Issues… (VII): “Conclusions Regarding Current BFM2000 Issues in Wider Context”

Well, I have been at this series for three and a half weeks and I’ve learned a great deal in the process.  Without question, I will never view the Baptist Faith and Message 2000–or either of its preceding editions, for that matter–in the same way. 

Gaining a grasp of history and the issues faced over time in getting to where we are now tends to greatly expand your normal–and unnoticed–”tunnel vision.”  At least, it did that for me.  So, as much as this series stretched me time- and energy-wise, I have no real regrets over having to creatively figure out where the time to do the research and writing would come from.

In fact, I would have to say that I think the conclusions expressed below may be the most important insights I have gained in regard to what is going on in the SBC right now.  I have no idea, though, how you will view them and you are the judge of significance.  All I ask is that you be willing to consider the “bigger picture” and fit the following thoughts into your mental re-orientation of the wider context.  If you do that, I have accomplished “exceedingly abundantly more” than I expected at the onset of this series.

When I began this series (originally intended to be a dialogue with Tim Guthrie, who never responded again after initially agreeing to the interactive approach), what got Tim heated up (though I did not share his fervor then and nothing I’ve found out in my study has suggested that it is going to become a “big deal” soon, though it certainly could at some point) was the issue of “caveats” related to the BFM2000.  As you may or may not know, some Southern Baptist personnel must sign the BFM2000 with complete “jot and tittle” agreement.  With many others, though, there is definitely room for disagreement at certain points, given that a word-for-word affirmation is not required for them.  What of consequence has been learned about this sticky area?

Next, the issue of what constitutes “first-tier” (i.e., supposedly what it means to be a Christian) versus “second-tier” (i.e., what it means to be a [Southern] Baptist) doctrines in the BFM2000 has buzzed around from time to time in the last year or so.  Has there been material that has been studied that helps clarify these slippery, but significant, distinctions?

Finally, in an attempt to make this a study that did not suffer from being conceieved in an overly narrow and focused manner, I dragged two more areas into the mix: 1) a parallel to the practical concept often called “canon within the canon,” which refers to the unofficial, but very real, ongoing avoidance of certain books or entire sections of the Bible; and 2) a parallel to the very official theological concepts of “Canon” vs. “Apocrypha,” notably in Roman Catholic circles leading up to and into the era of the Protestant Reformation.  Both areas are definitely worth pursuing for insight, especially since a Reform movement of a sort notably related to the last topic has begun in SBC circles.

And we’re off to the races:

Caveats (regarding the BFM2000)- After working through the Abstract of Principles and the 1925, 1963 and 2000 BFM statements, I have a lot more sympathy with those who express reservations in regard to BFM2000 wording in several areas.  Notable among them are aspects of Calvinism and those who believe in elder-led church government.  In both cases, later editions of the BFM moved away from those viewpoints.  And, the people in those admittedly minority camps in the SBC today have the right to protest: “You moved.  We didn’t.” 

Doctrinal Tiers (within the BFM2000)- I had to plow through quite a bit in the area of preconceived notions in this area to get to the following perspective.  So, I freely admit that I was a “slow learner” in regard to the doctrinal tiers of BFM2000.  But, I think I finally have a pretty good grip on things.

Here’s what I have come to understand as we have moved from the BFM1925 to the 1963 edition and the current 2000 edition.  In 1925, because it was the first BFM, both the first tier (what it means to be a Christian) and the second tier (what it means to be a Southern Baptist) doctrines were being teased out.  Because Tier One doctrines were placed first in the order of the articles, it might seem that Tier One was given more emphasis.  However, I do not think that order particularly constituted emphasis to the detriment of Tier Two doctrines placed toward the end of BFM1925.  In other words, BFM1925 did a pretty good job of balancing the sense of both “Christian identity” and “Baptist identity” for the SBC as its first official doctrinal statement.

Then, in 1963, the signficant re-shaping of the BFM was focused largely on the Tier One (“Christian identity”) doctrines.  With the exception of a couple of areas, the Tier Two (“Baptist identity”) doctrines were reworked only lightly.

In 2000, though, with the exception of the Doctrine of Scripture and one or two other core areas, it was mostly the Tier Two (“Baptist identity”) areas that got re-cast to any significant degree.  In effect, the amendment on “The Family” in 1998 had served as a forecast that a major re-defining of SBC identity was in the works as the CR progressed toward its goals.

In looking at the “big picture” here, it now seems quite clear that the current CR “covert ops” campaign of getting entity trustees to add de facto doctrinal policies/guidelines is simply “more of the same” beyond what the CR could reasonably expect to accomplish through BFM2000: forging an even “clearer” sense of Baptist identity for the era ahead (i.e., a narrower, more fundamentalist Baptist “identity”).

A Theological “Canon within the Canon”- At first glance, it may seem preposterous to some that this would even be discussed.  After all, the BFM2000 is a “seamless fabric.”  You can’t just take what you like and are comfortable with and overlook the rest, right?

Maybe.  But, what do we do with the “Peace and War” article of BFM2000?  Is the SBC, in fact, “In accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ,” doing “all in [our] power to put an end to war,” as the wording in Article XVI stipulates?  Or, since some of the power-brokers among the CR wing of the SBC have been comfortably in bed politically with the Republican Party at the policy level for years, including their thinking on the current war in Irag, are the rest of us supposed to just accidentally on purpose ignore Article XVI? 

Now, please understand: I have never voted other than Republican in my life.  But, when I read the BFM2000, Article XVI, I get very uneasy about what sure looks a lot like “a canon within the canon” problem among CR muckety-mucks.  I think it’s the old “if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck” thing that I just can’t seem to get out of my mind.

