Inerrancy Commotion in the Southern Baptist Convention
A Bible battle erupted last month at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Houston, Texas. And the battle lines were drawn according to one’s interpretation of scriptural inerrancy.
In the end, the conservatives won—at least, in the sense that Adrian Rogers of Memphis, Tennessee, was elected president of the 13-million-member denomination. Rogers believes in an inerrant and infallible Bible and hails from the conservative camp. In a postelection news conference, Rogers, pastor of the 11,000-member Bellevue Baptist Church, said, “I was saved in a church where the Bible was the Word of God … I have never moved from that an inch.”
But some Southern Baptists felt uncomfortable during the three-day meeting when conservative spokesmen attacked Southern Baptist seminaries as “liberal,” and engaged in preconvention politicking. One Louisiana pastor complained of these conservatives, “They may be as orthodox as Peter, but they’re as mean as the devil.”
An influential coalition of conservatives, led by Paige Patterson of the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies in Dallas, and Paul Pressler, a Houston appeals court judge, had supported Rogers for president and received credit for engineering his first-ballot victory. In at least 15 states, meetings were held prior to the convention, in which conservatives encouraged messengers (delegates) to attend the convention and to elect a president committed to biblical inerrancy.
Pressler and Patterson had made charges of “liberal” teachings in the six Southern Baptist seminaries. Certain faculty members, they said, did not hold to the traditional Baptist position of an infallible Bible. Evangelist James Robison and superchurch pastor W. A. Criswell of Dallas First Baptist voiced the same criticism and announced they would cosponsor a series of 15 to 20 conferences around the nation, beginning in August, to build support for scriptural inerrancy and expository preaching.
In response, the seminary presidents held a news conference in Dallas, in which they defended their allegiance to the Bible. The presidents said they knew of no professors who would not uphold the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message Statement, which reads, in part, that the Bible “has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error …”
President Duke McCall, whose Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville was one singled out as having liberal faculty, said much of the debate was over the “infallibility of human language”—that “we are in agreement on the inspiration of and authority of the Scriptures.”
McCall told reporters, “The original manuscript, which we do not have, is inerrant.… If you’re talking of an existing manuscript, you can’t say it’s without error. If you’re using inerrant to mean the message of God comes through by the Holy Spirit, it’s inerrant.” (The presidents also indicated they will support the Criswell-Robison meetings.)
Understandably, tensions were high even before the first of the 16,000 Southern Baptist conventioneers hit town. Then, speaking at a pastors’ conference in Houston two days before the convention, Criswell set the tone for things to come.
He announced to his audience, “We’ll have a fine time here, if for no other reason than to elect Adrian Rogers as the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Criswell’s statement apparently violated an unwritten rule against presidential endorsements by former presidents of the convention.
Criswell was followed at the podium by Robison, a Fort Worth-based evangelist whose organization so far has raised $9 million for a series of 15 prime time television crusades to be aired during the next year. Robison denounced any professors in Southern Baptist seminaries who deny inerrancy, and said, “Friends, when Satan attacks, he attacks from within.”
In interviews, some messengers defended the integrity of the Southern Baptist seminaries and thought the conservatives were quibbling over semantics rather than orthodoxy.
Clifford Belcher of Liberty, Missouri, said the only difference between most messengers and the conservatives was that the conservatives “were rolling up their Bibles and beating everyone over the head with them.”
The conservative view was expressed in Houston by Larry Lewis, pastor of Tower Grove Baptist Church in St. Louis. He wanted inerrancy stated in more precise terms, and introduced a resolution calling on seminary trustees to employ only people who believe in the “the divine inspiration of the whole Bible, the inerrancy of the original manuscripts, the existence of a personal devil and a literal hell, the actual existence of a primeval couple named Adam and Eve.…”
There might have been a divisive controversy after Wayne Dehoney, Louisville pastor and a former president of the convention, introduced a subsequent resolution to reaffirm the present Faith and Message Statement. (Lewis believed the statement could be too loosely interpreted.)
