The Controversy: Theological or Political? 

by T. C. Pinckney                                                                              Vol. VIII, No. 8, September 1995

It may be a bit misleading to put my by-line on this article because the body of it is a direct quote from Nancy T. Ammerman's Baptist Battles (Rutgers University Press, 1990) pp. 73-74. But before the quote a little background.

Ammerman is an associate professor of sociology of religion at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Her book draws on extensive surveys of thousands of Southern Baptists in 1985, 86, 87, and 88. It is important to note that Ammerman is an acknowledged member of the left wing in Southern Baptist life. She participates frequently in the meetings and activities of the "Cooperative Baptist Fellowship" and the "Alliance of Baptists." But it is also important to recognize that she is a capable and professional sociologist. Thus her research conclusions bear two important strengths: First, they are methodologically sound and certainly cannot be attacked as shoddy work by those who might wish to disagree. Second, since she is a prominent, active member of the Southern Baptist left, liberals cannot disparage her results as coming from some biased, ignorant, uneducated fundamentalist.

For some fifteen years or more we have heard repeated charges from liberals that the controversy in the SBC is simply a political power play by a group who were not in positions of influence and who wanted to displace chose who were. Conservatives have responded that though politics are involved, political actions were but the means to achieve a crucially important theological end. Let us now turn to what Ammerman’s research demonstrated.

"The terms of the Baptist battle are theological. It has obvious social, cultural, and organizational dimensions that are the concern of this book; but the terms used by the contenders have to do with what they believe. On at least some matters, Southern Baptists do differ rather widely in what they believe. To take some measure of the religious beliefs of this enormous denomination, the surveys conducted by the Center for Religious Research included among other things, a number of items on beliefs about the Bible, positions on lifestyle, and ideas about the nature and mission of the church. If the denomination is indeed divided in

its beliefs, then both variation in responses and consistent patterns among various parties ought to be apparent.

"The most obvious question over which Southern Baptists have been fighting is 'hermeneutics,' that is, the proper methods for interpreting scripture. The 1925 and 1963 Southern Baptist Statements of Faith began with a statement on scripture (sic) that included the phrase "truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter." Thus inerrancy became the rallying cry to fundamentalists. For them, scripture was to be seen as without mistakes of any kind; it was, after all, written by God. Any attempt to place the Bible in a more human context was to be resisted. just what might constitute an 'error' had, of course, long been in contention. Even within fundamentalist circles there were lively debates on how to harmonize the events described in the Gospels. And among those on the left, debates ranged from whether Jonah was really swallowed by a whale to just how long creation really took. Neither side would say that the Bible was wrong on anything really important, but they differed widely on what they considered important. Fundamentalists were willing to insist that the Bible was accurate in its history and science, as well as in its religious and moral prescriptions. Moderates saw biblical history and science as conditioned by the times in which it was written .. only its religious truths were really without error. [Bold print added.]

"The word 'inerrancy' became, then, a synonym for Southern Baptist orthodoxy, and only the most determined nontraditionalists refused to use the word. By 1985, when we first surveyed Southern Baptist pastors and lay church leaders, 85 Percent of them agreed or strongly agreed that "the scriptures are the inerrant Word of God, accurate in every detail. ..."

We should not be surprised that the authority of the Bible is repeatedly attacked. After all, we alerted in Scripture many times to expect such. You might want to review Matthew 7:15, Acts 20:29-31, II Corinthians 11:13-15, Galatians 1:6-9, II Timothy 4:2-4, Titus 1:9-16, II Peter 1:21-2:3, I John 2:18-26, II John 6-11, and Jude -- especially verses 3-4.

Praise be to God who has given us His inerrant Book. May we look to the Author and Finisher of our faith to grant us discernment to recognize those who would appear to be angels of light but actually preach “another gospel.”