December 8, 1999
COMMENTARY:
A more broadminded Paige Patterson?
___By Kenneth Chafin
___When I read the first line of the Baptist Press article about Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson's message at the Arkansas Baptist Pastors' Conference, I thought the New Millennium had begun a month early and Patterson had rediscovered the historic Baptist emphasis on unity in the midst of diversity.
___The article reported Patterson as saying that while Five-Point Calvinism lacks scriptural justification, those who promote that position would not be run out of the SBC. Hisstatement seems to be sending a clear signal to Southern Baptist preachers and laity to leave Albert Mohler alone. Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and the leading proponent of Five-Point Calvinism in the denomination.
___ When I read the statement, I wondered if this were the same Paige Patterson who wanted Roy Honeycutt fired as the president of Southern Seminary because he didn't agree with him on the interpretation of a remote Old Testament text, a text that was not central to the Scripture's message of God's love and grace. Now Patterson is defending the president of that same seminary who does not believe that Christ died for all, a teaching that is plain in the Bible and believed by the rank and file of Southern Baptists.
___ Is this the same Paige Patterson who tried to have me fired as a professor at Southern Seminary when I appeared on the "Donahue" show along with Judge Paul Pressler and said that I had a rabbi friend who knew God? Yet Patterson is comfortable with a president of the seminary whose doctrine plainly teaches that some infants are born to damnation, one of the teachings of Five-Point Calvinism.
___ As I thought about Patterson's statement, I realized the tiger had not lost his stripes and still cannot be trusted with the lambs. The terrible truth, which is hard for most Baptists to accept, is that the Fundamentalists have always been more interested in political power than in doctrinal purity. They continue to systematically eliminate people from all the institutions who question their authority and control. They are afraid that if they are forced to correct the mistake they made in electing Mohler at Southern Seminary that it will be like taking their finger out of the hole in the dike
___ What Patterson really fears is that at some meeting an ordinary Baptist will get up and say, "We don't need to have a person who does not believe that Christ died for all as the president of one of our seminaries." And the thing that shakes Patterson is the fear that Baptist parents and grandparents will start looking at the children with whom they are sharing Christ and wonder why they should keep funding a seminary where future church leaders will be exposed to the idea that some infants are born to damnation.
___ Kenneth Chafin is a longtime Southern Baptist pastor, seminary professor and evangelism leader and is the former pastor of South Main Baptist Church in Houston
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