A Step in the Right Direction for the BGCT

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that The Baptist General Convention of Texas has disfellowshipped Royal Lane Baptist Church over the church's stance regarding homosexuality. Royal Lane has apparently acquiesced to the BGCT's further request that the church cease to identify itself on its website and in publications as a BGCT-affiliated congregation.

This is a very positive step that ought to be celebrated. The disfellowshipping of congregations should be a matter accomplished at the associational level (and the Dallas Baptist Association has taken action alongside the BGCT) and then allowed to percolate up through state convention and national convention tiers. As more local associations and state conventions begin to take responsibility for these cases, the health of Southern Baptist churches will increase.

As positive a step as it is, it still remains, however, just a step and not the whole journey.

Royal Lane BC came under the BGCT microscope earlier this year when the Dallas Morning News put the church's espousal of homosexuality onto the public record. In this way, Royal Lane's situation is strikingly parallel to that of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, which the SBC disfellowshipped at last summer's annual meeting, but which remains within the BGCT. Broadway also gained widespread attention from a news media report about its stance regarding homosexuality—in its case for its ultimately abandoned attempt to photograph homosexual couples in its church directory.

The similarities between the two cases include:

1. Both churches have been growing increasingly affirming of homosexuality for several years.
2. Neither church has made any official change to the church's statement of faith regarding human sexuality (or, at least, no such change has been mentioned in the public record in either case, as far as I can find).
3. Both churches have several openly homosexual individuals who not only attend but also are church members.
4. Both churches have placed openly homosexual individuals into leadership positions within the church.
5. Both churches have historically been influential churches in the life of the BGCT, having members employed by Baptist entities and having contributed several people to BGCT boards and committees through the years.

In the light of these similarities, it is curious to see the different manner in which the BGCT has handled these two cases. The BGCT did not disfellowship Broadway, but instead employed the church's failure to send messengers to the 2009 Annual Meeting as an excuse to do nothing at present. Today's action regarding Royal Lane clearly demonstrates what careful students have known all along—that Baptist cooperative bodies can indeed take disciplinary action to withdraw fellowship from member churches even apart from refusing to seat messengers from those churches.

Why the differences in the treatment of the two churches? According to the news report, the BGCT seems to have treated Royal Lane more harshly because the North Dallas church has taken the additional step of having ordained two openly homosexual individuals as deacons. Both the BGCT's statements and the rebuttal by Doug Washington, Royal Lane member and BGCT Executive Board member, suggest that the two homosexual deacons constituted the major point of contention in the discussion.

The BGCT's apparent position, divined from the respective treatment of these two churches, seems to be that BGCT churches may welcome openly unrepentant and ongoing homosexuals into membership and may promote those individuals into leadership, but those churches may not ordain those individuals into service as deacons or pastors, lest they be disfellowshipped from the BGCT. Ordination has become the BGCT line in the sand.

It seems to me a difficult thing to support this position biblically. The Bible certainly does propose to us a set of standards to qualify deacons and overseers, but none of them suggests that ordination is the point at which previously embraced homosexuality is no longer to be permitted. Indeed, although homosexuality is roundly condemned in Testaments New and Old, and although Jesus Himself in the gospels presents marriage as the union of man and woman, the concept of homosexuality is nowhere broached as a matter that pertains to service as pastor or deacon rather than as a matter that pertains to the basic sexual morality expected by God of all the redeemed.

So, whatever it is that the Bible says about homosexuality, it says it not to "the ordained" alone, but to all Christians. If any difference is made between deacons and pastors on the one hand and lay people on the other hand with regard to homosexuality, it cannot be a difference in what the Bible commands but can only be a difference in how seriously we expect Christians to take biblical commandments with regard to their own behavior.

Ironically, to draw the line at homosexual ordination is to do violence to the Baptist distinctive of the priesthood of all believers. To draw the line at homosexual ordination is to make two classes of believers in the church—a class of ordained "clergy" and "deacons" for whom obedience to biblical sexual standards matters, and a class of unordained "laity" who can be prominent and leading members of the congregation—celebrated members, even—for whom obedience to biblical sexual standards does not matter.

Any such system of distinction must be entirely a creation of human tradition. According to the New Testament, every Christian is a believer-priest and each Christian is called equally to holiness, for alongside the royal priesthood we are named as a holy nation in 1 Peter 2. Clearly, no biblical warrant exists for toleration of homosexuality up to the bright line of ordination.

Perhaps this lack of biblical foundation is why so many denominations, once they have decided to permit homosexuality except among the ordained, have inexorably kowtowed at that restriction as well. Refusal to ordain homosexuals who are otherwise welcome to belong and serve in a congregation has never constituted a destination, but always has been a mere waypoint.

The question before the BGCT today is simply which direction the denomination is going from this waypoint—which destination lies before them. My differences with the BGCT on other matters notwithstanding, I'm hopeful that the remaining conservatives within the BGCT are finding their backbone and that the direction of movement is toward a thoroughly consistent BGCT policy toward BGCT churches that abandon the biblical position on the question of homosexuality. Perhaps some of my readers will speculate to the contrary that the BGCT will eventually follow the trail blazed by the Episcopalians and so many others toward an entire embrace of homosexuality.

This much is certain: We'll know the answer to that question based upon what happens to Broadway Baptist Church's affiliation with the BGCT.

An Errant Bible: The Gateway Heresy

One of the things I most appreciated about Dr. Danny Akin's sermon about the Axioms of a Great Commission Resurgence was his bold statement that there is no room in the Southern Baptist Convention for people who do not agree regarding the inerrancy of the Bible. It is an utterly unenforceable concept, but nonetheless a welcome clarification of what it means to be a Southern Baptist.

Inerrancy-fatigue has meant that there has not been much discussion in the blog world about the nature of the Bible. Indeed, inerrancy-fatigue may mean very little response to this blog post. Nevertheless, I have decided to reproduce a paper that I wrote some time ago on the topic of inerrancy. The paper amounts to an attempt to interact with the thoughts of James Denison, the official theologian of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and his attack upon inerrancy in a self-published paper entitled, "The Errancy of Inerrancy." It is longer than my standard post, so if such things bore you, I won't be offended if you just don't bother. Otherwise, enjoy.

An Errant Bible: The Gateway Heresy

Dr. Jim Denison has served as the official professional theologian of the Baptist General Convention of Texas since being installed as Theologian-in-Residence at BGCT by the administration of Dr. Randel Everett in January 2009. Dr. Denison’s ministry as theologian-in-residence, according to Everett, will “[reflect] an innovative approach to serving the needs of our churches in Texas while also being involved in ministry beyond the state.”

Mentioned in the press release, and doubtless a factor in his selection, are Denison’s past labors in communicating theology to lay people. Among his better known efforts in this regard are his published books, such as Wrestling with God: How Can I Love a God I’m Not Sure I Trust? Far less known, but perhaps more important, is a paper Denison published in 2005 entitled “The Errancy of Inerrancy: Historical and Logical Examinations.”

The nature of the Bible is a foundational point of Christian theology. Denison serves in a rare and prestigious position as the official resident theologian of a large state convention of Southern Baptist believers. The inerrancy of the Bible has become a topic of significant historical importance. Denison’s writings are factually flawed and tend toward sophistry. For all of these reasons, this paper will offer a critique of Denison’s denial of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.

Two possible approaches exist for refuting Denison. One approach would involve the authorship of a footnoted pedantic rebuttal fit for the academic community. I believe that this type of rebuttal is the less important of the two options. Denison authored his paper in order to take the denial of inerrancy down from the ivory towers of liberal academia (its indigenous habitat) and plead his case “in common-sense terms” for the benefit of “anyone confused by this issue” for whom “too little of [the denial of inerrancy] has been explained or made relevant to the church member.” Because Denison has made this argument for the lay community, the rebuttal also needs to be addressed toward the lay community. Besides, Denison’s paper is merely a regurgitation of points long since addressed within academic circles, making an academic rebuttal superfluous. It is appropriate for this rebuttal to take a non-academic, common-sense tone in setting forth the simple logical flaws of Denison’s main arguments.

Those main arguments are six in number:

1. Denison argues that the word “inerrancy” has been defined and qualified in too many different and highly technical ways to be of any theological use; therefore, we ought to prefer to speak of the “trustworthiness” or “authority” of the Bible.

2. Denison argues that the concept of inerrancy, since it is applied exclusively to the original Bible manuscripts, actually undermines the faith of believers in their own copies of the Bible.

