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Buckle
Up: Turbulence Ahead Most
of us have been on an airplane when the captain tells us to fasten
our seatbelts because we are going to encounter some turbulence.
Texas Baptists, you better buckle up. It is about to get
turbulent in Baptist life. The SBC leadership is going to attack
Texas Baptists like never before and trust me, it will be mean,
ugly and totally unethical. They will show no restraint or even
pretend to be civil. It has already started. On
June 21, Baptist Press issued a story about Anthony Sisemore.
Rev. Sisemore is the pastor of First Baptist Church, Floydada.
He made a motion at the SBC asking that the words, "the criterion
by which we interpret Scripture is Jesus Christ." I
do not know Anthony Sisemore. Baptist Press called our
office trying to tie him to TBC and CBF. I remember being introduced
to him at last years' BGCT annual meeting by a pastor friend.
He is not on our 19,000-plus individual mailing list. He is not
a member of TBC. I did not know he was making a motion at the
SBC. Neither Charles Wade or I had spoken to him prior to Orlando. I
have visited with him since Orlando. I told him I was proud of
him for trying to stand up for our historic Baptist principles
and asked if he was doing okay. It
seems the "rest of the story" is that when he read the
proposed changes to the Baptist Faith and Message statement he
was troubled. He thought, as I did, that those changes were wrong
and unBaptist. He told his church his feelings and he and nine
others (the churches full messenger allowance) went to Orlando
to try and amend the BF&M statement. Rev.
Sisemore spoke passionately that the heart of the Gospel was Jesus,
but he said one thing that could be misunderstood. During his
speech he said, "the Bible is just a book." What he
meant by that statement was that while the Bible is the inspired
Word of God and authoritative in all matters of faith and practice
(which he told Baptist Press), it was still a book, the Written
Word, and not equal to Jesus, the Living Word. It is Jesus that
saves. It is Jesus that we have a personal relationship with. But
the fundamentalist leadership of the SBC has seized on Sisemore's
statement that "the Bible is just a book" and are now
attempting to make Sisemore the poster child of Texas Baptist
liberalism. It
is a lie. They know better, but they do not care-they know what
he was trying to say, but truth is not important to them. They
think they have found the issue to destroy the BGCT and they are
going after it, no holds barred. They are saying that this proves
that Texas Baptists (and anyone who disagrees with them) believe
that the Bible is no different than Tom Sawyer, The Road Less
Traveled, or my own book, Songs in the Desert. Of
course none of us believe that, but they are going to proclaim
this falsehood every way they can. In
the Baptist Press article they proclaimed that they always
knew that "the moderates really do believe the Bible is just
another book," but they can't believe someone admitted it.
Richard Land said in a Dallas Morning News article that
they would make sure all Southern Baptists heard the audio and
saw the video of the debate on the convention floor and the unbelievable
things said about the Bible. Friends,
get ready. Buckle up. The lies are coming. Your mail boxes are
going to be full of these accusations, none of which are true. July 2000 |