Related articles and links |  1 of 2

Though The Washington Post's coverage of the Southern Baptist Convention's new Statement of Faith and Message says the document "drops the concepts of 'the priesthood of the believer' and the 'soul's competency before God,'" the preamble to the proposed Statement of Faith and Message was in fact amended the day of the vote to include the concepts. The preamble says, "We honor the principles of soul competency and the priesthood of believers, affirming together both our liberty in Christ and our accountability to each other under the Word of God."

The big news of the day is the Southern Baptist Convention's voted to adopt its proposed Statement of Faith and Message, which includes a line limiting the office of pastor to men. The vote wasn't a surprise and has collected headlines all week, but it's nonetheless one of the day's top stories.

Time says the denomination is trying to scare away moderate and liberal members and churches. The Chicago Tribune leads off with the women pastors angle ("Without a word about women, or from a woman, the nation's largest Protestant denomination declared Wednesday that the Bible permits only men to lead the nation's 41,000 Southern Baptist churches") but then goes on to note other controversial votes, such as a support of the death penalty. For the second day in a row, religion writer Steve Kloehn notes that the changes at this convention are only the latest in a long shift to the right for the denomination. "The conservative leaders who took control of the denomination nearly 20 years ago not only have championed controversial social causes, but also altered the nature of the Southern Baptist Convention, turning a loose coalition of autonomous churches into a national institution with an increasingly specific, top-down agenda," he wrote yesterday. Repetition aside, Kloehn's coverage is probably the most well-rounded of the major daily newspapers. Kudos also to Hanna Rosin of The Washington Post, who gives equal treatment in her front-page story to both women pastors and larger theological issues: "The newest version [of the Statement of Faith and Message] drops language that says the faith is 'rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ,' as well as a passage calling the truth something that must be 'continually interpreted and related to the needs of each generation.' It also drops the concepts of 'the priesthood of the believer' and the 'soul's competency before God'--shorthand for the Reformation idea that any individual believer can have a direct relationship with God without the intervention of a cleric or other church official. USA Today's is strange for its apparent short-term memory loss. "More churches are expected to shift affiliation to join the rival, moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship," Cathy Lynn Grossman. But just three days ago, Grossman wrote about how the CBF functioned as a "denomination within the denomination" and how its genius was that Baptist churches could align themselves as both SBC and CBF. The New York Times and Los Angeles Times simply run the Associated Press's coverage inside their "A" sections. The AP story is notable in that while it quotes several female SBC pastors who are upset with the decision, its only quote from the SBC leadership is by Adrian Rogers, chairman of the drafting committee, who offers the rather innocuous statement, "Southern Baptists, by practice as well as conviction, believe leadership is male."

next page... |  1 of 2

June (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44