Is There a Theological Problem?

                                                                                                                          Vol. I, No. 5, October 1988

Some claim that all the SBC furor is nothing but power politics, the effort by a group of "outs" to become "ins." Others maintain there is a serious theological problem within the SBC, a move away from Baptists' high view of Scripture toward individuals picking and choosing which parts of the Bible are authoritative. This article will quote several current Southern Baptists so that you, the reader, can judge for yourself.

On July 20, 1954, Dr. C. R. Daley, a former editor of the Kentucky State Baptist paper and a Southern Seminary graduate, spoke to a class at Southern. In his remarks he said,

 "The institutions have become unrelated and unresponsive to the grass roots feelings. Doctrinally or inerrance-wise, the point that Pressler and Patterson claim is biblical criticism. ".... That's what they are after .... When the seminaries started teaching biblical criticism and started talking about the documentary hypothesis and other conclusions that some who study that reach, that's when the poison started. When I came to the seminary, I can remember only one professor who stood up strongly for the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch...."

"If you want the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the historicity of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, and Job and Jonah as historical figures, go to Mid-America Seminary. You get it there."

Most church libraries have a set of the Broadman Bible Commentary, published by Broadman Press, a division of the Sunday School Board. You may wish to refer to volume II, pages 238 and 242 to read first hand what Dr. Roy Honeycutt, now president of Southern Seminary, believes about certain biblical miracles.

"Whether one interprets the stories literally or as wonder stories in the category of saga and legend, the narrative suggest that Elisha did in fact restore the life of the child. That this is most likely a wonder story in the category of saga and legend is most probable; even so, that the story should be weakened by rationalistic explanations is to miss the point of the reactor's purpose." (p. 238)

"Gray suggests that the historical event or factual basis resting behind the miracle of the floating axe head 'may be that Elisha with a long pole or stick probed about the spot indicated (an important point in the text) until he succeeded either in inserting the stick into the socket, or, having located the hard object on the muddy bottom, moved it until the man was able to recover it.” (Gray, p. 460)“This proposed reconstruction is helpful not only for understanding this single event, but as an example of the manner in which historical events were elaborated across successive generations until the narrative becomes a combination of saga and legend, inextricably interwoven." (p. 242)

Dr. Fred L. Fisher, Professor of New Testament at Golden Gate Theological Seminary, wrote the following in an article titled "Revelation and the Bible" in the January 21, 1985 issue of the California Southern Baptist. "...The Bible is not a revelation of God; it is a record of that revelation ... Scientific and historical statements reflect the knowledge that men had of the world in that day; such statements may be in error..."

A leading liberal Southern Baptist pastor, Dr. Cecil Sherman, denied the Virgin Birth. "A teacher who might also be led by Scripture not to believe in the Virgin Birth should not be fired." "It (the Virgin Birth) is in two Gospels, but not in two others,:" he added. "Did Mark and John make a mistake by forgetting to list it? If the Virgin Birth is desperately important, (Mark and John) must have erred." (Statement quoted in Christianity Today, August 5, 1983.)

Finally, all Southern Baptists should know that the SBC Peace Committee after some two years' work writes in its final report, "Gradually, it became clear that while there might be other theological differences, the primary source of the controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention is the Bible; more specifically, the ways in which the Bible is viewed." Later in its report the Peace Committee wrote, "We, as a Peace Committee, affirm Biblical authority for all of life and for all fields of knowledge.

"The Bible is a book of redemption, not a book of science, psychology, sociology, or economics. But, where the Bible speaks, the Bible speaks truth in all realms of reality and to all fields of knowledge. The Bible, when properly interpreted, is authoritative to all of life."

With the conclusions of the Peace Committee, all Bible-believing Baptists can agree: there is an actual problem: the "primary source of the controversy is theological differences", and "the authority of the Word of God is the focus of differences."