January 29, 2001

Oklahoma City pastor defends
Hobbs & '63 Baptist Faith & Message
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___SHAWNEE, Okla.--Herschel Hobbs was not "naïve" as he led the writing of the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message and was not "duped" by advocates of neo-orthodox theology, according to one of Hobbs' successors as pastor of First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City.
___Jeffry Zurheide spoke in defense of Hobbs as he gave the annual Herschel and Frances Hobbs Lectures at Oklahoma Baptist University. He responded to comments made by several presidents of Southern Baptist Convention seminaries who told a Baptist General Convention of Texas Seminary Study Committee that Hobbs had been "duped" in 1963 and had been "naïve" in the language he incorporated into the Baptist Faith & Message regarding soul competency and the priesthood of all believers.
___Hobbs, longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, was chairman of the SBC committee that revised the Baptist Faith & Message in 1963. Revisions made to the faith statement in 2000 removed or softened some of Hobbs' language on soul competency and the priesthood of believers while narrowing his language on the Bible.
___If Hobbs were to be raised from the dead today and asked what counsel he has for Baptists, he would cry out, "Freedom," Zurheide said.
___"I think if Herschel were with us this morning, he would indeed tell us: 'Protect these key Baptist freedoms--the freedom of the individual competent soul and the freedom of the local Baptist competent church community. The Spirit is at work in you, individually and collectively.'
___"This is the bedrock of Dr. Hobbs' faith and message. If we miss him here or minimize his thinking on this point, we misrepresent him."
___Baptist freedom in Christ is a recurring theme of Hobbs' writing, teaching and preaching, Zurheide asserted. "He reinforced these beliefs; he articulated and rearticulated these priorities. At times, he almost seemed to breathe them."
___Hobbs wrote extensively about what he believed was Baptists' greatest contribution to Christianity, Zurheide said. "Baptists' most unique contribution to Jesus' church universal, Herschel Hobbs believed, was and is soul competency."
___Hobbs also would sound a warning today about religious freedom, Zurheide suggested.
___"Why not legislate the gospel and the dynamics of the kingdom of God? Because if we resort to anything but 'spiritual means,' as the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message puts it, we essentially label as ineffective the power and work of the Holy Spirit."
___Zurheide said he would love to ask Hobbs if he believes the SBC today is backing away from these three Baptist freedoms.
___An answer might be found in Hobbs' own words, from a lecture he gave at OBU in 1980. Hobbs said: "We must exercise constant vigilance in warding off the threats to religious freedom, both within our denomination and outside it, including the current drift toward creedalism. ... The storm clouds of creedalism hover over our denomination.
___"Well-intentioned people in contending for faith in the Scriptures may discover that the good for which they strive may become the enemy of the best, namely, the competency of the soul in religion."
___Zurheide drew upon Hobbs' legacy to issue an urgent appeal for freedom.
___"Herschel Hobbs cried freedom his whole life long. Let us take up that same mantle so that, to use his words, we might 'bequeath our faith and heritage to those who come after us.'"

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