3. Denison argues that inerrancy is a recent doctrinal innovation not shared by those in Christian history whom we ought to emulate—that it is not among our theological “roots.”

4. Denison argues that rather than the denial of inerrancy's leading to other heresies, the affirmation of inerrancy leads to unwarranted divisiveness.

5. Denison argues that inerrancy is a philosophical position not supported by the statements of the Bible itself.

6. Denison argues that the Bible actually is not inerrant; therefore, to apply the test of inerrancy to the Bible is to set the Bible up to fail at a test that it does not and would not apply to itself, and thereby to undermine one’s belief in the “trustworthiness” of the Bible.

FIRST, we consider Denison’s claim that the word “inerrancy” has been defined and qualified in too many different and highly technical ways to be of any theological use. In Denison’s own words: “it seems clear to me that any word with at least eight definitions and twelve qualifications has lost its value as a simple, common test of anything.”

Actually, Denison’s argument works against him, not for him. Yes, many different people have defined “inerrancy” in different ways. And yes, several inerrantists have offered a number of qualifications of the term “inerrancy” in order to forestall misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the term. Denison has suitably demonstrated that people with an impressive array of varied beliefs about the precise nature of the Bible can all claim to be an “inerrantist” in some fashion or another. Denison’s suggestion is that this complex state of affairs makes it not very meaningful for one to affirm that he is an inerrantist.

Yet even if this fact makes it mean less when someone affirms that he is an inerrantist, then it necessarily makes it mean more when someone cannot affirm that he is an inerrantist. The denial of inerrancy then means that, out of all the various definitions of inerrancy and with all of the various reasonable qualifications of inerrancy applied, a person still cannot find a way with all of that flexibility to affirm the word in any sense.

By the way, although Denison protests in this first section of his paper that the word “inerrancy” is so variously defined and over-qualified as to be meaningless, he seems to have no problem defining inerrancy while he is arguing against it in the remainder of the paper. Thus, shortly after declaring the word meaningless and excessively complex and qualified beyond repair, Denison simply states that “’Inerrancy’ may be defined as the view that ‘1. When all the facts are known, 2. they will demonstrate that the Bible in its autographs 3. and correctly interpreted 4. is entirely true 5. in all that it affirms.’” There you go. That’s precisely what I and so many other Southern Baptists mean when we speak of inerrancy, and Denison has defined it in a simple sentence. What’s so difficult about that?

Finally, we should observe that any word used to describe the nature of the Bible is going to wind up being subjected to a number of definitions and qualifications. The complexity is not a feature of the word; it is an aspect of the subject matter.

Denison doesn’t want to use “inerrant” but he does want to use “trustworthy” as an adjective to describe the Bible. Yet, is he suggesting that every last person who describes the Bible as “trustworthy” always means precisely the same thing by that affirmation? If so, he is wrong. I affirm the trustworthiness of the Bible, but I mean by the word something different than the belief that Denison articulates in his paper. By my meaning of the trustworthiness of the Bible (i.e., that you can trust anything you read in the Bible to be true), Denison does not believe in the trustworthiness of the Bible. Denison’s favorite word obviously has multiple definitions and is just as complex as “inerrant” ever could be.

Furthermore, just as clarifications and qualifications exist for the definition of inerrancy, Denison likewise qualifies his understanding of biblical trustworthiness. His trustworthy Bible actually is not trustworthy, according to Denison, for “an involved scientific explanation of the origin of the universe” or “a detailed system for the future” or as a chronicle of the reigns of the kings of Judah or as a narrative of what Judas did after he betrayed Jesus. In all of these respects, according to Denison, the Bible (whether the original manuscripts or the Bible you have on your shelf) is definitely not trustworthy. Denison’s concept of a “trustworthy” Bible is a highly qualified theory.

If these flaws so deeply damage the utility of the word “inerrancy,” they why do they not bother Denison in his use of the term “trustworthy”? Even after rigorous definition and careful qualification of both terms, to call the Bible inerrant is still to say something higher about its nature than to call it “trustworthy”—something higher about the nature of the Bible that not every proponent of a highly qualified and watered-down concept of the “trustworthiness” of the Bible is willing to say.

SECOND, we move to a consideration of Denison’s imaginative notion that the affirmation of inerrancy actually works to undermine Christian faith in the text of the Bible that the present-day believer actually holds in his hands. Again, to use Denison’s own words:

To summarize the threat which inerrancy poses to your Bible:

1. By this doctrine, the Bible must be inerrant to be trustworthy;

2. Only the original documents were inerrant;

3. The copies on which we base our Bibles today are therefore “not entirely error-free”;

4. Our Bibles therefore cannot be inerrant, and by definition are thus untrustworthy.

Denison’s assertion is entirely theoretical. He cannot produce teeming masses of people whose faith in the text of a modern Bible has been spoiled by the deleterious effects of having affirmed biblical inerrancy. On the other hand, the repeated experience of Southern Baptists in the real world has been that those who lack a trust in the truthfulness and accuracy of the Bibles in their hands are universally people who deny the inerrancy of the Bible rather than inerrantists. The person who is an inerrantist with regard to the original manuscripts but more skeptical with regard to the Bible he holds in his hand than are those who deny the inerrancy of the Bible? He’s a phantom existing only in Denison’s mind.

If Denison has never encountered anyone afflicted by this malady, then how did Denison come to identify and diagnose it? This portion of Denison’s argument is pure sophistry. Denison weaves an abstract philosophical argument by which he and those who deny biblical inerrancy are the true guardians of the trustworthiness of the Bible, while those who outwardly affirm the inerrancy of the Bible are the covert opponents of its trustworthiness and reliability. For someone who spends so much time arguing against Christians being confined by Aristotelian logic, Denison certainly seems insistent that his readers follow his purported logical framework to beware some danger of inerrancy that has proven to be entirely unrealized in actual existence!

How do inerrantists deal with the manuscript question? Both inerrantists and people who deny biblical inerrancy know that typographical and copying errors have been made in the production of Bibles down through the ages. We have thousands of manuscripts of the Bible, and the occasional differences are there for all to see. So, the fact of textual variants (another term for these typographical and copying errors) is not something that separates inerrantists from those like Denison who deny biblical inerrancy; rather it is a fact that we acknowledge together in the same way.

For some verses in the Bible, therefore, some manuscripts read one way and other manuscripts read another way. Only three possibilities exist for understanding this reality. First, perhaps in this postmodern relativistic age I could somehow choose to believe that each and every different reading is equally the entirely trustworthy word of God (to use Denison’s preferred term). Second, I might believe that the original wording is the trustworthy word of God, and that the later mistakes are not the trustworthy word of God. Third, I might believe that neither the original wording nor any of the later mistakes are the trustworthy word of God—that no reading is inerrant or trustworthy.

Which of those three positions do inerrantists advocate? We affirm the second option, believing that the original wording is the inerrant and trustworthy word of God, while the later mistakes are just that—human mistakes. It is at this point that Denison is attacking inerrantists for embracing the second option.

Which option does Denison affirm? From what Denison has written in the paper, we can rule out the first option: Denison does not believe that the later mistakes constitute the trustworthy word of God. He explicitly points out that he does not consider the “longer ending” of the Gospel of Mark to be trustworthy. He also indicates that he does not consider the typographical error that resulted in the “Wicked Bible” to be trustworthy. Denison does not believe that textual or typographical errors in the Bible are trustworthy.

Which of the other two options has Denison chosen? Either he believes that the Bible from which he preaches each Sunday is trustworthy where the translators have chosen the right readings and not trustworthy where they have not (the second option), or he believes that his Bible is not trustworthy anywhere (the third option). Denison seems not to choose the third option, so we can presume his affirmation of the second option.

If Denison agrees with this second option, then one wonders why he is criticizing inerrantists who hold the same viewpoint as his own. Wherever your Bible might contain one of the later mistakes, both Denison and I believe the same thing—that those words are neither inerrant nor trustworthy. Wherever your Bible contains the original wording, I affirm that those words are the inerrant word of God, while Denison somehow apparently believes that the original wording of the Bible may at places be erroneous yet somehow at the same time is trustworthy. These facts define our two positions.

THIRD, Denison argues that inerrancy is a novel doctrine of recent development and that we cannot legitimately claim it to be a part of our “roots” as Southern Baptists. This is among the weakest sections of the paper.

One of those weaknesses involves the criteria that Denison employs for evaluating figures in church history regarding their views of the nature of the Bible. For a person who lived in the past to be considered an inerrantist, Denison requires that he either employ the exact word “inerrant” or articulate something similar to the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy.

