What is a Southern Baptist liberal?

by   Rev. Ronald Young                                                                                                                                 Vol. V, No. 4, August 1992

[Rev. Young is pastor of Plantation Road Baptist Church, Roanoke.]

What is a Southern Baptist liberal preacher? There are many people who are confused about the answer to this question. Part of the reason is the liberal tries to hide the fact that he is a liberal. He will not call himself a liberal. He would have us know him as a "moderate conservative."

This is deliberate deception. All one needs to do to see these people are not orthodox (that is, holding to the original standard of Baptists) is to look at Baptist history and Baptist confessions of faith. Baptists have always believed the very things these people deny. [An excellent book on Baptist belief about the Bible is Baptists and the Bible by Bush and Nettles.]

"Moderate" means one who is in the center of a position. He is one who goes neither to the right nor to the left of the standard. A conservative is one who holds to the original position as distinct from those who would move away from it. Look at what liberals advocate and what they deny. There is nothing about them that could accurately be called conservative or moderate.

In 1925 the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a confession called "The Baptist Faith and Message." It was reaffirmed and slightly modified in 1963. It is a Southern Baptist adaptation of the "New Hampshire Confession of Faith" of 1830. Article one of the Baptist Faith and Message says, "We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried."

It is here that the Southern Baptist liberal departs from Baptist faith. The center of his liberalism is his departure from the standard of Baptist faith and practice: the Word of God!

The center of Christianity is the Bible. All we believe about God, creation, sin, salvation, Christ, how man should live, heaven, hell, and judgment rests upon the fact that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. If the Bible is not inerrant, our faith is questionable! If there is a single error in the original autographs of Scripture, if the human authors were not totally and completely inspired in writing the Scripture so as to be free from error, then everything we believe is subject to doubt.

The liberal is a man who has been influenced by humanism. Whether he realizes it or not, mankind is the center of his world, not God. He reasons according to humanistic thinking. If man does not wish to follow the principles of Scripture, if he prefers a conduct even entirely opposite to what God's Word teaches, the liberal can make the accommodation. It is a small matter to him to deny the clear teaching of Scripture. [Comment: We have striking examples of this in the actions of Pullen and Binkley churches in N.C. regarding homosexuality. Those actions were taken although they were expressly acknowledged to be contrary to the Bible.]

However, the liberal is not willing to forsake Christianity entirely. He is anxious to remain within the pale of the Christian church. He desires to make the church teach his humanistic values. Particularly the liberal does not believe the foundational book of the Bible, Genesis. He does not accept the fact that God created the world in seven 24 hour days. He would make these days geological periods of perhaps millions of years. So he accommodates humanism's teaching, evolution.

The account of the creation of man is generally rejected by the liberal. He says that he cannot believe that the human race began with one man and one woman. This is just an old wives' tale or a parable to the liberal. In jettisoning the account of Adam, he has likewise done away with the biblical doctrine of sin. Yet Paul builds his whole case for man's salvation on man's fall in Adam. Romans 5:12 "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin: and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned..." The new definition of sin the liberal teaches is the idea that sin is merely a social abnormality. Do away with biblical sin, and you have done away with the need for the gospel... "That Christ died for our sins, and that He was buried and that He arose again the third day according to the Scriptures." I Corinthians 15:3b-4. The liberal is not interested in seeing sinners saved! He is only interested is seeing people join his church. He really has no concern for the salvation of their souls. Nor has he any interest in the biblical principle that only regenerated and biblically-immersed people are to be received into the church. The liberal will many times take anything or nothing for baptism. The gospel the liberal wants to preach is the "social gospel," the advancement of human betterment in this life with no reference to the world to come, heaven or hell.

What is a Southern Baptist liberal? He is one who denies that the Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God. It does not matter how much of the Bible he denies. The moment he says the Bible contains errors, he has attempted to destroy the very foundation upon which all Christian faith rests!

Some Southern Baptist liberals would argue for the Virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the reality of miracles. But this does not make them any less dangerous to the churches they serve. To say that the Bible contains errors is enough to make them the enemy of God. As we have already said, to deny the creation story, the historicity of Adam and Eve, is to undermine the account of sin and of salvation, as well as the work of Christ.

Our liberal usually supports all the ungodliness and liberalism that formerly went on in our Convention. He is very vocal in his support for Ruschlikon (the liberal seminary in Switzerland from which the FMB trustees cut support because of its liberalism). He will usually be a strong supporter of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, one of the most liberal organizations supported by the SBC when the Convention was controlled by the liberals.

The liberal will normally be a supporter of the "Virginia Plan" for the Cooperative Program. This plan was developed by Virginia liberals. It cuts giving to the SBC Cooperative Program to only 17 cents out of every dollar the church donates. They usually don't tell the churches they serve that in reality they are drastically cutting the SBC Cooperative Program.

Likewise, he will be a vocal supporter of the new seminary in Richmond the liberals have started. He is usually in favor of ordaining women to the ministry. Sad indeed is the church that has one of these reprobates for a pastor.

We are seeing a new day in our Southern Baptist Convention. We are returning the SBC to the faith of our fathers. But these servants of humanistic philosophy are trying to lead their churches away from orthodoxy and from the Southern Baptist Convention. All Bible-believing Southern Baptists need to have eyes to see and ears to hear. Words can be used as weapons to confuse and mislead. Don't be misled by godly sounding words which skirt the issue. Don't be too shy to ask the important questions and insist on clear, unequivocal answers. Especially when you serve on a pulpit committee be on the watch for men who give you glib words but evasive answers. You have a responsibility before God to pin them down and be absolutely certain you understand every answer the way they understand it. Sharpen and use your spiritual discernment!