Lineberger warns of 'creedalists'
___By Scott Collins
___For Texas Baptist Communications
___CORPUS CHRISTI--Warning about a "deadness in conformity," Phil Lineberger called on Texas Baptists to guard against "fundamentalist creedalists" who would seek to take away their freedom.
___Lineberger, pastor of Williams Trace Baptist Church in Sugar Land, spoke to nearly 1,100 people attending the annual breakfast of Texas Baptists Committed Oct. 31.
___Speaking the day after BGCT messengers approved a major shift in funding away from the Southern Baptist Convention, Lineberger called on Texans to protect the spiritual

PHIL LINEBERGER

freedoms Baptists have in Christ.
___"Baptists did not invent the idea of spiritual freedom, but it is Baptists who have protected it," Lineberger said. "We have been on the forefront of protecting spiritual freedom."
___But spiritual freedom is being threatened by the "21st century trap of creedalism," he said. "We must say no to fundamentalist creedalists and yes to Jesus Christ.
___"We should not surrender to man what should be kept sacred to God," he added. "We have come to a time in which telling the truth, acting honestly and treating people decently has been sacrificed in the name of the bottom line religious control and conformity through a creedalistic loyalty oath."
___The key to avoiding this trap of creedalism, Lineberger said, is for Baptists to think critically, live creatively and choose freely.
___Thinking critically is a threat to some religious leaders, he said. "For our fundamentalist creedalist leaders, thinking is dangerous. For us, not thinking is even more dangerous. Jesus gave us minds, and he expects us to use our minds to ask questions.
___"When a self-appointed ecclesiastical hierarchy tells you that a Sanhedrin will determine if you believe the right things about the Bible based upon their creed, remind them that Romans 14:12 says that each one of us will give an account of himself to God."
___Along with thinking critically, Lineberger encouraged the Texas Baptists Committed audience to also "live creatively."
___"There is a deadness in conformity," Lineberger warned. "The most deadening effect on theological education in this century is the conformity that is coerced on professors and students."
___That conformity excludes people from ministry because of gender, he said. "The gifting of the Spirit is not limited by gender. If you've been gifted, you have a moral responsibility to use that gift."
___Finally, Lineberger said, the third key to protecting spiritual freedom is to choose freely.
___"The most controlling thing our fundamentalist creedalist leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention can do is to make us believe that we have only one choice. But that is not God's way," he said. "God has created us as free moral agents, giving us the free will to love and follow him or to reject him and go our own way."



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