May 1, 2000
Texas Baptist Forum
Beneficial add-on
___I agree Al Mohler is not perfect, but he correctly identifies a major problem among evangelical Christians, including Baptists (April 17). Many of us do give personal experience greater authority than Scripture.
___If you ask the average Baptist, they would state their commitment to Scripture with boldness. But listen carefully to our Sunday School classes and our sermons. You will find people talking much more about their experiences and opinions than about the actual teachings of Scripture. Talking about the Bible becomes an opportunity to share our opinions.
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com
___Our first question usually is, "What do we think about it?" when it should be, "What does Scripture tell me to think about it?" We should meditate on the truth of God's word and let it change our views, rather than trying to make Scripture fit with our opinions.
___We sometimes treat the Bible as a beneficial add-on to our lives, like taking our vitamins. Scripture should be the core of what we eat, think and do.
___ Winston Meeker
___ San Antonio
Sad fact
___I am appalled by the lack of objectivity exhibited in the Baptist Standard. The April 17 issue was full of one-sided attacks on Al Mohler. The Standard showed it is in clear opposition to him. It is clear that there is definitely an agenda at work here.
___The sad fact is that the majority of Baptist people trustingly accept this report as being objective. I wish that were true. Many think Al Mohler is on the right track in restoring to this denomination what it is losing--doctrinally sound believers.
___ Name Withheld
___ Linden
Heart-sick jolt
___The comments of Al Mohler regarding E.Y. Mullins (April 17) caused a heart-sick jolt in one who was born a Southern Baptist and will be until the Lord comes for me. The doctrine that has made us this great people on mission--the priesthood of the believer--has come increasingly under attack. This doctrine, described in our own Baptist Faith & Message, has been one of the strongest reasons many have received Christ.
___Mohler has much time as president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to criticize leaders from the past. Maybe he needs to find time to serve the lost, lonely, hurting world instead of looking to criticize those who have led us to this great harvest.
___ Carrie Rogers
___ Austin
God initiates
___Al Mohler stated E.Y. Mullins held human experience to be above the authority of revelation (April 17).
___Mohler said: "There is a warning to us in the intentional shift Dr. Mullins made away from revelation as the sole source of religious authority and of Christian theology and the shift to experience."
___My doctoral research reveals Mullins' perspective on religious experience emphasized the necessity of God's revelation, thereby maintaining the initiative of God in human experiences with him. Mullins acknowledged God as the larger element in the experiential equation. It was vital that God should take the initiative if people were to know him and experience his divine qualities, such as grace and wisdom.
___Moreover, God remained the ultimate authority in experience, according to Mullins. God's self-revelation offered the church an external standard by which to evaluate specific factors in experience, such as circumstances, inward feelings and assumptions. Every experience of the church was to accord with the character and work of God. Revelation acted as a safeguard against unwarranted interpretations of these experiences.
___ David E. Moore
___ Fort Worth
Three R's
___The Baptist Standard carried excellent material on Al Mohler's views of E.Y. Mullins' theology and several responses to it (April 17). It also carried a fine article about the three R's for religion in schools.
___I would like to suggest those three R's might well be applied to our denominational relationships as well.
___If we could only emphasize the rights of Southern Baptists to disagree and still be acknowledged as Baptists, and even as Southern Baptists, that would be a great step forward.
___Then we would need to apply the responsibility of sharing fairly what we believe without castigating those who disagree.
___Finally, we need to respect each other, even when we disagree.
___If we do not follow these guidelines, it appears that we will soon be fragmented into warring camps which will not only lose the respect of the world around us (if we have not already) but will make our testimony in the world negligible. If the convention decides to leave the principle of soul competency, we will be headed straight toward the authoritarian view of Scripture which led to the primacy of a hierarchical system of church organization and doctrinal absolutism.
___I sincerely hope there is still room for more than one interpretation of Scripture among Southern Baptists.
___ David W. King
___ Marshall
Ethnic cleansing
___Please pray for the country of Zimbabwe. The ruling party in Zimbabwe has passed legislation designed to run the whites out of Zimbabwe and violates the peace agreement that ended the Rhodesian war.
___If this ethnic cleansing in Zimbabwe is tolerated, within 10 years the same thing will be tried in South Africa. This will cause a real blood bath. Please pray for God's intervention.
___ C.K. Huff
___ Lake Jackson
Able spokesman
___Charles Wade's ability and willingness to articulate clearly and courageously who Texas Baptists are and what we stand for is welcome in our day.
___I hope each of the directors of missions who met with him (April 24) would be able to articulate as clearly their own understanding of our beliefs and positions. Perhaps their respective associations should ask for such from them, and perhaps the resulting statements should be published in the Standard.
___In addition, any spokesperson from any group who meets with the directors of missions should be asked to do the same, being willing to have his statements published.
___Let those of us who constitute the membership of Texas Baptist churches, who have always believed in the priesthood of the believer and soul competency, be the audience to whom they must be accountable.
___ Barbara Kent
___ Fort Worth
Trust God
___The farmers are suffering the same fate as the rest of us. They and their communities are no different than those of us who were displaced by low oil prices in the '80s.