Denison’s ploy only succeeds if the inerrantist is willing to accept the entire burden of proof during the examination of the history of Christianity. Let Denison bring forth the history of those using precisely the word “trustworthiness” to refer to the nature of the Bible, and those who employ precisely the words that he favors to define trustworthiness and qualify it. Furthermore, let him produce those who speak of errors in the biblical text and discredit its treatments of the origins of the universe and human life. His standard for judging Christian History would cause any view of the nature of the Bible to fail, including his own.

When one is not straining at gnats and swallowing camels, the historical search is much less complex. For example, consider this comparison. Denison quotes Augustine as saying:

…none of [the biblical] authors has committed an error in writing. If in that literature I meet with anything which seems contrary to truth, I will have no doubt that it is only the manuscript which is faulty, or the translator who has not hit the sense, or my own failure to understand.

The simple definition of “inerrancy” that Denison himself quoted earlier says:

“Inerrancy” may be defined as the view that “1. When all the facts are known, 2. they will demonstrate that the Bible in its autographs 3. and correctly interpreted 4. is entirely true 5. in all that it affirms.”

The definition allows for the possibility that the Bible might not be interpreted properly or that all of the facts might not be known. Those possibilities correspond with Augustine’s statement about “my own failure to understand” or “the translator who has not hit the sense.” The definition speaks of the Bible in its autographs, corresponding with Augustine’s statement about “the manuscript” possibly being “faulty.” The definition states that, these conditions being met, the Bible is “entirely true…in all that it affirms.” Augustine says that “none of [the biblical] authors has committed an error in writing.” These two statements are different? I submit that it requires years of advanced study and careful indoctrination not to be able to see that these two quotations are essentially saying precisely same thing. Thankfully, most Southern Baptists are bereft of the necessary training to deprive them of their common sense.

A second weakness is present in this section as well. Denison takes great pains to place before us people in Christian History who have held a high view of the nature of the Bible, but who have also been guilty of holding erroneous positions in other areas of their theology. Denison summarizes, “In short, many of the so-called ‘inerrantists’ of church history interpreted the Bible in ways which would bother most Baptists and ‘conservative’ Christians today.” In making this important and often overlooked point, Denison is doing us a great service. A right view of the nature of the Bible does not guarantee a right practice of the interpretation of the Bible. Furthermore, the right interpretation of the Bible is as important as the right view of the nature and authority of the Bible. Some inerrantists have forgotten this truth, claiming that so long as a person is committed to inerrancy, inerrantists ought not to quibble over differences in interpretation. Denison’s arguments assist us greatly in correcting this naïve view.

However, it escapes me how Denison sees this point as undermining inerrancy. Yes, believing in inerrancy will not automatically make you a good interpreter of the Bible. Believing in inerrancy also will not cure warts, make your hair grow back, or enable you to make millions of dollars buying and selling real estate. These truths do not mean that affirming inerrancy is not valuable at all; they merely mean that these things are not the particular benefits of inerrancy that give value to the affirmation of inerrancy.

Denison has the formula backwards. It is not that affirming inerrancy is important because it makes me a good interpreter of the Bible; interpreting the Bible is important because I affirm inerrancy. God authored the Bible. He meant to communicate something through the words that He Himself chose when He caused men to write the Bible. Those words constitute the inerrant word of God, who finds me worthy of His message. The quest of seeking to find the one-and-only rightful interpretation of the Bible is an exercise in hearing the voice of God. Hearing the voice of God is an inordinately more important endeavor than is hearing the voice of “the Yahwist.” Therefore the inerrantist has far greater motivation to interpret the Bible rightly than does the modernist.

FOURTH, we look at Denison’s claim that the denial of inerrancy does not lead to a slippery slope of the compromise of other doctrines. Denison offers a fourfold rebuttal of the slippery slope theory. First, people can affirm inerrancy and still espouse doctrinal error. Second, there are instances of people who deny inerrancy and yet still manage not to apostatize completely. Third, because Baptist churches are autonomous, the teaching of an errant Bible in seminaries will not necessarily affect Baptist churches at all. Fourth, in real life one can question the accuracy of a statement or work partially without being compelled to reject it entirely.

Denison either misunderstands or misconstrues the concept of the “slippery slope.” Personally, rather than using the phrase “slippery slope,” I prefer to speak of the denial of biblical inerrancy as a “gateway heresy,” deliberately drawing from the characterization of marijuana as a “gateway drug.” Those who argue that marijuana is a “gateway drug” are not claiming that every person who smokes marijuana must necessarily move on to heroin. Neither are they claiming that every heroin addict also is a marijuana user. Rather, they are attempting to demonstrate that marijuana use leads to the use of other drugs often enough to be statistically significant.

Likewise, history demonstrates a clear statistical pattern of people who first reject biblical inerrancy and then reject other important Christian doctrines. One could cite individual anecdotes such as Southern Seminary Professor Crawford Howell Toy, who abandoned biblical inerrancy and eventually left orthodox Christianity. Another approach would be to analyze such groups as the homosexuality-affirming Alliance of Baptists and compare the percentage of their membership affirming inerrancy with the percentage of Southern Baptists affirming inerrancy. In doing this, the objective would not be to demonstrate that no exceptions exist, but simply to show that most who become heretics deny inerrancy first, and that the denial of inerrancy strongly predisposes one to deny other important Christian doctrines as well. One can agree with Denison that it is possible for a person to deny biblical inerrancy and yet cling to some of the Bible’s important teachings, yet we can also say that however possible this state may be, it often does not endure over the span of generations in the majority of those who deny the inerrancy of the Bible. The well-beaten path, trodden by Mainline denominations and institutions all around us, is from the denial of inerrancy to the denial of other vital Christian doctrines.

With regard to Denison’s argument from Baptist polity, he has the matter backwards. I agree with him that Baptist churches are normally quite resilient against the influences of liberal effete academicians. Nevertheless, even if we can guarantee that churches could remain impervious to the influences of liberal seminaries, our polity also requires us to guarantee that liberal seminaries should not be able to remain impervious to the influences of the conservative churches from which they once wrongly derived their income.

Denison’s statements about the tenability of rejecting the trustworthiness of the Bible in part, but not in whole, merits our attention. Consider his wording:

Fourth, the “slippery slope” theory rests on faulty reasoning. We’re told that if we admit there are questions with the biblical text regarding geography or science, we’ll soon slide into questioning vital areas of faith. If we cannot be sure how many angels were at the resurrection, soon we’ll be questioning the resurrection itself.

However, this reasoning doesn’t work in life. When you find typographical errors in a newspaper, do you question everything the paper contains? If you disagree with your pastor regarding his interpretation of a particular text, do you reject every part of his theology? By the “slippery slope” argument, once you’ve started down the precipice there’s nothing to break your fall. But the fact is, the slip doesn’t necessarily lead to a slope at all.

Denison’s argument fails at several points. First, his case only survives if one makes a stark and artificial separation between “geography or science” and “vital areas of the faith,” but such a neat division is unwarranted. Did God literally create Adam and Eve? Does the entire lineage of humanity trace back to one primeval couple? Were they created sinless? Did they fall into sin? Did their sin somehow affect the nature of their progeny? Is the nature of the universe itself affected by their sin? These are questions of cosmology, biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and even astronomy. These are scientific questions. Yet they are also spiritual questions, the answers to which affect the very gospel itself.

Denison’s case is further flawed because the nature of my newspaper or the nature of my pastor’s hermeneutics are not intertwined with the nature of God. The way I treat a publication or message is always intertwined with what I know about the character of the one who produces it.

Sometimes I encounter publications produced by those whom I know to be fallen, imprecise, errant people who are genuinely trying to produce a good and accurate publication. My local newspaper fits into this category. When I find a typographical error in my newspaper, I know that it is an error, but I do not conclude that the error was intentional, and its isolated presence does not make me any more skeptical as to whether the newspaper correctly reports the President’s activities yesterday. I conclude that the newspaper is generally accurate but occasionally flawed because I presume that the people who publish it are trying to be accurate but will make inadvertent mistakes.

Other people are deliberately dishonest. If I receive an email from a person I don’t know telling me about a vast fortune that he needs to transfer out of Nigeria, then I receive that message differently. I presume that the person involved is deliberately trying to deceive me. If I should enter into a subsequent conversation with the sender, I would presume every word to be a lie, simply because I know the sender to be a liar trying to deceive me.

