September 4, 2000
BF&M 'non-negotiable' at seminaries
___KANSAS CITY, Mo. (ABP) --All six seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention will require "non-negotiable accountability" to the 2000 version of the Baptist Faith & Message, according to the chairman of the Council of Seminary Presidents.
___Bill Crews, president of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., made that declaration in a letter to a Texas Baptist committee studying theological education options.
___The letter was released last week to Tim Palmer of the Missouri Word & Way newspaper by an unidentified source, but not by any member of the Texas committee. The Texas committee, chaired by Houston pastor Bob Campbell, has been working all spring and summer without public comment. A member of the Texas study committee declined a request to be interviewed by Palmer, saying the committee will have no comment until it reports to the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Palmer reported in the Aug. 31 issue of the Word & Way that a subcommittee of the Texas study committee made an on-site visit to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 22. On-site visits also have been made in recent days to the other five SBC seminaries as well as the two BGCT-related seminaries, Palmer reported.
___Those on-site visits apparently were required after the six SBC seminary presidents declined a request to be interviewed by the BGCT committee in Dallas.
___According to the Word & Way report, Campbell wrote letters to the SBC seminary presidents June 22 to invite them to Dallas. More than a month later, the seminary presidents replied to Campbell jointly through a letter written by Crews, who serves this year as chairman of the SBC's Council of Seminary Presidents.
___In a follow-up letter to Campbell dated July 28, Crews told of meeting with BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade the previous week in Nashville, Tenn. "In the course of our conversation, it became clear that the Baptist Faith & Message as adopted this June by the Southern Baptist Convention is a major focus of your consideration," Crews wrote.
___Crews said he had been told a primary purpose for the meetings with the seminaries was to determine whether endorsement of the revised faith statement would be made a criterion for employment at an SBC seminary.
___"All six of the seminaries stand together in affirming that we will indeed make the Baptist Faith & Message an issue of non-negotiable accountability for all who teach in our institutions," Crews wrote to Campbell. He noted that to do so would continue "a long-standing policy that was in place before any of the current presidents were elected to our positions of responsibility."
___At its 1999 annual session in El Paso, the BGCT affirmed the 1963 version of the Baptist Faith & Message, rejecting a controversial 1998 addition on family.Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!