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Who gets to decide the theological parameters of SBC Seminaries?

Discussion in 'Baptist Colleges & Seminaries' started by go2church, Nov 7, 2009.

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  1. Johnv

    Johnv New Member

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    Dr Rogers was correct. If a seminary is aligned with a denomination, then it must adhere to denominational faith and practice. Anything not covered by the denominational faith and practice is up to the semenary to decide.
     
  2. Rhetorician

    Rhetorician Administrator
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    Quote Please

    go2church,

    Could you verify your quote of Adrian's please? I am not doubting just checking. Like Ronald Regan said, "Trust, but verify!"

    No recriminations intended.:laugh:

    "That is all!"
     
  3. Rhetorician

    Rhetorician Administrator
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    Gentle Question

    John,

    You do say this in jest, jokingly, "tongue-n-cheek," or you do not understand James Boice, John A. Broadus, Basil Manly, Jr. & Sr., William Williams, P. H. Mell, etc., et al in and amongst your Baptist History? Do you?

    "Tell me it ain't so?!":laugh: Either your statement or your understandings of our founding?

    "That is all!"
     
  4. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
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    I think, regardless of your position on the politics of the SBC, that if one is to spend anytime in and around our fine seminary faculty you will discover there is a terrific variety of positions on the issues. While they remain lashed to the Cross and bound to the Book each faculty member does have a range of views on the other issues.

    I have profound confidence in our respected seminary faculty that grows everytime I get to talk with them. Having done a masters in an SBC school and then a doctorate else where I have profound respect for the variety we are blessed with in the SBC. :)

    While I share a deep concern (with many in leadership) about the entrenchment in and fascination with fundamentalism some have taken, by and large our (theological) faculty in the seminaries are not fundamentalists. In fact if you were ask most of them about a position like eschatology you would be (depending on your position) pleasantly surprised to find a variety of well informed views. :)
     
  5. TomVols

    TomVols New Member

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    That was the point I was making. I can't think of a point that isn't represented, though I don't know a ton of postmils. And it kills a certain quadrant of the convention. So be it :)
     
  6. go2church

    go2church Active Member
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    It has been reported other places but here you go:

    "I well remember our dialogue concerning the importance of academic freedom in the educational processes of our seminaries and colleges. I vividly remember what Adrian Rogers, a leader of the takeover movement, said at the meeting. Of Southern Baptist seminary professors, he said they must teach, 'Whatever they are told to teach. And if we tell them to teach that pickles have souls, then they must teach that pickles have souls!' Those were his exact words. Everybody in the room heard them." (Gene Garrison, former Oklahoma pastor, on MainstreamBaptists.org.)"
     
  7. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    http://www.mainstreambaptists.org/mob/somuch.htm

    Not sure this liberal is a credible source. At this point it is just his claimed experience and nothing more.
     
  8. TomVols

    TomVols New Member

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    It is true that we cannot say Garrison is making this up with absolute veracity. Yet hearsay of hearsay is not the most reliable information either.
     
  9. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    David E. Anderson, "Southern Baptist Warns of Fundamentalism's Impact on Church Unity," United Press International, April 10, 1987.
     
  10. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    I don't know that I have a problem with the comment but I still do not se anything credible to substantiate it.
     
  11. Jim1999

    Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

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    I personally think the current SBC leadership is bending over a line, remembering that not too many years ago, liberal theologians were gaining a foothold in the Southern Seminary is Louisville. They were eventually removed as the Fundamentalists regained power.

    Liberal theology has a way to invade fundamental theology with its double-speak, and the fundamental leadership is guarding against this invasion.

    Cheers,

    Jim
     
  12. go2church

    go2church Active Member
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    Well I guess short of Rogers jumping up out of the grave... You will believe what you want and miss the point of the question entirely.
     
  13. Joseph M. Smith

    Joseph M. Smith New Member

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    I have been far too busy doing ministry-related things to respond to every reference in these postings to my earlier remarks. But a few things just have to be said now:

    1. There were no liberal theologians at Southern Seminary, so far as I could tell, at any time in the period under review, at least if you define "liberal" as having a low Christology and/or a weak anthropology. They may not have had an inerrancy posture on the inspiration of the Scriptures, but that is only one theory of inspiration and is certainly not a requirement for an evangelical theology. I think of men like Dale Moody, David Mueller, Wayne Ward, and J. Leo Garrett ... actually some of us bright young things thought they were rather too conservative!

    2. It is not slanderous or malicious to suggest that the takeover of the SBC and its institutions was about power more than anything else. I have mentioned before, because it accords with my own observations during those years, that James L. Sullivan wrote a courageous article quoting some of the conservative leaders as saying that they had found an issue they could rally Southern Baptists about ... the nature of the Bible. How cynical, and yet how effective, to bandy about accusations and whip up the troops, using this concept. If they could have found another issue more provocative, they would have used that; it was all about getting power.