Other people I consider honest but generally irresponsible. If they forward to me emails about FCC Petition 2493 and Madalyn Murray O’Hair and other similar matters, strongly chiding me that WE MUST ACT NOW, then I will soon conclude that they are well-meaning people but a bit reckless in their research. As a consequence, when they forward me an email about a missing child for whom we really need to be on the lookout, I am immediately skeptical.

On the other hand, if a friend calls me on the phone stating that her own daughter is missing, then I’m not skeptical at all. My friend is in a position to know the truth and it is too important a subject for her not to have given the matter careful thought. My estimation of the messenger’s credibility, competence, and character determine entirely my expectations of the message.

If tomorrow I have the experience that Isaiah had, and I see the LORD high and lifted up and hear Him speaking to me, then I’m going to presume that every word is entirely inerrant. I will make this assumption apart from Francis Turretin, apart from any intent to divide the Southern Baptist Convention, and apart from any acquaintance with The Chicago Statement on Inerrancy. The cause of my presumption is solely and entirely what I know about the nature of God. I heard God say something, and I will die before anyone convinces me that it was not true. Denison understands this connection between God’s nature and His message well enough to articulate it himself:

It all seems so simple. God inspired the Bible and he doesn’t make mistakes, so there can be no errors in the Bible. The Bible is therefore “inerrant.”

Denison rejects this argument, but he never bothers to refute it. The question is simply whether the Bible is like the newspaper or the Nigerian fraud email or the FCC Petition email or the phone call from the friend or Isaiah’s vision. The answer to that question hinges entirely upon who God is and what role He had in the production of the Bible. It not only seems that simple; it is that simple.

FIFTH, we consider Denison’s argument that the Bible does not claim inerrancy for itself. Denison opines:

…inerrancy is neither a word nor an argument found in the biblical text itself. Does it seem right or wrong to create a question the Scriptures nowhere ask, and then make one answer to this question the only “biblical” position?

Once again, it becomes important at this juncture to bring forward the simple definition of inerrancy quoted by Denison:

“Inerrancy” may be defined as the view that “1. When all the facts are known, 2. they will demonstrate that the Bible in its autographs 3. and correctly interpreted 4. is entirely true 5. in all that it affirms.”

Does the Bible make this argument, or does it not? Denison claims that the only way to arrive at this argument is to “extend the argument beyond the text.” In one sense, Denison is correct. Inerrancy is a matter of systematic theology. In other words, to understand the entirety of the biblical claim of inerrancy, it is necessary to consider not just what the Bible says in one place, but to consider the aggregate of what the Bible says in several places.

Perhaps the most intriguing way to address Denison’s argument would be to take his own admissions about what the Bible teaches of its own nature, and see that Denison’s interpretation itself essentially adds up to inerrancy! To do so we take Denison’s argument in our own sequence, looking at how his own chapter builds an argument in favor of inerrancy.

Denison acknowledged in his chapter than the Bible has come to us by the inspiration of God. Every word of the biblical autographs is God speaking. Inspiration tells us about “the origin of the text,” Denison says. “This text and others like it guarantee that the Bible came from God.” Denison favorably quotes a passage that goes even further: “the Spirit of God rested on and in the prophets and spoke through them so that their words did not come from themselves, but from the mouth of God.”(emphasis mine)

The paper also analyzes the text of Numbers 23:19, which says, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.” So far, Denison has told us that every word of the Bible comes from God, and that God does not lie. This seems to be a solid case for biblical inerrancy! How does Denison not agree?

The flaw in this logic is that “lie” and “error” are not the same thing. Webster defines “lie” as “to make a statement that one knows is false, especially with intent to deceive.” It defines an “error” as “something incorrectly done through ignorance or carelessness; mistake.” Thus Number 23:19 does not speak to the question of error/inerrancy, but rather to the trustworthy character of God.

If a person does not subscribe to inerrancy, this does not mean that he or she accuses God of “intent to deceive.” Even the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy claims that the Bible we have is “not entirely error-free” (Exposition E), but this does not mean that it deliberately deceives us. The author of Numbers 23:19 in no sense intended to address the issue of inerrancy.

So according to Denison’s very careful argument here, the words of the Bible may not be a “lie” because every word comes from God, and God cannot be accused of “intent to deceive.” However, “‘lie’ and ‘error’ are not the same thing,” and although the words of the Bible may not be a “lie” they may indeed be an “error.” God, according to Denison, is not someone able “to make a statement that [He] knows is false, especially with intent to deceive,” but He apparently is someone capable of “something incorrectly done through ignorance or carelessness.” God is not bad; He is merely incompetent!

The inerrantist, agreeing with Denison that God is the author bearing the responsibility for every word in the biblical autographs, maintains that our God neither lies nor makes mistakes. For this reason we believe the Bible to be inerrant. Denison has catalogued several (but not all) of the biblical passages that bespeak the high view we hold of the nature of the Bible. He employs several arguments to attempt to show that words like flawless, true, perfect, and faithful can be construed to allow room for errors in the Bible. What he cannot do—what no person has ever been able to do—is direct us to any portion of the Bible alleging flaws, weaknesses, or errors in any portion of the Bible in any sense. Once again, Denison’s only hope for success is to shirk the burden of proof and place it entirely upon his opponents.

Looking back to our simple definition of inerrancy, we concede that the Bible does not make statements about its own “autographs” or manuscripts. This is hardly surprising, since no book of the Bible had a manuscript problem while that book was being written. It also is no impediment to affirming inerrancy. Rather, it is because the Bible, speaking of itself in its original state, affirms its own inerrancy that we speak of the inerrancy of the autographs. Otherwise, just from the texts cited by Denison, without bringing in 2 Peter 1:15-21 and a dozen other passages, we find an excellent case for inerrancy right within the Bible itself.

SIXTH, and finally, we consider Denison’s chapter naming some of the specific assertions in the Bible that he considers erroneous.

Denison believes that “any clear reading of [the accounts in Matthew 27:1-10 and Acts 1:18-19 of Judas’s post-betrayal actions] shows that the two accounts do contradict each other in several places” and that one, or both, is in error, disproving biblical inerrancy. I have attempted in this paper to maintain a conversational tone and to avoid the inclusion of footnotes and the invocations of experts. To refute Denison’s characterization of the accounts of Judas’s actions in Matthew and Acts, however, I must call upon an expert. The expert whom I summon to refute Jim Denison is…Jim Denison. In his online article entitled “Isn’t the Bible Filled with Contradictions?” Denison defends the Judas narrative against the charge that it is contradictory:

"Matthew says that Judas hanged himself; the book of Acts says he fell down and died. Which is it?" Matthew's gospel does indeed record Judas's suicide by hanging (Mt 27:5). In Acts 1 Peter says, "Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out" (v. 18). It may be that Judas's body decomposed, so that when the rope broke or was cut, it fell as Peter describes. Or it may be that the Greek word translated "hanged" is actually the word "impaled" (both meanings are possible), so that Peter describes more vividly the way Judas killed himself. Either option is a possible way to explain the apparent contradiction.

The body of written work struggling with the problem of being self-contradictory is not the Bible; it is Denison’s own writings. When writing for the lost, he defends the Bible against the charge that it is self-contradictory. When writing for Christians and against inerrantists, he himself charges the Bible with inconsistencies and errors. I say this neither to be uncharitable nor to make unduly personal what is a discussion of ideas. Rather, I think that Denison’s online article is a stellar example of the fact that apparent contradictions in the Bible are reconcilable. I think it further reveals Denison’s instinctual understanding (as a good pastor) that the inerrancy of the Bible is indeed important, and that successful evangelism often requires showing that the Bible is God’s perfect word and is not in error.

Just as Denison has been able to reconcile the Judas accounts to his apparent satisfaction, his other supposed contradictions that disprove inerrancy are not so problematic as he would suggest. I carried off to college with me a copy of Gleason L. Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. Other similar works probably sit on the shelf of a bookstore near you or are available online. Each believer who is troubled by some alleged contradiction in the Bible owes it to himself to examine the strong evidence in favor of inerrancy before succumbing to the soothsaying of a document like Denison’s “The Errancy of Inerrancy.”

IN CONCLUSION, none of Denison’s six arguments disproves biblical inerrancy. As a Baptist, I’m thankful to live in a nation in which every individual is free to embrace the inerrancy of the Bible, to regard it as riddled with contradictions, or even to refuse to read it altogether. I affirm Dr. Denison’s right to come to his own conclusions regarding the nature of the Bible. I affirm his right to teach those conclusions and to publish them for the perusal of others. I affirm the right of the Baptist General Covention of Texas to hire him as their Theologian-in-Residence and to consider his attempts to undermine belief in biblical inerrancy as a service to the churches of the BGCT.

