Brothers and sisters, I apologize for not writing more often. I really enjoy writing but it is quite a time-consuming endeavor and church and family life have kept me busy as of late. But with Brit and the girls still in Texas, I’m finding a little more time on my hands and I wanted to give you all an update about some things that have occurred within the Southern Baptist Convention that are having some effects on our little church in Juneau.
SBC Convention in New Orleans
Messengers from all over the United States converged in New Orleans in mid-June to host the SBC annual meeting. Every Southern Baptist Church in friendly cooperation is able to send messengers to these in order to vote on denomination-wide issues. In essence, it is like a giant church business meeting.
I will say, if you have never been able to attend an SBC annual meeting, it is not as boring as it sounds. I was able to attend in 2019 when it was hosted in Birmingham, AL. It is preceded by a Pastor’s Conference prior to the meeting. Then there is a Mission’s night. And a whole lot of wonderful worship! If you’ve never been in a conference center with 20,000+ other believers singing “Holy Holy Holy,” you’re missing out!
Like with most business meetings, there are usually some heated moments and moments of political grand-standing. But, this is usually only a minuscule portion. Most of the time at these is spent fellowshipping with old colleagues and new friends who are your brothers and sisters in Christ.
With the SBC being the largest evangelical denomination in the nation, the media usually will cover parts of this meeting. Unfortunately, it is usually the less glamorous, more controversial parts that are highlighted and 9 times out of 10, taken out of context. This was no different this year.
Some of the controversial parts of the annual meeting this year consisted of a mildly contentious SBC president vote. Bart Barber was overwhelmingly reelected for his second consecutive term. There was also some sort of update on the SBC sexual abuse scandal. To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about this issue so I’m unable to speak on this with much working knowledge.
And lastly and perhaps most controversially the messengers discussed what to do with Saddleback church (aka Rick Warren’s church) and a few other churches (i.e. Fern Creek Baptist Church in KY) on their ordination of women as pastors. Specifically, women who have been ordained and are performing the duties that scripture quite clearly designates for male leaders. Earlier this year, the executive committee found that Saddleback and these other churches were not in friendly cooperation with the SBC and therefore were unable to have recognized messengers at SBC meetings. There are some other consequences as well, but this is the most substantial. In essence, these churches were effectively pushed out of the SBC. Saddleback appealed this decision and this was the issue that the messengers voted on at this year’s meeting. The messengers overwhelmingly voted to keep Saddleback and these other churches out of friendly cooperation with the SBC. It is this issue that I will address a little later on.
Tongass Baptist Association Meeting June 8th, 2023
On June 8th, I joined our monthly TBA (short for Tongass Baptist Association) associational meeting. If my memory serves right those present were me (GVBC Juneau), Eugene Williams (FBC Juneau), Al Aitken (FBC Juneau), Cody Schweggel (LIberty BC, Craig), Jason Wakefield (Coffman Cove Community BC), Lee Corrao (FBC Petersburg), Alan McElroy (White Cliff Church, Ketchikan) and Brock Langely (Mosaic). In this meeting, there was a vote to adopt the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a sort of confession of beliefs for the TBA. The purpose behind this was to have a document that outlines the common doctrines and beliefs that the associated churches of the TBA hold in common. It adds needed clarity on various issues facing our churches and allows us as an association to take a clear stand on these issues.
Here’s the rub, our church currently subscribes to the Baptist Faith and Message 1963. The reason is that since our by-laws and constitution were written in 1996, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 obviously had not been produced yet. At our July business meeting, however, we will move to change this and adopt the BF&M 2000 as our church’s statement of faith, and in our August business meeting, we will vote to adopt it. Here are some of the main reasons why.
A Little Baptist History
Since the inception of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, the convention has recognized 3 versions of the BF&M. The first was the 1925 BF&M which was a revision of the 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith. The 1925 was revised and expanded in 1963. And then once again, the 1963 was revised and expanded in 2000. The reasoning behind each revision and expansion is a lot, so I won’t go into it too much here but if you want to see the specifics of the changes between each version (1925, 1963, & 2000), you can check out this comparison chart here. For the purpose of brevity, I will focus on the three adjustments between the 1963 BF&M and the 2000 BF&M that I find most critical for us as a church to adopt.
I should note that, as an SBC church, GVBC is not mandated or required to adopt the BF&M 2000 as our official statement of faith. We can remain in good standing with the SBC with the 1963 BF&M as our officially adopted statement. However, as I’ll point out, I think it is worth adopting the BF&M 2000.
