Comes the Southern Baptist Inquisition

Moves toward disfellowship of First Baptist Church, Decatur, Ga., for calling a woman (Julie Pennington-Russell) as senior pastor have become the prevailing measure of the Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) descent to inquisitorial enforcement of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M).

The historic SBC tenet "We have no creed but the Bible" is dead, mourned Texas pastor Ken Coffee on Jan. 28. FBC Decatur's prospective disfellowship and other actions mark the rise of the SBC's BF&M 2000 to the status of creed. Coffee outlines the history of the BF&M 2000 inquisition, observing by way of pointed introduction:

Now, it should be noted here that Texas Baptists as a convention (BGCT) have never adopted the 2000 BF&M. Texas still uses the 1963 version, which some have called the finest such document ever written. One wonders why the SBC has not kicked the BGCT out for not adolpting the 2000 BF&M. Could it have anything to do with money?

Even absent attack on an entire association, current enforcement of the theologically flawed BF&M 2000 as creed is "absurd," and could tear apart what remains of the SBC, warns Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson.

Burleson wrote:

The FORCED acceptance of the BFM 2000, by threatening to "disfellowship" from those churches who don't agree with every single one of its tenets, is patently absurd. Those who push "disfellowship" from churches that disagree with a portion of the BFM 2000 will destroy our convention if they are allowed to succeed. The SBC will have to eventually disfellowship from over 25,000 Southern Baptist churches. That is the number of SBC churches, at least according to one seminary professor, that have expressed disagreement with the BFM 2000 in either church practice or church doctrine in areas other than women pastors.

Burleson identifies "closed communion" as a BF&M 2000 doctrine with which "most Southern Baptist churches and pastors disagree." And throws down the gauntlet on that issue himself. For on that and other issues, he refuses to join those who have have "elevated a creed above the Bible!"

Lost amid the confused enforcement of BF&M 2000 as a creed, Ms. Pennington-Russell wrote in her Jan. 23 newsletter to her congregation, is the fundamental purpose of the church:

May God save us from the deadly notion that this church exists to provide goods and services for eligible "members." If anything, the witness of Scripture shows us that the church exists for the sake of the world. e exist to worship God and invest ourselves in bringing Christ's kingdom on earth. We esit to discern and to do God's will in an ever-changing world. We exist to follow Jesus into gospel adventures of all kinds in collaboration with all of God's people, whatever their denominational preferences or doctrinal stances.

There is no bedrock Baptist justification for the distraction from core church mission by BF&M "bullying," Burleson argues. It is "ungodly, unbaptistic and ridiculous" and "must stop." And stopping it, as with stopping bullies on a school playground, is a matter of confronting the bullies. In this case, a matter of confronting the bullies with the truth.

For as Coffee explains, "the BF&M was intended to be nothing more than a guide to churches to help them understand whether or not they wanted to be included in the fellowship of churches we call the denomination. It was never intended as a document for excluding churches. No church that would say they disagree with most points of the BF&M would want to cooperate with the denomination."