Thankfully, religious liberty in our nation also involves the right to consider Denison’s arguments, interact with them, and offer a vigorous critique. BGCT Theologian-in-Residence Jim Denison disagrees with what both the 1963 and the 2000 versions of The Baptist Faith & Message say about the Bible—that it has “God for its author…and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.” His authorship, dissemination, and use of this paper represents his attempt to get Texas Baptist churches to join him in his error. In a land of religious liberty he thereby opens a conversation in which I may humbly disagree with him, point out his errors, and hopefully pray that the Holy Spirit will, as promised, lead him to all truth.

International Mission Board No Longer Maintains that BGCT Is Escrowing Lottie Moon Christmas Offering Funds

After publishing my most recent post, I completed a revival that I was preaching and then swung by to see my surviving grandparents-in-law in far rural Missouri. For the past forty-eight hours I have been blissfully oblivious to the ongoing discussion generated by that post. As I pen these words tonight, I still have not read any of the comments that took place after my latest comment in the thread.

I have, however, received numerous telephone calls and emails, some of which I have read. Through these conversations I have learned something of a summary of what has ensued in that thread. I will read it when I have opportunity (but not before I preach tomorrow…priorities always), but there are well over 100 comments, and it may take a while.

I apologize for contributing to this imbroglio. A couple of telephone calls before clicking "Publish Post" and I could have helped to right a misunderstanding of someone else's making rather than becoming an unwitting accomplice. I candidly offer an explanation of why I did not do so, not as an excuse, but in an effort to allow others to learn from my mistake:

1. Because the source of the information was credible.

   The direct source of my information is immaterial. I did not go out of my way to publish this story. I was asked to put it up, and I was willing to do so. The essential data of my previous post was part of the information presented by the staff of the International Mission Board as it hosted its most recent trustee gathering. The exception, as I understand it, is that the BGCT was not identified by name in that presentation as being one of the three conventions. The BGCT's explanation makes it clear that it was indeed one of the conventions in question, even if the entire scenario was a misunderstanding. In discussing presentations at the trustee meeting, I am not talking about secret Executive Session data, but about information presented at a meeting that any of us could have attended had we wished to do so. I took that fact as all of the confirmation that I needed. Call it naivete on my part: I presumed that the IMB both knew what it was talking about and was prepared to stand behind whatever it told its trustees. At least one of these presumptions was demonstrably false.

   I still think that the International Mission Board is a credible source, just not an infallible one. As I was driving home today, I considered the location not far from my route where the I-40 bridge over the Arkansas River collapsed in Oklahoma. I still believe that our Interstate highway system is well-constructed and safe. I trust it well enough to drive over it without any apprehension that it might collapse under me. But we all now know that it happens on rare occasions.

   Likewise, the International Mission Board is staffed by good people trying to accomplish an important task—the important task. I will continue to trust what they say to their trustees and to the public. I consider this episode, inflammatory as it has been, to have been a fluke. Somebody either misunderstood something or made something up. It wasn't me. It wasn't anyone with whom I spoke. We bought it. And with the weight of the IMB behind it, I wasn't in "verify" mode; I was in "publish" mode. I should have verified.

   And then I repeated it, although I did so in a careful manner that remains factually accurate. I accurately reported someone else's inaccurate information, and in doing so was careful to represent the information as someone else's data and not as my own first-hand knowledge. Nevertheless, I threw some measure of my credibility behind it. If you believed it because I reported it, then I have done you a disservice. And for that I apologize.

   And if you ever write or speak in public as I am doing, then perhaps you can learn from this situation that you can never fact-check a story too much, no matter how good your sources are.

2. Because the scenario was believable to me.

   I imagine that some portion of the comments on the previous post questioned my motivation in reporting about the Baptist General Convention of Texas. I could write that I meant the BGCT no harm and was just dispassionately reporting what I heard from others.

   You wouldn't believe me, nor should you.

   Whatever the comment thread says, it would be unlikely for anyone to have placed into my mouth a lower opinion than I actually hold regarding the BGCT. Because they forward as little CP to the SBC as they can possibly get away with (they keep 80% and forward 20%), because of their ongoing animosity and hostility toward the SBC, and because they are reportedly struggling financially, the scenario seemed to me to be precisely the sort of thing that the BGCT would do. My opinion about the BGCT long predates the events of the past two days and arises from air-tight, publicly declared, verified data. Some of you will hold a different opinion of the BGCT. I have not shown you the disrespect of pretending that I don't hold regarding the BGCT precisely the opinion that you think I hold. My church's opinion of the BGCT was expressed in our actions when we determined not to cooperate with the BGCT any longer.

   That being said, I am in no way obsessed with the BGCT. Out of 537 posts on this blog, I only find 10 (now 11) that have to do with the BGCT, and of those 10, some actually say positive things about the liberal SBC denomination in Texas. I'm no Math major, but that constitutes less than 2% of my posts. I'm hardly playing Ahab to the BGCT's Moby Dick.

   But the lesson here deals with our human tendencies, when we see exactly what we expect to see, not to look too closely. Magicians depend upon this strongly ingrained feature of human intelligence. The story not only came from a credible source, but it matched up precisely to the reality that I could imagine to be most likely. Thus I posted without performing more research.

   And the entire situation puts me in the bitter-tasting situation of having somewhat wronged an institution that I dislike and owing it an apology. So, to the BGCT, I apologize for not taking greater care in reporting damaging information about you. I will endeavor, whenever criticizing you in the future, to exercise greater caution to stick to the many publicly verifiable items on which we disagree.

   And, although I believed the story, I am glad to learn that this is merely a situation of lackadaisical inattentiveness toward Lottie Moon money on your part rather than deliberate withholding of these much-needed funds from our missionaries. While we were still affiliated with BGCT, we designated around the convention budget for several years. We never had any reason to suspect that the BGCT did anything other than honor our wishes for our donations.

3. Because the subject matter was very important in my estimation.

   This, I think, is the reason why the trustee meeting was reportedly abuzz about this topic long before I posted my little blog entry. The slow pace of CP and LMCO funds coming to the IMB is reportedly jeopardizing our board's ability to appoint missionaries. I was in a hurry to report what I found to be a credible and disturbing story because I did not want our convention to fail in the funding of a single qualified missionary candidate.

   On this question, I hope that we all agree. The large number of comments is evidence that we all consider this to be a very important question. What I hear about the inflammatory tone of some of the comments is, if accurate, further evidence. We all care about this subject a great deal. Faced with a credible story of such magnitude and importance, I published it in a careful manner that remains to this moment generally factually accurate.

   But, I only achieved that level of enduring accuracy by employing weasel words to cover my limited research into the matter. As a result, I have contributed to a scandalous forty-eight hours that have accomplished precisely the opposite of my intentions—I have brought to the convention's attention a discredited story that will not motivate any Southern Baptist to do anything with regard to missions. And now the fact that our International Mission Board needs a renewed commitment among Southern Baptists to fund this ministry of paramount importance—that story has been lost in the shuffle. The story that I presented, if it had been true, would have been more important in my estimation. As a discredited story, it is obviously of much lesser importance.

   And because of the importance of the topic, I owe it to our missionaries to close out this episode and do my part in moving us all forward to the verifiable and pressing matters of the day. Toward that end, and to contribute to a speedy resolution, I will try to reply promptly to any person with questions to present on this post. I have closed the comments on the other post, not to stifle conversation, but to allow us all to have one place rather than two places to submit comments and to look for replies. I am not going to reply to any of the comments on the other post, but will make a good faith effort to converse in this thread with each and every person who wishes to inaugurate a conversation in this thread. I do not commit to an unlimited conversation with any individual, but I promise to try not to leave anyone out entirely.

I'm a bit embarrassed for whoever got this wrong to begin with, although I hold no ill will toward whoever that was. Furthermore, no matter what caution I exhibited before, I'm a bit embarrassed to have been at the center of it all. A blogger contacted me shortly after I posted my last article rueing the fact that I put it up before he did. Nobody has expressed that regret today!

Nevertheless, as a strong believer in Romans 8:28, I'm glad to do my part to try to bring something good out of it all. As I see those opportunities in this comment thread, I will try to avail myself of them.

DISCREDITED POST...SEE CORRECTION: BGCT Refusing to Release Lottie Moon Funds, Sources Report

The content of this post is no longer representative of the position of the International Mission Board. See the next post for more information.

