“A Postscript on Caveats, Courtesy of David Rogers”

Recently, I wrote a seven-part series called “Issues Inside and Outside the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.”  After I laid out my series conclusions, I received a kind comment from David Rogers, which I will cite below.

But, before doing so, I am going to reproduce the final part of the conclusions from the BFM2000 series (in which I also focused on the progression from the 1925 and 1963 versions, to the 2000 reworking):

“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 descriptions of what the BFM2000 has become in the era of increasing Conservative Resurgence (CR) control of the SBC:

1) It is 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.  In other words, if the CR moguls had thought they had the votes to pass BFM2000 with everything they are currently trying to get in the side door by their entity trustees ‘covert ops’ campaign, they most certainly would have put that up for a vote also.

2) It is also both 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, at the same time that it is a moving picture (video) of how SBC doctrine is alive, ever in the process of changing, even if almost imperceptibly, as we move toward the future.  (I think this last part explains how the same people who were deliriously happy at the new more conservative BFM back in 2000 do not think it is narrow enough just seven years later.)

3) It is at once a descriptive and a prescriptive document.  In one respect, it is a detailed description of what the SBC has come to believe and voted into its authoritative place.  But, it is also a less than subtle attempt to be a leading indicator/influence (i.e., prescription) 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.”

But, the most helpful analogy of what the BFM2000 has morphed into in the hands of the CR is found in my closing analogy from that post (which was hardly original, but which I developed further):

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/framers 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.

Question: Is there a nickel’s worth of difference attitudinally and hermenentically with this tragic example of American Constititutional law in the way certain CR reads in their desired meaning to baptism being a ‘church ordinance?’  How about when their ‘covert ops’ campaign creates doctrinal ‘precedent’ beyond the BFM2000 in our missions agencies and one of our seminaries? 

Answer: Honestly, not that I can tell.  Both are stories of a small group of activists finding a brilliant, initially low-profile means to get their way (and, of course, ‘the end justifies the means’ only when it is their end and their means.)

Now, in the light of these conclusions, let’s address David Rogers’ stated area of concern: “… discrepancies between written and duly approved points of doctrine included in the BFM, and wide-spread divergence of belief and practice among the same constituency on the same points (i.e., ‘closed communion’).”

Then, his attached question was: “Is this just an anomaly in the system that should be ‘winked at?’  Should I, as an IMB missionary, who accepts all of the BFM 2000, with the only exception being the ‘closed communion’ clause, continue to serve with a good conscience as a denominational employee?  Why or why not?”

David, this is an excellent question!  If I understand you correctly, your frustration has to do with the fact that, no matter what the BFM2000 says, the SBC at large seems, if anything, at least as diverse as ever in both belief and practice.  That makes you wonder if anybody really completely adheres to the BFM2000 on a comprehensive point-by-point basis.

Well, David, allow me to start this part of the discussion with the day after the current BFM statement was passed in 2000.  At that point, Al Mohler, representing the BFM2000 committee, referred to it as a “regulative document” for all entity personnel to affirm.  So, it was certainly intended to be affirmed jot and tittle, apparently to ferret out any remaining Moderates still squatting in the weeds, so to speak.

But, there is another side to the story: What was trumpeted by Mohler and what actually happens are two significantly different things.  For example, after a careful study of the BFM2000 alongside the Abstract of Principles, I simply do not see how a person can affirm certain things in both documents at the same time with a straight face.

Here’s one of the classic “points of tension” (to put it mildly).  The Abstract reads: … [Adam's] posterity inherit a nature corrupt and wholly opposed to God and His law… .”  By contrast, the BFM2000 reads: “… [Adam's] posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin… .” 

Boys and Girls, if you check it out in historical theology, the wording in the Abstract is a fairly standard Calvinistic way of expressing human depravity.  However, the wording in the BFM2000 definitely leans heavily in the Arminian direction.  The point here is that you can’t logically hold both a Calvinist and (an at least semi-)Arminian position on unsaved human nature at the same time.  But, that is the illogical mess that the CR leaders created in 2000, when it was insisted that the faculties at Southern (where Al Mohler is) and Southeastern (where Paige Patterson was) affirm both.

