May 29, 2000
What they're saying about the Baptist Faith & Message
___"This is a statement from Southern Baptists that our positions and our perspectives are not going to be dictated by the culture. They're going to be dictated by Scripture. If we stand alone, we'll stand alone."
___SBC President Paige Patterson, Los Angeles Times
___The new document "pulls up a drawbridge into the 21st century and padlocks Southern Baptists into a 19th century cultural castle."
___Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville, Tenn.
___The proposed revision "is based on a bad interpretation of Scripture, an insensitivity to the Holy Spirit and an unwillingness to see what God is doing in the world today."
___Daniel Vestal, coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, New York Times
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_"The committee's report does not announce any new beliefs. It just clarifies what most Baptists have always believed the Bible teaches. It is the culture that has changed, not the Bible, and not most Baptists."
___Michael Whitehead, interim president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
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_"It would come as a surprise to Jesus that the office of pastor should be limited to men."
___Julie Pennington-Russell, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Orlando Sentinel
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_"In a world where there is an encroachment on the family by an out-of-control feminism, you have to expect that if we have a view that is distinct, we have to state that."
___SBC President Paige Patterson, Raleigh News & Observer
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_"Their disagreement is with the Apostle Paul, not with us."
___Richard Land, a member of the study committee and president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, speaking in Religion News Service about people who disagree with the statement's definition of women's roles
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_"It would be unfair to say we deleted" the phrases in the preamble about soul competency and priesthood of all believers. "We weren't seeking to minimize those Baptist concepts. When we pulled concepts from the 1963 statement, that's just one paragraph that didn't get included in the new report."
___Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a member of the study committee
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