Scripture
In most of my systematic theology books, the very first doctrine they address is the doctrine of Scripture. The reason is that all of the other doctrines are directly derived from what one believes about scripture. If one does not believe scripture is inerrant (without error) or divinely inspired then it can severely throw off one’s belief about God, Man, Salvation, etc. Therefore, getting your doctrine of scripture correct is paramount to maintaining an orthodox theology.
Such is the case with the BF&M. The very first article addresses beliefs about scripture. Both the 1963 and the 2000 BF&M are very similar but the small wording changes between the two are pretty significant.
Here is what the 1963 says:
“The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.”
Here is what the 2000 says with the differences highlighted:
“The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.”
Let’s unpack some of this. The first major difference is the statement about the revelation itself. The 1962 states that it is a record of God’s revelation while the 2000 says that it IS God’s revelation. The difference is subtle but profound. One, scripture itself attests that it is not a record of revelation but is the direct revelation of God (2 Tim. 3:15-17). Second, if it is a record, it separates scripture from being a direct revelation of God. It then becomes harder to maintain the doctrine of inerrancy and divine inspiration.
The second major difference is the last statement. Similar to the above difference stated. Rather than being the criterion by which the bible is to be interpreted, both the Old and the New Testament directly testify to the saving work of Jesus Christ. By accepting these two things in the adoption of the BF&M 2000, I believe we as a church better align with what scripture actually reveals about itself and the God-head.
The Family
Never before in American history has the church had to so clearly define gender, sexuality, and marriage in its engagement with culture. This is exactly what is done in the update on Article 18 of the BF&M 2000.
The BF&M 1963 says this in the 2nd paragraph of the article: “Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel for sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.”
The BF&M 2000 says this (difference highlighted): “Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.”
While the BF&M 1963 does a fine job of providing a good biblical viewpoint of marriage, the BF&M 2000, just by adding the words highlighted above, better clarifies the biblical view of marriage. By tying it directly to the union between Christ and His Church, it leaves no wiggle room to question the necessity of heterosexual partners and it theologically grounds the headship of the husband over his wife. Both of these things are vital for protecting the orthodoxy of the Christian view of marriage. I think our church might do well to go even further in the future by adopting the Nashville Statement on Human Sexuality but that will be for another time. The BF&M 2000 sufficiently encompasses our church’s view and is solidly grounded in scripture.
The 6th article of the BF&M 2000 is perhaps the most significant and, in our day and age, the most controversial. It is the addressing of this article at the last SBC annual meeting in New Orleans that drew the most attention. But I believe the SBC made the correct call this past summer and added an amendment to this article which is worth discussing.
The BF&M 1963 says:
The BF&M 2000 with the 2023 amendment says (differences highlighted):
“A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its two scriptural offices are that of pastor/elder/overseer and deacon. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.”
It’s probably easy to see what makes this topic so controversial in our day and age. The first highlighted difference is mostly semantic with little effect on the beliefs of the church. The second highlight about each congregation operating under the Lordship of Jesus Christ through democratic processes encompasses a Baptist distinctive called the priesthood of the believers. This is essentially the view that all believers are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and part of One Body through One Spirit (See Eph. 4) and therefore the voices of all born-again believers deserve to be heard and considered in the direction of the Church. In essence, the autonomous congregations decide on the doctrinal and ministerial practices of their own churches and are not dictated by higher offices like popes or bishops.
The most significant change, however, is the addressing of the qualifications of the office of pastor/elder/overseer. I address this more in-depth in a previous pastor’s blog here. But suffice it to say, this topic is one that we need to clarify as a church. The 1963 BF&M has no such language limiting the office of pastor to men thereby leaving ample room to skirt this scriptural mandate. And if we, as an autonomous church, have no such clear language, it leaves the possibility for future generations to interpret this according to the cultural fads of their time.
Some might call this fearmongering or a slippery slope argument on my part. And on the surface, I suppose it is at least a slippery slope argument but I have history to back up my claims. There are some denominations that ordain women that have not opened the pastorate to clearly unbiblical qualifications. However, when you look at the exegesis used to justify ordaining women in the church (mainly that Paul was addressing a specific cultural issue that doesn’t apply to us today) it’s easy to see how one can continue to twist scripture to justify new social norms.
All this to say, we need to be clear about who we believe is qualified to be a spiritual leader of Christ’s Church. And we must continue to advocate for biblical ecclesiology even when the pressures of the culture are pushing us to do otherwise.
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