    Let's ask why certain ultra-conservatives were kept away from SBC leadership post. Might it not have been that their personalities were so domineering and their views so uncompromising that they made very poor team players? I do recognize that another and more negative spin could be placed on that characteristic.

    3. This thread has referred occasionally to the issue of forcing people to affirm certain things, or else they will be excluded. One poster mentioned that in his state convention, those who are being considered for leadership but who do not call themselves inerrantists are simply dropped from consideration. Sad, in my view, that this one theory on this one theological point is the only litmus test. But the issue I am addressing is exclusion ... the resurgents say that the moderates (please, not liberals!) did it years back. But the resurgents are doing it now.

    Case in point: a few years back the SBC North American Mission Board abrogated its agreement with the District of Columbia Baptist Convention, an agreement exactly like its agreements with other state conventions, putting revenue and missionaries into that convention. Why? Because DCBC has some female pastors in some of its churches and because some of the speakers at its annual meetings were presumed to be anti-SBC. (One citation that would be laughable if it were not so utterly ignorant ... NAMB "accused" DCBC of inviting a speaker whose views were known to be critical of SBC, Bill Moyer. They assumed that DCBC had invited the well-known SWBTS graduate and newsman; actually the speaker was Bill MoyerS, a local pastor!!). So if a state convention does not toe the line, it gets its dollars cut off ... sounds like control and exclusion to me.

    And a little more: representatives of DCBC for the boards of the SBC agencies have been taken for some years from only three or four churches, most of them from Capitol Hill Baptist Church, which provides no support of any kind to DCBC. That is exclusive, judgmental, and wrong.

    End of rant. I have a funeral message to prepare, to be delivered in a DCBC church!
     
  14. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    It is very slanderous and untrue. Nothing more than a demonization tactic. The term "liberal' is not confined to Christology. Liberalism relys heavily on human understanding and higher criticism and works to avoid the supernatural when at all possible. It demotes much of scripture to an allegory and denies Biblical authors that even Christ spoke of. It has added to its list of concerns the ungodly social gospel and interprets scripture through that lens.
     
  15. Jim1999

    Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

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    The time- frame I talk about liberalism entering the southern seminary is the late 50's and early 60's. Liberal theology starts with denying the scripture, the fundamentals of the faith, and eventually develops the Jesus-man-saviour thingy.

    I know this happened.

    Cheers,

    Jim
     
  16. Havensdad

    Havensdad New Member

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    Of course denial of innerrancy is "liberal"! How could anyone believe otherwise?

    Also: I heard Dr. Mohler speaking on this topic, and he outlined not only people denying the innerancy of scripture (Which has ALWAYS been affirmed by the SBC!), but also people denying Penal Substitutionary Atonement. These people have no business being allowed to teach in a SBC Seminary.
     
  17. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    And just for documented clarification the Peace Committee of the SBC found that the primary cause for the conservative resurgence was theological:


    I. Sources of the Controversy

    During its first meeting, the Peace Committee determined the primary source of the controversy is theological differences, but found there are political causes as well.

    Theological sources: In meeting after meeting of the Peace Committee, talk turned to the nature of inspiration of the Scriptures, often to the point of preempting the committee's established agenda. Gradually, it became clear that while there might be other theological differences, the authority of the Word of God is the focus of differences. The primary source of the controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention is the Bible; more specifically, the ways in which the Bible is viewed.

    All Baptists see the Bible as authoritative; the question is the extent and nature of its authority. The differences in recent years have developed around the phrase in Article I of the Baptist Faith and Message Statement of 1963, that the Bible "has…truth without any mixture of error for its matter..."



    Found Here
     
  18. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    "There should be an 'Abstract of Principles', or careful statement of theological belief, which every professor in such an institution must sign when inaugurated, so as to guard against the rise of erroneous and injurious instruction in such a seat of sacred learning."

    James P. Boyce
    from "Three Changes in
    Theological Institutions"
    - summarized by John Broadus, 1856
     
  19. michaelbowe

    michaelbowe Member

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    Really!!! Does the denial of innerrancy makes one a liberal? I do not hold an innerrant view of scripture because it has errors, but that does not make the Bible any less authoritative. God has been using errored instruments throughout history. Not claiming to inerrancy does not make one liberal, just different. I'd bet you and I would agree on many major faith beliefs. So am I liberal?
     
  20. Havensdad

    Havensdad New Member

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    Yes. If you deny Biblical Innerancy, you are liberal.

    You and I might agree on some things, but I KNOW why I believe them: your beliefs are based on your whim, as to which parts of scripture you decide to accept.

    That is liberal. And no, the Scriptures have no errors whatsoever. They are perfect.
     
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