WE ARE THE MIDDLE
Co-Chair Thoughts from Billy Ray Parmer

The 1994 Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting went beautifully. I have never been so proud of Texas Baptists. Texas Baptists are REAL BAPTISTS. They understand Baptist polity and Baptist heritage. They prove it year after year at the annual meeting.

On several occasions I have written about “deception by perception.” What I mean by that is the fundamentalist took over the SBC by deception. They were successful is getting enough Southern Baptists deceived into perceiving that the SBC was turning liberal when in truth it was not. The “deception by perception” worked.

There is another “deception by perception” going on that I want to challenge. The perception being put forth is that there are three groups in Texas Baptist life. The fundamentalists, Texas Baptist Committed supporters, and a large middle group who just wants all the fighting to stop. The perception of these three groups is not accurate.

The true perception is this. There are the fundamentalists who took over the SBC and want to do the same thing in Texas. There are a large number of Texas Baptist churches just trying to survive and who are not involved at all in the convention beyond the local association, and there in the middle is the traditional Baptists who support Texas Baptists Committed and are very active in convention life.

WE ARE THE MIDDLE! That is why the candidates we endorse, and the proposals we support, pass at the annual meeting each year. We are the middle in this controversy between those who want to take over the BGCT and those who are not involved.

The fact is only a small percentage of BGCT related churches send messengers to the BGCT annual meeting each year. In any given year, three thousand churches do not send anyone. Most of them cannot afford to send anyone unless its the pastor. Of the 5,500 churches and missions in this state, over 4,000 of them run under 150 in Sunday School.

We have one group trying to take over, one group without the resources to participate, and Texas Baptists Committed standing in the middle resisting the takeover and urging Texas Baptists to stay true to our historic principles and Biblical heritage.

WE ARE THE MIDDLE BECAUSE OF WHAT WE STAND FOR. The fundamentalists want individuals and churches to do things a certain way. We want people and churches to do things the Baptist Way which is voluntary cooperation and local decision making. Our agenda is honoring and supporting historic Baptist principles.

Someone once contacted our office and asked for a doctrinal statement of what Texas Baptists Committed believed. We sent them the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message Statement. We are traditional Baptists.

We have no agenda for the staff of the BGCT except they lead Texas Baptists to be excited about the vision of missions and evangelism. We want them to be inclusive. We want them to be fair.

We have no agenda for the professors in our universities except they be free to teach. We support our schools and we understand the difference in encouraging students to think about their faith, reading various interpretations, and teaching heresy. We trust our trustee system to deal with any problems.

We have no agenda for local church mission giving except that they be responsible stewards and give as they choose. We do encourage local churches to not blindly support any cause. Examine the groups, agencies, institutions, and programs asking for your mission dollar. Support the ones you believe act Baptist and are committed to doing missions in the Baptist Way.

We have no agenda for local churches except that they be free from a top-down polity. Who churches ordain, allow to teach, or support financially is their business, not ours. We support local church autonomy and the priesthood of every believer. We believe if most Baptists honored those principles, most of the issues used by fundamentalists to divide us would not be so divisive. Most of those issues are local church issues.

Enough said. I have made my point. I believe we represent the middle, because we stand for time-honored Baptist distinctives. Baptists had the God-given sense to develop biblical principles which encouraged us to cooperate on the major things. That is where we want Baptists to stay, in the middle, focused on Christ, respectful of each local church and believer.