Sources within the International Mission Board report that the Baptist General Convention of Texas is escrowing Lottie Moon Christmas Offering funds to safeguard BGCT cash flow.

Although churches collect the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for the sole benefit of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the funds generally follow the same pathway as do Cooperative Program gifts—churches send their offerings to their respective state Baptist conventions, which serve as the collecting agents for the Southern Baptist Convention. For eighty-four years the various state conventions have acted in good faith in this role, promptly forwarding Lottie Moon Christmas Offering funds to the International Mission Board for rapid distribution to the cause of international missions.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas has trimmed its staff, programming, and budget substantially over the past several years. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that my church has switched affiliation from the Baptist General Convention of Texas to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention within the past few years. Although the official BGCT budget has shown increasing hostility toward SBC ministries since the 1990s, this event would constitute a rare occasion of BGCT's taking action to blockade funds designated by BGCT churches to SBC causes.

Another Baptist Convention in Texas?

BGCT blogger Rick Davis reported yesterday of rumors that some within the BGCT are contemplating a departure to form yet another Baptist state convention in Texas. (HT: Aaron Weaver, aka Big Daddy Weave)

Having not kept up with goings-on in the BGCT, I don't know what to make of this. Are we talking about three or four people or three or four hundred people? Was this talk prior to or subsequent to the most recent annual meeting of the BGCT? In Davis's comment stream, Ken Coffee (recent unsuccessful candidate for the BGCT vice-presidency) suggested that the sore spots for these folks were the plans to morph the BGCT into a national convention and the BGCT's hostility toward the SBC.

To any such folks, if they exist: If you are comfortable with the BGCT's budget priorities (80% for us, 20% for the rest of the world) and with the liberal doctrinal positions and low view of the Bible manifest at the Texas CLC, some of the BGCT universities, etc., then you ought to wait things out and not do anything drastic right now. If your sole objection is to BGCT expansion beyond Texas, I'm not sure to what degree such plans are really on the table any more. The name change to "Texas Baptist Convention" (if adopted) seems to imply a return to a Texas-only philosophy at BGCT. If your only objection is to the tension between the BGCT and the SBC, then you need a reality-check—the BGCT's budget priorities and liberal doctrinal positions, juxtaposed against the SBC's financial plans and conservative doctrinal positions, guarantee ongoing tension between these two bodies in their current relationship. Don't let some of the folks on blogs fool you—attempts to bring the SBC to liberal positions on women preachers and the like are failing.

On the other hand, if you are uncomfortable with the BGCT's doctrinal positions and budget priorities, then you ought to try a dual affiliation with the SBTC before you go and start a third state convention. None of the blogs that I've read have given any explicit shortcomings that these allegedly discontented BGCTers have with SBTC that would convince them to start a third state convention rather than joining the other one already in existence for a decade now. I could speculate as to a few possible items in that category.

It may be that you've heard horrible things about the SBTC that have eliminated any interest in joining. I would ask you, why not find out for yourself? Isn't it possible that the BGCT is not the most objective place to learn about the SBTC? If your church is comfortable with the SBC's statement of faith, then you meet the criteria to belong to the SBTC (and if not, then I've already suggested that you might just ride things out over at BGCT for a while). If, after adding an affiliation with SBTC, you find that the SBTC is every horrible thing that its detractors have alleged, then you can quite easily end your SBTC affiliation, and you will still be aligned with BGCT. If, on the other hand, you find that SBTC has been misrepresented, then you'll have saved yourself the work of establishing a third convention.

It may be that you've met a person or two connected with SBTC whom you haven't liked that much. Such an experience frankly slowed the rate at which I dipped my toes into the SBTC pool. But quite obviously, since you're considering breaking away from BGCT to start something else, you have had some sort of a bad experience with some people at BGCT. Yet you're still a member of that convention. Every convention, church, Sunday School class, fellowship group, you-name-it, is a mixed bag. I've found the SBTC to be a warm, wonderful, Christ-honoring, gospel-spreading, mission-affirming fellowship of Baptist believers. You might find it differently, but don't you owe it to yourself to find out for yourself?

It may be that you're tired of all of the fighting—not interested in being a part of some sort of government-in-exile. Guess what: Neither was I. I was pleasantly surprised at first and continue to be pleased to find that BGCT is never mentioned at SBTC events. We've moved on. In fact, if you haven't moved on, and are looking for a place to join in BGCT gripes, then please don't come to the SBTC. Souls are too precious and time is too short for such things. The place to gripe about the BGCT is the BGCT annual meeting.

It is your privilege as believers to choose your own affiliations, and it is your duty as believers and stewards to pursue vigorously what you believe to be the best strategy for proclaiming the gospel to the world. But before you start something new, you owe it to yourself and to your progeny to have considered and tried every option for affiliation with present groups. Perhaps that process will lead you to a newfound sense of belonging within the BGCT. Perhaps it will lead you to join your brethren in the SBTC. Perhaps it will lead you to launch something new. Whatever should come of it all, my prayer is that you might honor the Lord, remain true to His Word, and diligently pursue His work to His glory.

San Antonio Hindsight: Part One

Here begins my post-convention analysis. Why shouldn't I—everyone else is doing post-convention analysis! But I am going to try to delve a little deeper than some of the stuff I'm reading elsewhere.

Part One: Who Came and Who Didn't

A lot more didn't than did! In fact, on Wednesday night a large portion of the meeting hall had been walled off to prevent attendees from sitting three-to-a-section. Final registration totals were a full third less than predicted. Baptist Press reports that the largest number of those who came (unsurprisingly) were residents of Texas. Indeed, nearly one in five messengers was a Texas Baptist (see the story here). Yet the story does not break out attendees by state convention, but only by state. The voting results suggest that the BGCT simply did not show up in large numbers. Reports that BGCT messengers were going to bus in from Waco for the 1VP vote turned out to be bluster. That fact, in turn, suggests that liberal Baptists in the BGCT care not at all what happens in the SBC, and conservative Baptists in the BGCT don't appear to be all that interested, either. If one cannot mobilize a significant anti-Conservative-Resurgence/anti-CR-leadership faction in Texas, one cannot do it anywhere. I walk away from this year strongly encouraged about the probable outcome of our future meetings in Indianapolis and Louisville.

BGCT Clergy Sex Abuse Measures

See the story in the Dallas Morning News here (written by reporter Sam Hodges and reporter-associate Ben Cole) My evaluation:

1. Database: Well-intentioned bad idea, for reasons mentioned here.
2. Hotline: Well-intentioned great idea. The first thing they need to say on the hotline is "call the police."
3. Putting pastors on a list without legal review merely because "church officials are convinced of the misconduct" (and the misconduct here could include having watched a dirty movie last weekend): Really bad empower-bad-people-to-ruin-somebody's-ministry, get-your-convention-sued-for-a-sackload-of-money kind of bad idea.

The Best Thing About the SBTC…

…was that I had to come home to find out what had happened at the BGCT annual meeting.

Our church knew several years ago that we were very unhappy with the BGCT. But we were very slow about joining the SBTC for several reasons.

1. We wanted to be careful of the whole "rebound relationship" phenomenon. Being unhappy with BGCT is different from being happy with SBTC. You know, you can be a strong, healthy Baptist church without being affiliated at all. We prefer to be in cooperative relationship, but although this is needful, it is not a necessity. So, we resolved that we would consider a relationship with the SBTC to be a separate issue from our deteriorating relationship with the BGCT.
2. My interaction with one prominent member of the "opposition party" in the BGCT (before the SBTC organized) had left me with an unfavorable impression of the whole thing.
3. We had no intention of joining a "government in exile." If the purpose of the SBTC was nothing more than to snipe at the BGCT, rebuild a shadow copy of the BGCT, etc., then we weren't interested.

After dipping our collective toes into the water a few times, the only eventual question that we had left was, "Why didn't we do this [join the SBTC] a long time ago?"

It is the third point in particular that I have in view with this post. I just never hear much about the BGCT at SBTC events. I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard any reference to the BGCT at an SBTC event. I'm not just talking about from the platform—I'm talking about in the hallways and parking lots and in restaurants and hotel lobbies. The only reference to the BGCT that I heard this year was from a non-SBTC speaker.

The SBTC has moved on. FBC Farmersville is moving on, too. I have stopped reading the Baptist Standard. I almost never employ the words "Charles Wade" in a sentence any more. It's delightful. I enjoy state convention meetings again. Ten years ago, who could have thought that was possible?