Confessional “Canon” vs. “Apocrypha”- In my opinion, this is an analogy whose time has come.  The BFM2000 is the “doctrinal canon” of the SBC, simply because it is, to use the wording of the Garner BFM2000 Motion, “the only consensus (i.e., voted on by the Convention at large) doctrinal statement” of Southern Baptists.  Simply put, that means that anything else claiming to exert the power of “doctrine” among us is outside the canonical bounds and is, thus, “apocryphal.” 

The trustees of three SBC entities have put those entities at odds with the SBC “canon” by passing doctrinal additions thinly disguised as policies or guidelines.  And, since the passage of the Garner Motion, in tragically arrogant non-compliance with their expected  direct accountability to the Convention (see SBC Bylaw 18), none of the three trustee boards has indicated that they intend to bring these “apocryphal” policies/guidelines to the Convention for a vote, as recommended by Morris Chapman in his Convention address, “Leading by Example.”

Where does that leave things?  Like Martin Luther and the other Reformers who took their stand on the principle of Sola Scriptura, forcefully excluding the Catholic use of books of the Apocrypha as a “scriptural” basis for purgatory (and, thus, the corruption of indulgences, in regard to purgatory), the SBC must gather her courage and stand up to these blatant “doctrinal flanking maneuvers.” 

In the Reformation Era, the Catholic Church was forced to call the Council of Trent and take an official vote on their Apocrypha to provide them canonical church status in the face of Sola Scriptura.  Will the CR finally come to their senses and realize that they are no longer fooling anyone with their “covert ops” and that the intramural squabble that they started with their trustee strategy is not going to end until they submit their “apocryphal” policies/guidelines to an official Convention vote? 

The answer is: “Probably not, since they are well aware that they neither have the votes or that the Convention is in the mood to monkey with the BFM anytime soon, given that a major overhaul took place less than a decade ago and inertia has again set in for the foreseeable future.”  So, we are likely in for a “Mexican standoff” until something happens that breaks the impasse.

As I prepare to close this series, it seems an appropriate juncture at which to lay out what is my biggest conclusion of all: how the CR has almost imperceptibly done a “make-over” on the very nature of the BFM in recent years.  Where only a generation ago, the BFM was considered–at least for the most part–a “still life picture,” if you will, it is now anything but.  Please carefully ponder the following:

1) As I said in an earlier installment, the BFM2000 is clearly both the voted-in official SBC doctrinal statement and a quasi-negotiated political document that had to face the realities of what the mood of the Convention would tolerate.  If the CR moguls had thought they had the votes to pass BFM2000 with everything they are doing by “covert ops” now (and probably other doctrinal minutia we haven’t even seen yet), they would most certainly have rolled that out too.

2) It is also at once a past-present and a present-future document.  The past-present angle deals with the continuity (similarity) and discontinuity (differences) of the current BFM with past statements.  The present-future angle has to with being a present tense ”snapshot” of our belief structure–the way it had been viewed previously–at the same time that it is a moving picture (video) of how SBC doctrine is alive and, thus, ever in the process of changing, even if almost imperceptibly, as we move toward the future.  (By the way, that is the best way I know to account for the fact that the BFM2000 seemed very conservative to a whole lot of people just seven years ago and does not seem that way at all to many of those same people now… although, admittedly, most in that category seem to be lockstep CR clones.)

and 3) Again, it is at once a descriptive and a prescriptive document.  In one respect, it is designed to detail with reasonable accuracy what the SBC has come to believe and voted into its authoritative place.  But, in another way, a careful reading strongly implies that it is also a somewhat less than subtle attempt to be a leading indicator/influence in either wooing or strong-arming some who opposed or voted against it to come around and embrace the areas with which they disagreed in 2000.

Bottom line: Apparently the CR honchos learned a trick or 12 from the legendary E.Y. Mullins, architect of BFM1925, who developed the concept of “soul competency” and steered it into the BFM.  Largely because of Mullins and his influence through BFM1925, a huge number of Southern Baptists were dramatically impacted in regard to the idea of “soul competency.”  And, the CR cadre behind BFM2000 has employed a similar influence in several areas.

But, Mullins’ example is not enough to explain the breadth of the changes in the way that the CR views and employs BFM2000.  So, is there an obvious example on a grand enough scale in our wider cultural context that can adequately explain the changes?

Possibly.  For about the first century and a half of its existence, the Constitution of the United States was viewed as a static document, to be interpreted by a “strict constructionist” approach.  But, with the appointment of a majority of justices who took an activist approach to Constitutional law, heavily utilizing precedent and interpreting key wording as what it could be stretched to mean, not what the authors intended it to mean, things changed dramatically.  And, realistically, the legal landscape of the United States may never recover from the impact of those highly unfortunate–and uncalled for–changes in perspective and hermeneutics.

Is there really a nickel’s worth of difference attitudinally and hermenentically with this example of American Constititutional law when the CR reads in their desired meaning to baptism being a “church ordinance?”  How about when their entity trustees “covert ops” campaign takes action to create “precedent” in our missions agencies and one of our seminaries?  Not that I can tell.  Both are stories of a small group of activists finding a brilliant, initially low-profile way to get their way.

Will they “get their way” long-term?  Those employing such a strategy and approach certainly did in regard to the Supreme Court for a long, long time.  The verdict is still out in the SBC.  Amen (prayerfully).

Coming Tomorrow: Fridays are for… Newpaper Articles (i.e., my weekly local column)

Coming Monday: The Holy Spirit… (VII): “The Spirit’s ‘Sealing’: Two Sides of the Coin”