A compromise, however, was worked out between Dehoney and newly-elected president Rogers in some behind the scenes as well as platform bargaining. The men agreed that inerrancy, as defined (but not written) in the Faith and Message Statement, applied to the “original autographs,” which satisfied Dehoney. Then they agreed to interpret the Faith Statement as meaning the original manuscripts were scientifically, doctrinally, historically, and philosophically without error—a key point for conservatives. They explained this agreement to Lewis, who agreed to withdraw his resolution.
In a resolution pleasing to moderates, the messengers expressed “profound appreciation” to seminary professors. (Resolutions committee chairman Weldon Gaddy told concerned conservatives that the resolution was not a blanket endorsement of all professors.) The same resolution also said that complaints against faculty members should be taken to the trustees at the seminaries where they teach, as prescribed in the procedures of “historic Baptist policy and the guidelines of the SBC constitution.”
This year’s convention may have been unique because of the campaigning and rhetoric, which on occasion was as hot as the jalapeno peppers served at concession stands inside The Summit convention center. Spokesmen in the inerrancy debate held scheduled and unscheduled press conferences for any of the 275 accredited newspersons interested.
Harold Lindsell, editor emeritus of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, held two news conferences in which he discussed his new book, The Bible in Balance, the sequel to his controversial Battle for the
Bible. Each conference became an open forum for debate over inerrancy. Both books have entire chapters where Lindsell names several Southern Baptists who, he says, deny inerrancy.
In an interview, Lindsell suggested, as Rogers has, creation of a special committee to locate those Southern Baptist seminary professors who do not hold to the traditional Southern Baptist position of an inerrant and infallible Bible. These faculty members should be “let go,” Lindsell said.
The Pressler-Patterson coalition was criticized both publicly and privately for its alleged use of dishonorable campaign tactics. Pressler, whose status as a bona fide delegate was questioned, defended himself on all counts in an emotional speech. He also said he was representing a church in Houston of which he was an “honorary” member.
The net result, however, was a resolution that the convention “disavow overt political activity and organization as a method of selection of its officers.” And the convention authorized registration secretary Lee Porter to make an investigation of voter irregularities.
Porter told the Baptist press that he had planned to make a study of messenger registration and voting at the 1979 convention, even without the motion. He said, “We found some churches which had more than 10 messengers [the maximum allowed], and we found some people who had double registered.”
An issue almost as controversial as inerrancy—separation of church and state—merited little discussion at the convention. But the Christian Life Commission had created a slight stir by its announced support of the widely disputed Internal Revenue Service proposal to remove the tax exempt status of private schools found to be racially discriminatory.
William Elder, of the Christian Life Commission, explained this stand as “a commitment to fight racism.” Said he, “We simply don’t agree that separation of church and state is at issue here.” But the messengers adopted a resolution that opposed the IRS proposal, and all IRS “intrusions into church-operated schools.”
Conservative-liberal tiffs aren’t new to the annual meetings, said Porter Routh, who retires this month after 28 years as secretary-treasurer of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. Routh recalled the late J. Frank Norris’s attacks on liberalism in 1939, and criticism by conservatives of the Broadman Bible Commentary in the early 1960s. “These things generally tend to work out toward the middle,” he said.
Such may have been the case toward the end of the convention. Rogers promised to bring an attitude of love and reconciliation to the presidency, and at a news conference, denied having any part in the Patterson-Pressler coalition, saying he represented no splinter group.
“I love Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson, but if I can’t love all Southern Baptists, I don’t have a right to be president,” he said.
Rogers spent more than two hours in a fence-mending meeting with editors of the convention’s 34 state newspapers. Several editors had criticized the conservatives for politicking, and, in turn, had been attacked publicly by the conservatives. Rogers also spent time with seminary presidents, including William Pinson of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and Duke McCall of Southern Baptist in Louisville.
Rogers, a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, stuck to his earlier statements, however, that some Southern Baptist seminaries have faculty members who do not believe in inerrancy. He told the Baptist editors that Southern Baptists probably are unaware of the extent of liberalism in the seminaries—that some professors “are so glib … so good at semantics … that the rank and file have not yet found out what some professors believe.” Rogers has indicated he will name proinerrancy Baptists to those convention committees that have the authority to appoint seminary trustees.