David, what that tells me is that a whole lot of Southern Baptists still don’t take the BFM2000 (or the combination of the current BFM and the Abstract at two of our seminaries) seriously in terms of a word-for-word affirmation.  That means they are, to one extent or another–to use your wording–”winking at” the SBC doctrinal statement.  But, to your credit, you are trying very hard to do so with integrity, which I strongly commend.

One more illustration of the widespread “winking at” the BFM2000.  In the “Peace and War” article, the following wording is found, repeated word-for word from the BFM1963: “In accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ [Christians] should do all in their power to put an end to war.”  At first glance, you have to admit that this really looks bad for the SBC leaders who have been in bed with the current Republican administration in regard to the war in Iraq, in terms of affirming one thing in regard to the BFM and then saying/doing something very different.

But, in order to stand by the crucial hermeneutical principle of “authorial intent,” since the wording in BFM2000 was unchanged from BFM1963, I went to Herschel Hobbs’ book, The Baptist Faith and Message (Convention Press, 1981 ed.) to see what the committee chair of that version of the BFM said on this subject.  I was surprised to read that Hobbs could get a “just war” understanding (see pp. 135-37) out of the wording “the spirit and teaching of Christ,” but he did.

Of course, even if much of what has happened since 9/11 does fit within a legitimate “just war” framework, it would appear that an even-handed application of the wording of the BFM2000 “Peace and War” article would require SBC leaders to at least ask the Bush administration very serious questions after the purported reason for the invasion of Iraq (i.e., weapons of mass destruction) proved empty, as well as when no direct link between Saddam and Bin Laden was ever established.  And, if you try to use the excuse “It’s an Arab country in which there were many sympathetic to Muslim terrorists,” I have some very bad news to break to you.  The United States of America has a rapidly increasing Arab population, not a few of which are sympathetic to Muslim terrorists.  So, should we attack ourselves?

Now, let me hasten to say that I am a very conservative Republican.  But, surely you get the point.  Unthinking support of a war like this is not only short-sighted, but very much “walking on thin ice” in regard to the BFM2000.  You might even say that some among us appear to be ”winking at” the BFM2000 in this area.

In closing, let me finally get to the one issue you brought up as being your personal caveat: the BFM2000 view on the Lord’s Supper.  The reason I didn’t repeat your wording “closed communion” is because that is not what the BFM2000 teaches.

How do I know that?  Again, to respect “authorial intent,” our current understanding must square with what the original author(s) meant.  Again, the BFM2000 did not change the wording in that section from the BFM1963 (and thus forfeited their right to claim a different interpretation).

Here’s what Herschel Hobbs said about communion: “Some Baptist churches hold that one should be a member of the church in which he partakes of [the Lord's Supper]… .  Most Baptist churches hold that any member of any Baptist church is eligible” (p. 90).  And, since Hobbs rejects “the charge that Baptists are ‘closed communionists,’” that seals the point that the current wording of the BFM does not teach “closed communion.”  Thus, those who claim that the BFM2000 is teaching “closed communion” are simply reading it into the text (i.e., eisegesis) or stretching the words to what they can be made to mean, a la the Supreme Court analogy I referred to above.

Now, David, this still might not be much comfort, given that I’ve read on your blog that you hold to a ‘modified open’ understanding of the Lord’s Table.  But, it does change the overall discussion on “caveats” in regard to the BFM2000 considerably. 

What do I mean?  Well, all those highly opinionated people among us who have claimed that the BFM2000 teaches “closed communion” are dead wrong–Herschel Hobbs ended the discussion.  So, now, that means that extensive group has only two legitimate choices in front of them.  If they are honest, they will either: 1) change their position from closed communion to the actual BFM2000 position (to be able to affirm the BFM2000 wholly); or 2) they will freely admit that they have a “caveat” in regard to what BFM2000 teaches about communion. 

Of course, there is that other not so legitimate, but, as we have seen, still very widespread, option exercised by a lot of folks in the SBC.  They can just “wink at” the discrepancy and act like it’s not there.  Selah and Amen.

Coming Friday: “Fridays are for… Newspaper Articles” (my weekly local column)

Coming Monday: The Holy Spirit… (X): “The Flesh vs. the Spirit–It’s Our Choice”