Someone wise once told me, "Don't spend all of your time worrying about what people think of you; they don't think of you as much as you suspect!" I can honestly say that is my experience of the SBTC's relationship with the BGCT. The past is behind us. The future is before us. May God enable both conventions to do something worthwhile for the Lord in the future.

"Traditional" Baptists ???

I have stated that I would not use "Valleygate" as "an occasion to slap at one another." (see here)

I have stated my personal reservations about Daniel David Montoya, including my own doubts about some of his farther-flung allegations. (see all the way back here)

But after reading this, I must side with Montoya and vehemently protest what was done at this year's BGCT annual meeting. To suggest that these matters are beyond the scope of the messengers' authority is tyranny, pure and simple. There is nothing Baptist about this. The self-adopted label of "traditional Baptists" has never rung true, but it has never rung more untrue than now.

Public Enemy #2 ??

Will any of you believe me if I say that I am sincerely praying for the folks over at the Baptist General Convention of Texas in these dark days for them? There are more than enough lost people in Texas to go around, and for as long as the BGCT continues to proclaim the gospel, I sincerely hope that they will be a robust agent in that cause. I have profound theological and methodological differences with them, but that does not prevent me from wanting to feel sympathy with them in their current plight. Especially since I am so happy in the SBTC, to the degree that we are not in conflict over national SBC issues I am content to let the past remain in the past and to enjoy some (hopefully mutual) magnanimity with folks over in the BGCT.

But sometimes it is difficult to do so. When Marv Knox (see here) can't write a simple editorial calling for a rebuilding of trust after "Valleygate" without invoking the obligatory "evil fundamentalists" mantra right in the opening paragraphs, I recognize that he is slapping my sympathy in the face. Now really, Marv, what do fundamentalists have to do with this? Or is it just that, whenever the BGCT is having problems, they have to drag out the specter of "evil fundamentalists" to rally the base?

Perhaps it is encouraging to learn, at long last, that my belief in inerrancy, in accountability to the churches, and in our return from the brink of liberalism (aka "fundamentalism" to Marv) "is no longer the BGCT's gravest threat." Does this mean that I have to return my Darth Vader outfit? Am I no longer a part of the evil empire? I guess I'll have to learn to be content with only being public enemy #2.

So, all this makes it more difficult to be sympathetic. But I resolve to be sympathetic anyway. I will not pile on. Unlike Bro. Marv, I will not use this sad set of events as an occasion to slap at one another and pursue other agendas. The BGCT's leadership didn't ask for these problems. None of us are immune to embezzlers and charlatans. Especially, I have to feel sympathy for the thousands of faithful Texas Baptists whose contributions were misappropriated. Ultimately, although I cannot give a good text for it, my heart wants to believe that there is some special treatment that God reserves for those who defraud His church. Certainly the members churches of the BGCT, but even much of the leadership, are definitely the victims of all of this.

Hopefully, at such a dark hour, even the sympathy of public enemy #2 will be welcome down in Dallas.

After all, surely we all know who the real enemy is.

The Thorny Problem of Texas Appointments

One of the issues that people will be watching as SBC 2007 approaches is the list of committee appointments from Texas. Much discussion has taken place asking what would be a fair delegation from Texas. Sometimes people act as though the answer to this question is an easy one. It isn't.

The structure of the Southern Baptist Convention simply doesn't anticipate the current situation in Texas. Right now in Texas there are two Southern Baptist state conventions, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. BGCT's relationship with the SBC is less friendly than SBTC's relationship with the SBC. The SBC has a limited number of options available to it:

1. It can make some effort to distribute appointments evenly between BGCT-affiliated churches and SBTC-affiliated churches. The SBTC is a smaller convention than the BGCT, but it fowards 52% (it will be 53% by the time of SBC 2007) of its CP receipts to the SBC. The SBTC plans eventually to max-out at a 55%-45% split. The BGCT has a much larger budget, but it forwards only 21% of its CP recepts to the SBC (a number that may possibly decline further by the time of SBC 2007). The net effect is that each convention forwards about the same dollar amount to SBC—something in the neighborhood of $10 million. If one uses dollars forwarded in CP as the standard for apportionment of appointments, then an even split would seem to be appropriate. Several problems complicate this approach:
   1. What is a BGCT church? What is an SBTC church? A significant number of churches in Texas are dually-aligned with both the BGCT and the SBTC. If a member from such a church is appointed, does that count as a BGCT appointment or an SBTC appointment? People sympathetic to the BGCT tend to treat such appointments as SBTC appointments, but is that really accurate or fair?
   2. What about equity with other state conventions? The end result of this approach is that both BGCT and SBTC wind up with about half the number of appointments as that of other state conventions that forward fewer dollars to the SBC CP than either of these Texas state conventions. In the case of SBTC, it would have half the appointments of states that underperform it both in the measure of percentages and the measure of dollars. Is that fair? I think not.
   3. Do the BGCT's recent actions vis-a-vis the SBC not have some impact on what is fair? BGCT has locked SBC seminaries out of the exhibits at the BGCT annual meeting. BGCT has started a missions network to compete with the IMB, a literature publisher to compete with Lifeway, a Christian Life Commission to counter the ERLC (although the CLC's creation far predates the present controversy), and multiple seminaries to draw students away from the SBC seminaries. Why is the SBC bound to practice some overly restrictive notion of "fairness" toward the BGCT when the BGCT does not reciprocate with any goodwill toward the SBC?
2. It can ignore the BGCT and appoint people solely from the SBTC. Yet this is not particularly fair, either. Not everyone in the BGCT agrees with what BGCT leadership is doing. Some churches turn a blind eye toward convention politics. Although BGCT keeps all but a trickle of its CP money in Texas, some BGCT churches designate around the BGCT budget and continue to support faithfully the SBC. Some people would gladly join SBTC but are in the minority in their churches and therefore remain in BGCT. Also, the BGCT has not yet consummated its plan to leave the SBC. So, there are faithful Southern Baptists whom conservatives could support who are somehow still within the confines of the BGCT. It would not be fair for BGCT affiliation to be an ipso facto disqualification for appointment to an SBC committee.
3. It could completely re-evaluate the current system of state-by-state apportionment of nominees. This would give the opportunity for a new set of answers to address new questions posed by a new reality in Southern Baptist life, because Texas is not the only state either facing these problems now or soon to face them. Nevertheless, it is difficult to conceive of a solution that would be able to gain sufficient support to move forward. The SBC could apportion nominees to each participating state convention, but such an approach would encourage states to have as many state conventions as possible—not a desirable outcome. The SBC could apportion nominees proportionally either by membership or by contributions to SBC CP causes, but such an approach would kill any idea of meaningful membership reform and would be open to a whole host of abuses. Somebody may be brilliant enough to develop a panacea, but that person is not me.

In conclusion, I have to ask this question: Is the point of appointments and nominations really some sort of a "fair distribution"? Maybe we ought to be focusing on effectiveness rather than fairness. I think that we ought to select people to serve our convention who are in theological agreement with the messengers, are well equipped to serve in the area in question, and whose loyalties are not divided among the SBC and the CBF or other institutions. If we are putting into service people who meet these criteria, I am prepared not to care which state conventions may contain their home churches.

Let's Go Forward, Not Back to the Past

Some substantive response to Wade Burleson's most controversial post to date is in order at this time. Many will, of course, undertake this task, as blogger extraodinaire Nathan Finn has already done for us. He has done an excellent job, as will others. But that doesn't mean that I won't respond, too.

First, it is important to note that Winfred Moore, Daniel Vestal, Richard Jackson, Charles Wade, Clyde Glazener, et al, have never been excluded from the Southern Baptist Convention. Their churches have not been voted out of the convention. If they are not within the Southern Baptist Convention, it is only because they have left by their own free choices. Whoever among them has not made that choice still has every privilege accorded to member churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, including the right to select any of these men to serve as messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention.

So, what has happened to these men? They have vocally, stridently, virulently, caustically advocated a plan for the organization and operation of the Southern Baptist Convention and related entities. Their plan has not gained the support of the broader membership of the Southern Baptist Convention. They have lost several votes. The Southern Baptist Convention has repeatedly refused to implement their vision for the SBC.

And what is that vision? It is not hard to know, because when these men did not get their way, they implemented their vision in other organizations. We can look at their organizations and see precisely what was their plan.

First, they have gutted the Cooperative Program. The Baptist General Convention of Texas keeps almost 80% of Cooperative Program funds entrusted to them. 80% for the Baptist Building in Dallas; 20% for the rest of the world.

