Related articles and links |  1 of 7

1. CRC drops "male" requirement for church office
The Christian Reformed Church's biannual synod voted 112 to 70 to remove the word "male" from its requirements for church office. The denomination had earlier allowed its regional bodies (called classes) to "declare that the word male in … the Church Order is inoperative" and allow the ordination and installation of women as elders, ministers, and ministry associates. More than half — 26 of 47 — of its regional bodies had done so. Last night's vote essentially reversed this local option; while the national body has no gender restriction on offices, classes may "set restrictions on women serving as delegates" to their meetings. A separate vote this morning allowed women to serve as delegates to CRC synods.

2. Many votes at Southern Baptists meeting. Now comes the spin
One of the resolutions most discussed before the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting, Tom Ascol's call for "integrity in church membership," won't even come to the floor for a vote. Meanwhile, there was a fair bit of debate over a resolution on global warming, and no debate at all (just an "overwhelming" assent) to a resolution asking the denomination's executive committee to create a database of pastors who have been "credibly accused of, personally confessed to, or legally been convicted of sexual harassment or abuse." The Baptist coordinator of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which has recently given special attention to the Southern Baptist Convention, praised the vote as very positive and a step forward.

But the big news so far is the passage, by a vote of 2,137 to 1,565, of this resolution:

The Baptist Faith and Message is not a creed, or a complete statement of our faith, nor final or infallible, nevertheless we further acknowledge that it is the only consensus statement of doctrinal beliefs approved by the Southern Baptist Convention and as such is sufficient in its current form to guide trustees in their establishment of policies and practices of entities of the Convention.

Interpretation of the resolution's significance varies widely. "The message is, 'Don't restrict what is or isn't a Southern Baptist beyond the Baptist Faith and Message,'" Parkview Baptist Church pastor Benjamin Cole told The Dallas Morning News. The paper reports that the vote "could lead to greater acceptance within the denomination of those who have a private prayer language, a form of speaking in tongues." (The International Mission Board and the leaders of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have policies against hiring those who use a private prayer language or support the practice.)

Bill Harrell, chairman of the SBC's executive committee, disagrees. The Baptist Faith and Message "has always been our guide," he said, and trustees will "still be able to answer the questions about whether to hire somebody or not. … I don't think [the resolution] will have a lot of significance, and I really don't think it is going to change much."

In other news, the election Jim Richards as first vice president of the denomination is largely being seen as a vote of confidence in the direction SBC leadership has been taking. His opponent, David Rogers, had lamented that the denomination has been "side-tracked on theological tangents that are not central to the gospel" and said he saw no reason in Scripture "why the biblical gift of tongues, as depicted especially in 1 Corinthians 12-14, has ceased."

3. Sudan says it will allow 20,000 UN and AU peacekeepers in Darfur
"African Union officials hailed the announcement as a breakthrough, but others cautioned that the Sudanese government had made similar pledges only to reverse itself," The New York Times reports. "Sudan has also set conditions for the deployment, including an insistence that a majority of the soldiers be African and that non-Africans be used only as a last resort, which may hamper efforts to raise the force to full strength."

next page... |  1 of 7

share this page

June (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51