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THE CURRENT BATTLE IN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
by Dr. William A. Powell, Sr., 1977

      Dr. W. A. Criswell preached a special sermon for Southern Baptists on his recent 38th anniversary as pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, TX. He warned that the liberals are taking control of our SBC seminaries, colleges, and universities -- just as they have in other denominations. "All the great old universities of the world were established by the church for religious purposes -- to train the ministry and godly laypeople," Criswell said. "All of us know the great old schools are now completely secular. All are lost to the faith! They are infidel institutions. It is the same pattern I see no less in our great Baptist institutions."

      THE ISSUE in the current battle in the SBC is: DOES THE BIBLE CONTAIN ERROR? THE QUESTION is: How much longer will Southern Baptists support the liberals who deny the Bible is the infallible Word of God. The issue is NOT the matter of INTERPRETATION. Neither is it simply a matter of politics or some fundamentalist faction taking control of the SBC.

      Dr. Criswell gives a good example of liberalism in SBC schools. The SBC Sunday School Board published Criswell's book, Look Up, Brother! in 1970. Criswell used the example of a professor in an SBC school who told his class that they should not preach from some books of the Bible. After ridiculing the Song of Solomon as though it were an ancient immorality skit, he emphasized his point by saying, "If I were making up the Bible and had a choice of including in it Playboy magazine or the Song of Solomon, I would choose Playboy magazine!" (p.81) (We assume the professor knew enough about the Bible and Playboy magazine to be able to express his true thoughts on them.)

      Trustees of the oldest SBC seminary (Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY.) report that President Duke McCall boasts about his bringing the seminary "into the liberal camp." The facts substantiate their statements. For example, Dr. Robert Bratcher received two degrees from Southern Seminary and taught at Southern and also taught for ten years in Baptists' Rio de Janeiro Seminary. Bratcher stated at a Christian Life Commission seminar:

"Only willful ignorance, or intellectual dishonesty can account for the claim that the Bible is inerrant and infallible." "No truth-loving, God-fearing, Christ-honoring believer should be guilty of such heresy." "To invest the Bible with the qualities of inerrancy and infallibility is to idolatrize it, to transform it into a false god."
      The trustee remarks are further verified by a Master of Theology student in Southern Seminary who prepared and presented a thesis to the faculty of the seminary in 1976. McCall told the Baptist Press that the thesis was not approved by the seminary. However, the official faculty committee (G. Willis Bennett, E. Glenn Hinson, and Henlee Barnette) signed that they had read and approved the thesis.

      The thesis was prepared because a debate had begun as to whether or not all Southern Baptists believe about the same things. Thus, the student made the study for the thesis "...to decide the true nature of Southern Baptist 'Orthodoxy' and diversity." He also sought to determine if the amount of education the students obtained at Southern Seminary had any effect on their "Orthodoxy." His study revealed that the more seminary education the students received, the less they believed. The student reported in his: "Discussion. All statistical results indicated that there were significant differences in 'Orthodoxy' as the variable of higher education changed and that the differences were such that as higher education increased, 'Orthodoxy' decreased." "Not only was this true across the four levels of higher education, but even within one of the levels. There was a definitely less 'Orthodox' report from final year M.Div. students than from first year M.Div. students." (p.18)

      "While the Ph.D--Th.M. students were less 'Orthodox' than any of the other three levels of higher education and the M.Div. students were less 'Orthodox' than the Diploma students...." (p.18) The student states in his: "Summary of Findings:" There is a "...diversity of belief among Southern Baptist students. In addition, a trend toward doctrinal liberalism was discovered in the Th.M--Ph.D. students and the variable of higher education was found to be reciprocally related to 'Orthodoxy' to a highly significant degree.'" (p.26) He also states in his "Conclusions and Implications," "The present study confirmed that diversity to an even greater degree and also found that the variable of higher education was reciprocally related to 'Orthodoxy' to a highly significant degree."(p.31) "Not only was this finding true across four levels of higher education, but even within one of the levels. There was a definitely less 'Orthodox' report from final year M.Div. students than from the first year M.Div. students." (p.31) Thus, since this "Orthodoxy" thesis was read and approved by the official committee of professors -- the thesis is positive evidence that the more seminary education the students receive, the less they believe! The higher the education -- the lower the "Orthodoxy." For example, 66% of the first year M.Div. students said it was completely true that Jesus was born of a Virgin. But after listening to their teachers for three years and reading the books suggested, only 33% still believed Jesus was born of a Virgin!

      There is a total of seven different tabulations in the thesis: the Diploma students, the first year M.Div. students, the final year M.Div. students, all of the M.Div. students, the D.Min students, the Ph.D.-Th.M. students, and then a tabulation of all the degree programs. There are 37 questions in the thesis. The following are some of the answers given to some of the 37 questions by the diploma students, the first year M.Div. students, the final year M.Div. students, and the Ph.D-Th.M. students. This shows that the more seminary education the students receive - the less they believe.

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[From Dr. William A. Powell, Sr., Southern Baptist Journal, Buchanan, GA. Document provided by Ben Stratton. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]