(Rogers was a founder and, until several months ago, a board member of the Baptist Faith and Message Fellowship. The group was formed in 1973 by conservatives committed to biblical inerrancy and to exposing liberalism in Southern Baptist seminaries. Rogers’s Memphis church gives $36,000 a year to the adjacent Mid-America Baptist Seminary—not one of the six official Baptist seminaries—that was established as a conservative alternative to the “liberal” seminaries.)
Committee appointments are the most direct way a Southern Baptist president can affect the character of the denomination. Presidents are primarily image-makers for the denomination, say Baptist watchers, and are allowed only two single-year terms.
Observers wonder if Rogers will be challenged for reelection at the annual meeting next year in St. Louis: Baptist presidents customarily are voted to a second term without a challenge.
Only time will tell, they say, whether this year’s meeting was just another family squabble or an indication of a resurgence by conservatives.
Seminaries
Fuller’s Problems Are Psychological but Real
What began as a routine reevaluation by an American Psychological Association (APA) accrediting team has resulted in a major controversy for the 140-student School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.
Central to the debate are five psychology students whose protests deferred the accreditation process, and a proposed sexual standards statement, which the so-called Group of Five has criticized.
A three-member site team visited Fuller in January, and in a report submitted to the APA Committee on Accreditation, lauded the psychology school and recommended its reaccreditation: “The entire institution appears to be characterized by a blend of scholarliness and public service into which the psychology program fits nicely. The result is a very bright well-qualified group [of students] who are very clear that they have chosen Fuller for its unique combination of psychological and theological training.” The accreditation committee reportedly voted to approve the site team’s report.
However, subsequent protests by the Group of Five to APA President Nicholas Cummings contained “conflicting information,” said Meredith Crawford, administrative officer for accreditation. Crawford said that Cummings referred the protests to the accreditation committee, which “voted to defer action until a second site team could visit the campus” to investigate.
The seminary was notified late last month that the second APA site team intends to visit prior to August 10, if possible. While this second study will be “time consuming and distracting,” President David Hubbard said, “it will also give us opportunity to make clear that the five students who have raised questions about Fuller stand virtually alone.”
Psychology student Anne Glasser first made public the protests of the Group of Five, which apparently had contacted the APA without the knowledge of other students or faculty at the school. In her May 22 letter to psychology students and faculty, Glasser revealed her discoveries that the five had been communicating secretly with APA members personally and by letter “their belief that Fuller’s program is in violation of APA standards.”
The five students, including Ray Towne, then the president of the psychology school’s Graduate Union, had protested a reported lack of academic freedom, alleged situations of “dissertation tampering,” and a more definitive sexual standards statement, which at press time was being considered for approval by the seminary.
Glasser, who said she learned about the protests from the Group of Five firsthand—during an evening conversation—asserted in her letter that the group had submitted various documents to “prove” its contention and hoped to use its “alliance with APA to force the faculty and administration of the School of Psychology to change their attitude and policies.” She also reported that the group had been “lobbying intensively” for over two months “without informing their fellow students of their activities.”
In a meeting with psychology students three days after Glasser made the findings public, members of the Group of Five acknowleged contacting the APA. But they would not disclose the exact nature of their charges against Fuller. Some students expressed feelings of betrayal to the group for their having jeopardized the school’s highly prized APA approval without first making grievances known through regular channels at the seminary.
In a special election the next week, Towne was recalled as GU president by a vote of 122–8 (a 91 percent student turnout). A motion was also in process to have Group of Five member Scott Scribner recalled from his post as a GU representative. (The remaining three—Geoffrey Sarkissian, Gregory Wheeler, and Stanley Conrad—hold no student government positions.)
When contacted about its activities, the Group of Five refused to comment. “We have decided not to talk because of excessive speculation; our main concern at this time is protecting our own interest in the school,” said Scribner.
The faculty passed a motion saying that no action should be taken against the group until full knowledge of its communications with the APA was made available. However, 109 students signed a statement, sent to APA executives, that said the Group of Five does not represent their views. The statement also disavowed the group’s “unilateral and secretive initiative.” They affirmed the school’s established processes for lodging grievances and its unique identity as part of a theological seminary.
Fuller’s six-year graduate program in psychology is one of 103 clinical psychology programs in the country approved by the APA and the only approved program that is connected with a religious institution. APA approval—likened to endorsement of a medical school by the American Medical Association—enables a school to attract better students and faculty, and to secure more federal grants and prestigious internships for its students. Fuller’s program was first approved by the APA in 1973, and the school was up for its five-year reevaluation this year. (Fuller with a total of 1,800 students, also has separate schools of theology and world mission.)
