October 30, 2000
Wade cites SBC's "rigid limitations"
as cause for rift with Texas Baptists
___By Scott Collins & Mark Wingfield
___CORPUS CHRISTI--The crisis that prompted Texas Baptists to eliminate more than $5 million in funding for the Southern Baptist Convention was caused by "rigid limitations" imposed by SBC leaders, Charles Wade told messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session Oct. 30.
___ In his first convention report as BGCT executive director, Wade addressed head-on what he labeled "a controversy that threatens the Baptist vision."
___ Wade criticized SBC leaders for creating a "non-Baptist confession of faith" in the revised version of the Baptist Faith & Message adopted by the SBC in June. "And they have proceeded to use it in a non-Baptist fashion--as a creed rather than as a confession of faith," he added.
___ "I know there are those who question my judgment in this matter," Wade told messengers, "but I simply point out that never before have Baptists adopted a statement of faith that claims to be an 'instrument of doctrinal accountability.'"
___ Previously, Baptist confessions of faith have been a witness to the community and a guide for instructing new members, Wade said. "Never before have we called a confession of faith an instrument of doctrinal accountability. Accountable to whom? Some religious authority? Some ecclesiastical committee?"
___ This is the next progression in a pattern that Baptists have witnessed over the last 21 years, Wade said, a period in which "there has been a rigid limitation on who can serve Southern Baptists."
___ "Unless a professor or a prospective trustee or committee member was prepared to use certain language concerning the Bible, they could not be considered for service. People who believe the Bible were not eligible because they would not frame their convictions regarding the Bible using the special code word," he said.
___ Wade then held up a letter he received within the last month from SBC President James Merritt, who was asking state convention executive directors to nominate individuals for service on SBC boards and committees.
___ "One of the qualifications he listed was that they 'be fully supportive of our 2000 edition of the Baptist Faith & Message,'" Wade said. "That means it is not only those who are employed by Southern Baptists, but also any pastor or layperson who might be asked to serve in a position of shaping policy or making important decisions on behalf of the rest of us who will have to sign on to the new confession of faith.
___"That makes it either a creed or a loyalty oath or both," Wade said to loud applause from the audience.
___ He also criticized the SBC's removal from the Baptist Faith & Message of a sentence that declared: "The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ."
___ "This is not a neo-orthodox idea as some have claimed," Wade said. "It is a New Testament truth and the consistent view of Baptists since there have been Baptists. And now it has been removed from our confession of faith. I am sure they did not intend to nudge the Bible into a place of idolatry, but that is exactly the effect of deleting that sentence."
___ Wade urged messengers to "pass all the recommendations" of committees that later in the day presented recommendations on reducing funding to SBC seminaries and other entities.
___ "We need to do this because of the need to treat the students in our Texas seminaries the same as those in our Southern Baptist seminaries," he said. "And we need to do this because Southern Baptist leaders have shown greater willingness to talk with Texas Baptists in the last six weeks than ever before."
___ Although the times are difficult, Texas Baptists should take courage and not be afraid of the process, Wade suggested. "We want to move beyond this painful time, but we don't need to be afraid to address the issues. We Baptists believe our faith is too important to be left to the religious experts. All of us are called on to study the matters and prayerfully make our decisions."
___ He cited a litany of Baptists throughout history who faced difficult challenges but persevered.
___ "What if Felix Mainz and Conrad Grebel, the early Swiss Anabaptists, had been content to ignore the doctrine of believer's baptism and separation of church and state which they found in the Greek New Testament they had begun to study? They would have saved their lives, but the Baptist vision would have died before it was born."
___ Likewise, Baptists today face "truths and principles worth speaking out clearly about," Wade said. "We live in such a moment in time. Baptist principles have been ignored."
___ It is time for Texas Baptists to show a way through the controversies of the last two decades and "go forward together."
___ Texas is too needy. The world is too lost for us to stay mired in this quagmire," Wade said. "If God will give us energy, if God will draw our churches together, if God will give us time, Texas Baptists will step forward for the sake of Baptists everywhere, in every part of the world, and hold the Baptist vision high."
___ Wade received a sustained standing ovation from about three-fourths of the messengers and guests present in the convention center.
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