Issues in the SBC: Power Play or Theological Substance?

by T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                           Vol. XIV, No. 2, February 2001

Many -- though not all -- liberal Southern Baptists have staunchly maintained for years, even decades, that the entire controversy in the SBC is simply a reach for power by a close-knit group of unscrupulously ambitious men within the Convention. Contrariwise, conservatives have consistently said that the basis of the problem is theological.

One reasonably early confirmation of the conservative position was in the Peace Committee report which can be found on pp. 54-55 of the Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention 1987. That Report stated, "In meeting after meeting ... talk turned to the nature of inspiration of the Scriptures ... Gradually it became clear that while there might be other theological differences, the authority of the Word of God is the focus of 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."

In spite of the fact that the Peace Committee was comprised of approximately equal numbers of conservatives, moderates, and unaligned members, numbers of the more vocal and visible liberals continued to charge the dispute was only a power play, that there was really no substantive theological issue.

However, Dr. Cecil Sherman, one of the pre-eminent liberal leaders and the first executive director of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, faced the issue frankly. He is quoted in The Struggle for the Soul of the SBC (a book written by a moderate and published by the moderate Mercer University Press, 1993) on pp. 29-30, "Again and again it was said, 'This is just apolitical spat between two contending groups.' Nothing could be further from the truth. Two groups did politic because they disagreed on basic theology and polity. Where the Fundamentalists are going to take the Southern Baptist Convention is to their theology. Where the Moderates would have taken the Southern Baptist Convention is to their theology. And the theology of the two groups was, is, and will be quite different."

Now another liberal "name in the news" has made a very similar admission. In the September 2000 issue of the liberal newspaper Baptists Today there is an interview with the very active David Currie, coordinator of Texas Baptists Committed and one of the leaders in bringing the Baptist General Convention of Texas to distance itself from the SBC.

"Question: What impact will the recent revisions to the Baptist Faith & Message, and the rejection by SBC messengers of Texas Baptist leader Charles Wade's amendment to reinsert language from the early document, have on Texas Baptists?

"Answer: What that event clarified for a lot of people -- much more so than Dilday's firing -- was that this is theological. I'm always telling folks this is (about) theology. It's about the character and nature of God. It's about the gospel message. It's about the way we witness."

So there you have it, folks. Direct from the mouths of leading liberals, not from anyone or anything that could be considered fundamentalist propaganda: The basic question among Southern Baptists is theology. Most simply it is, where are you going to stand? With those who accept the Bible as God's fully authoritative written Word? Or with those who believe the Bible is merely a human book subject to human errors and mistakes?