Some have questioned the psychology program’s seminary ties, but the APA site team reported no conflicts. The site team had asked (as described in its report) “the outside training directors to help them address the issue of any consequences resulting from the religious orientation of the training program. They [training directors] readily gave a number of examples of positive results (ability to relate to religiously oriented patients; ability to handle difficult life situations presented by patients which were beyond the ability of other students) but no indication of any negative consequence was noted.”
One psychology professor suggested that the APA could deny approval if it determines that the school’s credal statement is an infringement of academic freedom and that its proposed sexual code is an infringement of ethical freedom. If that happens, he predicted that Fuller would take legal action against the APA and fight to retain approval.
Others, however, were confident that Fuller would be granted APA approval even after a second site team visit. Said one professor, “The APA struggled last year over whether or not a religious institution that discriminates in the hiring of faculty can be approved and they passed it overwhelmingly. Their own attorney has it in writing that they would have no legal grounds to stand on because of the issue of religious freedom.”
Fuller would not be willing to drop its proposed sexual standards statement in order to insure APA approval, said President Hubbard. “We have to take whatever stands we feel are openly and confessionally Christian,” he said. “APA is very important to us but so is our fidelity to our Christian convictions.”
According to Hubbard, the need for such a statement arose last October after an anonymous letter was sent to Fuller trustees by a group calling itself the Fuller Alliance for Gay Students (FAGS); the letter acknowledged the presence of gay students among the Fuller student body. The situation was aggravated by a second letter sent by FAGS to Christian schools throughout the country, in which the group promised support to any homosexual students coming to study at Fuller.
The administration said it could not determine for sure whether the letters came from an authentic student group, from an off-campus organization, or as a prank.
Evangelicals Concerned (an information and support group for homosexual Christians, which endorses “covenanted” practicing homosexuality) described the formation of FAGS in its winter 1979 newsletter. The same newsletter listed Fuller School of Psychology professor Phyllis Hart as an EC advisory board member.
The seminary already has statements on student conduct and procedures for student discipline in its catalogue and student handbook, respectively, said Hubbard. One requirement for graduation, said Hubbard, has been that a student have “conduct in accord with standards of wholesome Christian character.”
However, Hubbard said the seminary felt it needed to “spell out a little more clearly what we view as wholesome Christian conduct.” The proposed statement specifically refutes as unbiblical any sexual activity outside of marriage, as well as homosexuality; it “represents making specific and concrete a set of standards that we’ve always adhered to as an institution and that have affected our admissions and counseling procedures.…” said Hubbard.
He explained further: “We have to go on the record in some cases a little more specifically, particularly if we ever anticipate that the institution may have to exercise discipline, because the courts insist on standards that are spelled out beforehand and on carefully described and executed procedures.”
PHYLLIS ALSDURF
Christian Science
Mixed Bill of Health in Centennial Checkup
Without fanfare, some 7,000 Christian Science members from around the world took note of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the First Church of Christ, Scientist—the “Mother Church,” begun by Mary Baker Eddy—during the church’s annual meeting last month in Boston. The meeting was closed to the press, and featured no special centennial observances because, as a spokesman explained to reporters, leaders wanted to “emphasize spiritual rededication” instead.
Harvey W. Wood, chairman of the Mother Church’s board of directors, indicated that the “growing interest in Christian healing by people of many faiths” is a source of encouragement to Christian Scientists (whose ranks have thinned greatly in the last 25 years). Such interest, he said, shows that many people are swinging away from materialistic thinking and “reaching out to learn more of man’s relationship to God, and the spiritual basis of true health and wholeness.”
(Christian Science holds that personal well-being—including health—depends primarily on the way one thinks about life and God. Professional medical care is usually shunned. Physical conditions are not ultimate realities, but rather “externalized forms of mental states which can be changed by the human yielding to the divine,” explained a recent Christian Science Monitor article. Mrs. Eddy, who “discovered” Christian Science as a method of healing in 1866 and later established the Christian Science Church to promote it, defined God as Life, Truth, Love, Principle, Mind, Soul, and Spirit.)
