Southern Baptists must decide whether they are satisfied with a "presumable encroachment of Calvinism" in their leadership and their seminary graduates, Baptist paper editor Gerald Harris wrote Feb. 9, drawing responses from several SBC entities.
In a column titled "The Calvinists are here," Harris, editor of The Christian Index, newsjournal of the Georgia Baptist Convention, set forth statements about Calvinism and quoted Southern Baptists on both sides of the issue.
"... It appears that some of our institutions and agencies are giving, at the least, tacit approval to Reformed theology or are, at the most, actively on a path to honor, if not implement Reformed theology and methodology in their institutions," Harris wrote at ChristianIndex.org. Keep reading
Related article: The Baptist Bogeyman
Election -- God's gracious purpose
Southern Baptists are a diverse people. Nowhere is this diversity more apparent than on the subject of election.
The Preamble of the Baptist Faith and Message, which is, itself, an integral and important part of the confession of faith, sets forth several parameters for what the Baptist Faith and Message seeks to accomplish. Specifically, it identifies "certain definite doctrines that Baptists believe, cherish, and with which they have been and are now closely identified." (1)
The Preamble also stipulates that the Baptist Faith and Message is not a comprehensive statement of Baptist beliefs; (2) rather, it is a consensus statement of faith. (3) As a consensus, it states those "certain" doctrines around which we can find common ground with fellow believers.
Among these "certain definite doctrines" is Article V, "God's Purpose of Grace." The wording of the Article is loosely based on the New Hampshire confession of faith (1833), as modified by J. Newton Brown in the Baptist Church Manual in 1853. (4) It has changed only slightly in the three versions of the Baptist Faith and Message (1925, 1963, and 2000). (5) It currently states... Keep reading
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