January 5, 2000
Committee on Baptist Integrity defends against SBC criticisms
___DALLAS--Reaction of Southern Baptist Convention leaders to Texas Baptists' reaffirmation of the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message statement is inconsistent and self-serving, according to a committee monitoring charges against the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___"For 35 years, the 1963 statement was considered the best summation of who Baptists are and was accepted by people on both sides of the controversy," said John Wilkerson, chairman of the Committee on Baptist Integrity.
___"Now, because Texas Baptists have reaffirmed it instead of a revised version approved by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1998, they are labeled by the SBC president as liberal and in favor of a culturally acceptable view of family and church instead of a Christ-honoring, Bible-believing perspective."
___"That is quite simply a ridiculous bit of pomposity that can only be aimed at coaxing churches away from affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and to the new Southern Baptists of Texas Convention," Wilkerson added.
___The Lubbock layman issued his comments after consulting with the 13-member integrity panel appointed last year to respond to attacks on the BGCT and its leaders.
___The Texas convention was sharply criticized by several SBC leaders after the 1999 annual session in El Paso Nov. 8-9, where messengers overwhelmingly affirmed the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message statement. Specifically excluded from the affirmation was a new article on family life. The SBC's new section calls on wives to submit to their husbands. Texas Baptists in November 1998 approved a resolution noting Ephesians 5:21 calls for mutual submission of husbands and wives.
___The action on the Baptist Faith & Message statement and a report critical of BGCT leaders' ties with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and other so-called "liberal" organizations were among reasons cited in a decision Nov. 17 by First Baptist Church of Dallas to "loosen" its ties with the BGCT and dually align with the new Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
___About 300 members of the 12,000-member church made the decision after hearing a report from a seven-member committee of deacons, who reviewed and criticized BGCT actions and elections over the last several years and options given for the receipt of mission gifts by local churches. The report presented to the congregation was not unanimously embraced by the deacon study committee, however. Three of the seven committee members declined to allow their names to be included on the report.
___Wilkerson encouraged churches across the state to exercise caution in embracing and distributing materials produced by the Missouri Baptist Laymen's Association and Texas Baptist Laymen's Association, the source of the Dallas church's research. The Committee on Baptist Integrity has repeatedly denounced this literature as untruthful and slanderous.
___Every Texas Baptist church has the right to determine with whom they will affiliate, "but such decisions should be made based on factual information, not on so-called documented studies made by people with questionable motives who specialize in guilt-by-association and innuendo," Wilkerson said.Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!