December 2, 2002
California will keep BF&M as guideline
___FRESNO, Calif. (BP)--Messengers to the California Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting rejected changing the convention name and kept the Baptist Faith & Message as a requirement for membership of churches.
___For the third time since 1998, messengers rejected dropping "Southern" from the organization's name, a proposal initially put forth by a 50-member strategic planning team in 1998.
___Several messengers spoke in favor of and against the proposed name-change amendment to the convention's constitution. The amendment failed to garner the required two-thirds vote.
___Another constitutional amendment that would have deleted the Baptist Faith & Message as a requirement for membership also failed. The amendment would have recognized a cooperating church as one that has "doctrine and conduct consistent with the faith and practice of churches as taught in the Scriptures" rather than churches who are "in agreement with the Baptist Faith & Message as adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention."
___Dewey Squyres, pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church in San Jose, introduced the amendment at the 2001 convention meeting. Saying the convention had "used the Baptist Faith & Message in an inappropriate way," Squyres noted, "When you take a human statement of faith and use it as the authoritative standard of orthodoxy, you are using it as a creed. I believe this amendment is actually consistent with the Baptist Faith & Message and with our history as Baptists."
___Several messengers denied that requiring agreement with the Baptist Faith & Message constitutes using it as a creed.
___"Nazarenes are people of the book, but doctrinally we disagree. Methodists are people of the book, but doctrinally we disagree," said Rob Zinn, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland. "The Baptist Faith & Message is a confessional, and I need it. When people say, 'What do you believe?' I need it. If we pull this out and say that's not what we use, we open the door to every wind of doctrine."
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