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Wade
cites SBC's 'rigid limitations' as cause for rift with Texas Baptists
CORPUS
CHRISTI, Texas (ABP) -- The crisis that prompted
Texas Baptists to eliminate more than $5 million in funding for
the Southern Baptist Convention was caused by "rigid limitations" imposed by SBC leaders, Charles Wade told messengers to the Baptist
General Convention of Texas annual session Oct. 30. In
his first convention report as BGCT executive director, Wade addressed
head-on what he labeled "a controversy that threatens the
Baptist vision." Wade criticized SBC leaders for creating
a "non-Baptist confession of faith" in the revised version
of the "Baptist Faith and Message" adopted by the SBC
in June. "And they have proceeded to use it in a non-Baptist
fashion -- as a creed rather than as a confession of faith,"
he added. "I
know there are those who question my judgment in this matter,"
Wade told messengers, "but I simply point out that never
before have Baptists adopted a statement of faith that claims
to be an 'instrument of doctrinal accountability.'" Previously,
Baptist confessions of faith have been a witness to the community
and a guide for instructing new members, Wade said. "Never
before have we called a confession of faith an instrument of doctrinal
accountability. Accountable to whom? Some religious authority?
Some ecclesiastical committee?" This
is the next progression in a pattern that Baptists have witnessed
over the last 21 years, Wade said, a period in which "there
has been a rigid limitation on who can serve Southern Baptists." "Unless
a professor or a prospective trustee or committee member was prepared
to use certain language concerning the Bible, they could not be
considered for service. People who believe the Bible were not
eligible because they would not frame their convictions regarding
the Bible using the special code word," he said. Wade
then held up a letter he received within the last month from SBC
president James Merritt, who was asking state-convention executive
directors to nominate individuals for service on SBC boards and
committees. "One
of the qualifications he listed was that they 'be fully supportive
of our 2000 edition of the Baptist Faith and Message,'" Wade
said. "That means it is not only those who are employed by
Southern Baptists, but also any pastor or layperson who might
be asked to serve in a position of shaping policy or making important
decisions on behalf of the rest of us, who will have to sign on
to the new confession of faith." "That
makes it either a creed or a loyalty oath or both," Wade
said to loud applause from the audience. He
also criticized the SBC's removal from the "Baptist Faith
and Message" of a sentence that declared: "The criterion
by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ." "This
is not a neo-orthodox idea as some have claimed," Wade said.
"It is a New Testament truth and the consistent view of Baptists
since there have been Baptists. And now it has been removed from
our confession of faith. .. I am sure they did not intend to nudge
the Bible into a place of idolatry, but that is exactly
January 2001 |
