BAD THEOLOGY
by David Flick

The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 reminds me of the story about the elderly gentleman who was taking his wife for a drive in the country on a Sunday afternoon. Feeling a bit romantic, the wife reminded her husband that during their dating days they sat snuggled close together in the old jalopy during the drives. She asked her husband, why they no longer sat close together.

The gentleman replied, “Well, my dear, I ain’t moved a solitary inch. You’re the one who moved.”

I feel much like the elderly man because the Southern Baptist Convention has moved away from me. Southern Baptists once believed the Bible was the record of God’s revelation of Himself to man. Southern Baptists also once believed we interpret the Bible by Jesus Christ.

Things have changed. Some Southern Baptists have elevated the Bible to near deity status by declaring that it is now God’s revelation of Himself rather than a record of that revelation.

I have not moved an inch from the view that the Bible is the record of God’s revelation. I am theologically the same as I was two years or even 20 years ago. Southern Baptists have moved from where I am theologically.

Never before in Southern Baptist life have confessions of faith declared the Bible itself to be God’s revelation of Himself. The first confession of faith used by Southern Baptists was the New Hampshire Confession of Faith (1833).

This confession declared the Bible to be “a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction that has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without mixture of error for its matter.” The article on Scripture in the 1925 BF&M is worded precisely the same as the New Hampshire confession.

The 1963 BF&M says the Bible is “divinely inspired and is the record of God’ s revelation of Himself to man.” None of these confessions do with the Bible what the 2000 BF&M does.

To say the Bible itself is God’s revelation to man is a bad theology. I have very strong feelings about the Bible. I believe it is the divinely inspired, authoritative, infallible, written word of God. It is my sole rule for faith and practice. Nevertheless, I know the Bible is not God’s revelation of Himself to man. It contains the record of God’s revelation of Himself. Jesus Christ alone is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind.

I cannot agree with the bad theology of the “new and improved” wording of Article 1 in the BF&M 2000. This marks the first time in Southern Baptist history that the Bible alone has been declared to be God’s revelation of Himself.

I have not moved from the belief that the Bible is the record of God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. I do not plan to move in the near or distant future. My grandfather used to say, “If it ain’t broke, do not fix it.” The BF&M of 1963 was not broken and I do not plan artificially to fix it by agreeing with Article 1 in the BF&M 2000. Therefore, I cannot recommend its adoption to anyone or any church.

David Flick is an associational Director of Missions in Oklahoma, Grady Baptist Association of Oklahoma

January 2001