Second, they have abolished accountability for the recipients of Cooperative Program funding. In 1991 Baylor University changed its charter to prevent Texas Baptist churches from ever being able to hold the university accountable. Baylor still receives CP funding from the BGCT. A whole suite of universities followed suit. They still receive funding from the CBF crowd. Many of the affiliated educational institutions connected with the CBF are mere departments within schools that are not even Baptist. The plan of these men is to send money with no strings attached. Apparently, their view of religious liberty includes the notion that certain people have an absolute right to a paycheck, and those donating the money have the liberty to continue to pay them. You may complain about heresy taught at schools, so long as a "there, there" from some denominational bureaucrat will silence you...so long as you don't actually dare to try to do anything about it.

Third, they have established a system that is as narrow and discriminatory as any in the world. They weep for Russell Dilday while they chase Robert Sloan out of town. A recent gathering of Baptist colleges and universities included a discussion along the lines of "Since we know that we will not under any circumstances be hiring graduates of the six Southern Baptist seminaries, where are we going to find our religion professors now?" A friend, a recent SWBTS graduate who would not be theologically out of place in the BGCT, was present and greatly disheartened by the event. The SBC welcomes these institutions to set up displays in the exhibit hall at the SBC annual meeting, but these men will not allow SWBTS to set up a display at the BGCT annual meeting. Open theists we welcome with open arms; inerrantists need not apply. [The portion of this statement now struck through has been shown to be incorrect in the ensuing comments. I apologize for the inaccuracy. The remainder of the paragraph (and the article) stands unrefuted.]

The men Burleson listed, every last one of them, are not only supporters of this system; they are the architects of it.

What has happened to these men in the past twenty-seven years is as simple as this: The Southern Baptist Convention has said "No" to their misshapen vision for the future of the SBC. They have not been kicked out; they merely haven't been put in charge. Their vision is not our vision. Their vision is entirely, 100% incompatible with our vision.

Now, it is their right, upon discovering this incompatibility, to leave and start their own institution. They faced the same choice that we all face when we find we are in the minority in our churches, associations, or conventions. You can choose to go along with the majority, or you can choose to leave and do your own thing. I've personally been on the losing side of several questions in Southern Baptist life down through the years. This year's presidential election was among them. I lost. But it was a fair election. And I'm not leaving the Southern Baptist Convention over it. And if I did, my leaving would be my decision, and nobody anywhere would have forced me out by voting their conscience in Greensboro.

In fact, my church is still (for the fleeting moment) a member of the BGCT. I think it extremely likely that we're leaving. Soon. But as we go, let me make it clear that nobody is forcing me out. My views are entirely unwelcome in the BGCT and will enjoy no more success than Charles Wade's views have enjoyed in the SBC, but God has not endowed me with an inalienable right to win votes in the BGCT. The votes in the BGCT have been fair votes. I lost. And we've lost on enough things of enough importance for long enough that we're going elsewhere. But we're going of our own free will, and nobody has forced us out of anything.

In the same way, the list of people that Wade Burleson has iterated is a list of people who have chosen to go a different direction than the Southern Baptist Convention has freely and fairly chosen. I refuse to feel guilty for voting my conscience. I refuse to be made responsible for their free choices.

Therefore, in honoring what these men themselves have freely, publicly, vehemently, and with unkind and inflammatory words for others chosen for their own futures:

May God bless these men in their ministries...

Elsewhere.

Texas's Stormy Petrel of Denominational Politics

One of the major talking points of the recent dissent in the Southern Baptist Convention has been its supposed unswerving allegiance to the theological content of the conservative resurgence as expressed in the Baptist Faith & Message 2000: "Frank Page is a sound conservative. Wade Burleson is a sound conservative. Ben Cole is a sound conservative. ad infinitum"

And it is possible.

The Castroesque propaganda campaign waged for years by liberals of the BGCT ilk notwithstanding, SBC conservatives have never been a monolithic host of mindless lemmings preprogrammed to vote the party line. The old liberal lie is that all conservatives are stupid automatons. Dissent among conservatives is almost to be expected. Depending upon the nature of the controversy—the issues at stake—controversy can be healthy. It is certainly possible that a group of faithful orthodox conservatives have taken issue with the status quo of the SBC and have inaugurated a minor-yet-important course correction of the convention.

But from the beginning there have been warning signs that have made me nervous. One of those warning signs appears right in the list of Memphis Declaration signatories.

In the comment log of another blog Gene M. Bridges defended the orthodoxy of the people on this list, not against a skeptical conservative like me, but against a jaded liberal angry at the group for not going far enough. Bridges said, "Nobody among this group disagrees with BFM 2000." From everything that I read, Bro. Bridges is a devout believer and a good guy. I believe that, in making that statement, he was sincere. But I know him to be sincerely wrong.

Among the signers (toward the bottom of the list of those who didn't make it to Memphis) is David Montoya of Mineral Wells, TX. Let us examine who Montoya is:

1. Montoya is a CBFer...a liberal. He is clearly on record as someone who disagrees with the BF&M 2000 and favors the ordination and service of women as senior pastors.. I think Bro. Bridges needs to retract his earlier affirmation that the Memphis Declaration group is entirely comprised of SBC conservatives (hey, I have to retract something from time to time myself...we all do).
2. Montoya is a mean-spirited attack dog. He is a remarkable man. He has been able to do something that I never thought anyone would be able to do: He has made me feel sympathetic toward Charles Wade (for a brief, fleeting moment). He is the only guy I know who has been able to burn his bridges to both the SBTC and the BGCT. Can this guy get along with anybody? Practically every sentence that falls from his lips is an accusation. Is this the sweet, repentant spirit that the Memphis folks tell us they are ushering in?
3. Montoya is a long-time hardball player in denominational politics. First he wore the conservative jersey for a while. Then he wore the liberal jersey for a while. In both cases he insinuated himself into the inner circles of denominational politics (as he now appears to be trying to do with this dissent movement). And Montoya plays for keeps. He once snuck a tape recorder into a political strategy session. The fact that he was invited to a political strategy session reveals that he plays hardball politics. The fact that he managed to take in a recorder and publish the proceedings shows that Montoya plays harder ball than even the hardballers. Now he's tearing apart the BGCT (no skin off my nose, but it is a fact worth considering). Is this man an example of the new aversion to power politics that Memphis supposedly represents?
4. Montoya is completely unreliable. At best, he spreads unsubstantiated gossip. At worst, he is a liar. He is currently busy assassinating the character of a man named Rick Hagar. I contacted Hagar to ask about Montoya's allegations, and Hagar assured me that he can document the falsity of Montoya's rumors. By the way, Montoya had never notified Hagar that Montoya's blog would contain allegations that Hagar had been fired from a previous position for alleged-by-Montoya financial improprieties. Montoya has published lies about the SBTC. I called and asked about his allegations that the SBTC was cooking up some grand strategy to use the Rio Grande Valley embarrassment to steal away BGCT churches. I asked friends who work at the SBTC. Some of them have close relationships with folks from the BGCT and are whole lot friendlier with that organization that I am. If such a thing were true, I would know about it. But Montoya's allegations about the SBTC are not true. That doesn't matter much—Montoya is not the sort of guy to let the truth get in the way of a good political strategy.

Conclusion

So a hateful, reckless misanthrope with a long history of savage political dealings on every side of contemporary SBC issues...this is one of our new young leaders who is going to rescue us from the misdeeds of the past? Surely no sane person believes that.

David Montoya is just one man. His character is not that of the others involved in this movement. Some of the folks on the Memphis Declaration list are much different. I've had a little bit of Internet chatter with Kiki Cherry, and she's got to be one of the most delightful people on the planet, from all that I can tell. Let nobody think that I am trying to paint with a broad brush.

But I do know this: Some of the people involved in this movement are not conservatives. Some of the people involved in this movement are indeed desperate to undo all the hard work of the past 27 years. Some of them will gladly affirm the Memphis Declaration or the Baptist Faith & Message disingenuously if it will help them further their personal agendas. And yet none of the people involved in the dissent movement, even if they themselves are conservative, seem astute enough to recognize this (or perhaps theologically-minded enough to care). One must seriously ask whether their brand of kinder, gentler conservatism is really prepared to deal with someone like David Montoya. The kind of naivete that counts the David Montoyas of this world as sweet-spirited, controversy-eschewing, hot-hearted, rock-solid SBC conservatives is the kind of naivete that might just ruin the Southern Baptist Convention.

May God prevent it.