The centennial saw the Mother Church and its some 3,000 branch churches in 51 countries in an unclear state of health. Materially, the signs seemed good, but other areas, such as church membership, did not appear so promising.
The Mother Church alone has an estimated $350 million in assets, including property and trusts. Its Boston headquarters was built eight years ago for $82 million with no mortgage. Financial reports show the group as debt free with cash balances of $70 million on hand; about $3 million of the sum is designated for specific purposes. Church leaders decline to say how much of the church’s income comes from contributions. Members are charged a per capita tax of one dollar per year for the Mother Church.
Expenses last year were $29 million, including $6.2 million to cover a deficit incurred by the Monitor, the highly respected newspaper published daily in the United States (178,000 circulation) and weekly overseas (16,000). An endowment fund established a year ago to help support the Monitor now stands at $3.2 million, with contributions pouring in at the rate of $250,000 a month, said a spokesman. (The Monitor receives about $6 million annually in circulation income, and an equal amount in advertising revenues.)
In accord with Mrs. Eddy’s instructions to avoid emphasis on numbers, the church issues no membership statistics. But most observers place current active membership at between 200,000 and 225,000—a decline of perhaps 100,000 or more since the church’s heyday several decades ago. Many of the members are middle-aged and elderly women, attendance at many large churches is sagging, and leaders privately lament the lack of interest among young people in the church’s teachings. Church officials acknowledge that 257 branch churches and 97 storefront reading rooms have been closed in the past ten years.
One possible barometer of membership strength and activity is the number of Christian Science practitioners and teachers. These full-time lay workers are listed in the monthly Christian Science Journal (circulation 160,000), and their numbers have declined radically in a number of metropolitan areas in the past 25 years, according to an informal survey by CHRISTIANITY TODAY. For example, the number of practitioners in metropolitan Chicago declined from 355 in 1954 to 73 last year. Others areas showing losses since 1954: San Francisco, from 205 to 46 last year; New York, from 359 to 104 last year. Even Boston showed a decline: from 215 to 125 last year. A similar pattern is seen in churches overseas.
Christian Science leaders acknowledge that the church has experienced decline, but say it is one that is no worse than what some other denominations have experienced lately. The church is merely going through a “pause, a chance for a second wind,” Christian Science historian Robert Peel told a Wall Street Journal reporter earlier this year.
Whatever its numerical strength, the church over the years has had a clout that belies its numbers. A network of Committees on Publication monitors legislation on state and federal levels to make sure Christian Science members are protected. As a result, practitioners are accorded the same status and benefits by the Internal Revenue Service as are ordained ministers. Blue Cross and Blue Shield in 14 states, along with hundreds of insurance companies, cover “care” provided by Christian Science practitioners under a special category similar to psychiatric treatment. (A practitioner, who may or may not make personal visits, usually charges from $2 to $15 a day to pray for an afflicted person; for infirm persons unable to remain at home, the church operates 33 rest homes.)
The Committees on Publication also keep an eye on press coverage about Christian Science, and they are quick to point out inaccuracies. For the past year, the committees have been fending off attacks by a handful of dissidents known as United Christian Scientists. The dissidents are led by David Nolan, 33, of San Jose, California, who was excommunicated by the church for his divisiveness. Nolan, who claims a mailing list of 120,000, charges that the church’s Boston leadership has become totalitarian, corrupt, and infiltrated by Communists. These charges are dismissed as ridiculous by the leadership.
About 500 Christian Science members with special training and credentials are listed as teachers. The designation qualifies them to teach a two-week course in Christian Science doctrine once a year. Classes are limited to no more than 30 students, who pay $100 for the course—an amount stipulated by Mrs. Eddy in the church’s 1895-vintage manual.
Christian Science services are led by lay persons. On Sunday, a Bible lesson, printed in the Christian Science Quarterly (160,000 circulation), is read from the pulpit; members are expected to have studied it during the week. A midweek service focuses on local church needs, and personal testimonies are given. The same 26 topics, as designated by Mrs. Eddy, are repeated twice a year. Each church is required to have a reading room where members and the general public can study and purchase Bible study materials.
EDWARD E. PLOWMAN
