That's an obvious double standard," Clore said. "Does it mean the SBC eventually will stop cooperating with the original state conventions -- the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Baptist General Association of Virginia?"

Clore criticized NAMB for requesting direct control of Southern Baptist dollars earmarked for the triply aligned District of Columbia Baptist Convention. While the D.C. convention is small and depends heavily on NAMB funding, it has the same rights to local autonomy as other state conventions, Clore said. "If they get away with it in D.C., when and where will they try it again with another state convention?" [ABP]

[Commentary: Director Clore conveniently fails to mention a few aspects of the situation:

– Autonomy: Granted that Baptists strongly believe in local church autonomy. But autonomy is not restricted merely to the local church. Every level of Baptist polity is autonomous, the Southern Baptist Convention no less so than a local church or a local association or a state convention. And the SBC is responsible to ensure that its resources are used biblically.

– Relationship between the SBC and state conventions: The District of Columbia Baptist Convention has placed itself in a set of relationships quite different from those of other state conventions. The DCBC is formally aligned not only with the SBC but also with the American Baptist Churches and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Both of the latter are much more liberal than the SBC. Moreover, of the DCBC annual budget of $1.5 million, the SBC contributes almost one-third, $475,000. The DCBC has espoused positions at loggerheads with Southern Baptist biblical stances and has invited speakers to its meetings who severely attack the SBC. NAMB is simply exercising SBC autonomy in proposing arrangements that would ensure that Southern Baptist money funds only things that Southern Baptists can support. The DCBC would still be free to use its other resources as it sees fit.

– The question of consistency: Clore took Morris Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee, to task for refusing to accept money from the new, anti-conservative Missouri state convention now being birthed, and claimed this is a double standard because the SBC has recognized second state conventions in Virginia and Texas. This argument fails because it assumes that all conventions are equal and equivalent to each other. But all state conventions are not equal. Indeed, there are major substantive differences between the new conventions in Virginia and Texas on the one hand and the new convention in Missouri on the other. From the perspective of the SBC the question is, Does this state convention support the SBC, or is it hostile to our theology and our organizational integrity? In recognizing the new, conservative conventions in Virginia and Texas (which strongly support the SBC) but not recognizing the new, liberal one in Missouri, the SBC is being entirely consistent.

– Jesus as “the criterion by which we interpret Scripture”: What does this “criterion” phrase mean? What can it mean? How could I know what Jesus would do other than by studying the Bible? How can we use Jesus as such a criterion other than by claiming that “I” can tell better what Jesus thinks than do the words of the Bible? On what basis could anyone make such a claim? Only on the basis of feelings, experience, overweening pride, and a completely different conception of what Scripture is. For the last two thousand years orthodox Christians, and for the last four hundred years especially Baptists, have stoutly maintained that the Bible is “theopneustos”, God-breathed. But beginning in the 1800s and spreading like a spiritual cancer there has grown a renewal of an ancient heresy, that Scripture is not the words of God, but rather the words and ideas of men who were searching for God ... and as a human book it must contain errors. And because it is replete with error, it must be constantly re-interpreted. Originally the sentence Clore cites was intended to convey that Christians are to have the understanding of Scripture that Jesus expressed in the New Testament validating the authenticity and inerrancy of the Old Testament. However, as used by liberals, this “criterion” phrase simply reflects the heresy in their hearts.

Let those who have eyes, see and understand. And even as we stand firmly on the Word and oppose efforts of liberals to weaken Scripture and the SBC, let us pray that the eyes of their hearts will be opened.