___I was a fourth-generation service contractor when declining production changed the domestic petroleum business. Independent welders, equipment operators and other contractors were the ones forced out of business and into different lines of work. I am sorry anyone has to suffer the death of a way of life, but the farmers are like the rest of us. Things are changing.
___Judith Heffernan says the farmers lose their connection with God when they lose their farms (April 10). All of us who try to live for Christ think what we do is what God has called us to do, so when that livelihood and its way of life and its community are killed by economic factors, we all struggle to understand and follow on.
___We all must trust God to provide.
___ Bert Shivers
___ Daisetta
Christian walk
___In relation to the criticism of "Experiencing God" by a librarian at Southern Seminary (April 17), here is a quote from Henry Blackaby in the "Experiencing God" workbook:
___"During this course and your life, you will have times when you want to respond based on your own experiences or your own wisdom. Such an approach will get you in trouble. This should be your guideline: Always go back to the Bible for truth (or, for the Holy Spirit to reveal truth) ... Make your decisions and evaluate your experience based on biblical principles ... As a Christian, I cannot abandon the guidelines I find in the Bible. The Bible is my guide for my faith and practice."
___Experience is not paramount as asserted in the criticism from the seminary librarian.
___ The criticism is correct in that "Experiencing God" has little doctrine included, but it is a book of application, a book giving instruction on the walk a Christian should have with Jesus Christ.
___ Clinton Tittsworth
___ Wichita Falls
Spin doctors
___It breaks my heart to hear week after week the constant complaints about the conservatives slinging mud. I have sat back and read the Baptist Standard week after week,and it is evident to me and is further demonstrated by the April 17 paper that the mud-slinging is being promoted primarily by the Baptist Standard.
___ It is absolutely shameful and sinful the way that you used this issue to attack not only conservatives but also Al Mohler. This issue of the Standard resembles what Clinton spin doctors do through the news media. It is very evident that the" powers that be" in Texas are spinning their political line now in hopes in influencing the convention. Your attacks or spin makes anything you say about the conservatives slinging mud suspect.
___ How soon we forget Jesus' directions, "Let him who has no sin cast the first stone" But it seems that too many of the former leaders are consumed with a root of bitterness which makes them irrational. How sad because that root of bitterness is literally eating away as a cancer.
___ Bill Bailey
___ Columbus, Ind.
Support the movement
___ After reading your editorial about Al Mohler, (April 17) I never realized that being Calvinist was in conflict with the doctrine of the "priesthood of all believers." Even Calvinists believe that every believer has direct access to God through Christ. Is Al Mohler
___ I'm not afraid of Al Mohler. There is a renewal occurring in the SBC for sound doctrine, preaching, and worship. I support this movement and the direction of the SBC. If the "revised" BF&M is perceived to be a bad document, then the local churches can simply re-affirm the original 1963 BF&M or write their own statement of faith.
___ Jeff Hancock
___ Mesquite
Doctrine problems
___ We are increasingly encountering problems with Southern Baptist literature. In the "Sunday School Leader" for April, page 41, the author kept confusing Nehemiah and
___ But now we have serious doctrine problems. In "Baptist Adults" Discipleship Training text for April 9, the author introduces a theory of the intermediate state (of death), which does not agree with Jesus' statement to the thief on the cross, recorded in Luke 23:43: "Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise."
___ There is a lot I do not know about death and the hereafter, but it is enough for me to know that if I accept Jesus as my Savior , witness for him and try to follow his will, then it will be "well with my soul." I am content to step into the unknown armored in my faith. Trying to discern what cannot be known only leads to fear and confusion.
___ We need to look closely at our literature and possibly find alternative sources.
___ Carroll Johnson
___ Douglassville
'Alone' is important
___ Robert Browning's letter (April 17) proves Al Mohler is on target with his concerns. If the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then there cannot be multiple ways to God. We are
___ The Roman Catholic Church affirms that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ but cannot affirm the statement with the word "alone" attached. Is this a negotiable matter? The Apostle Paul thought not. Galatians and Romans are clear. We can in no way justify ourselves before a holy God.
___ The Roman Catholic Church and evangelicals disagree over what part our merit plays in our salvation. That Brown would suggest such matters belong only in academic circles and are not related to the "real world" is disturbing. That he would think Mohler "embarrasses" Baptists with his statements is ludicrous.
___ Reality is defined by God's word, not popular opinion. We speak the truth in love. We must not forget the "truth" part.
___ Kevin Prather
___ San Antonio
Mohler is right
___ Bill Carl said Al Mohler was wrong calling the Roman Catholic Church a " false church" (April 10, April 3). Al Mohler is right.
___ When the Reformers declared Rome apostate and no longer a true church, they did so
___ Baptists believe faith, distinguished from its fruit, is the instrumental cause of justification, the means by which we subjectively appropriate (via imputation) Christ's objective righteousness. Faith is neither a meritorious cause of justification nor its ground. For Rome, the sacraments, chiefly baptism and penance, are the instrumental cause of justification.
___ Baptists believe that "sola fide" is an essential truth of biblical Christianity. To deny this or any other essential truth would disqualify an institution from being a valid or true church. "But to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness" (Romans 4:5).
___ James R. Segura
___ Pasadena
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