And the Answer is, “Yes!” -- By: Barry Hankins
Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 07:1 (Spring 2003)
Article: And the Answer is, “Yes!”
Author: Barry Hankins
SBJT 7:1 (Spring 2003) p. 50
And the Answer is, “Yes!”
Barry Hankins is associate professor of history and church-state studies at the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church- State Studies at Baylor University. Dr. Hankins received his Ph.D. in history from Kansas State University. He has published numerous articles and two books.
The other night I dreamed I was on the witness stand of the sixteenth-century Roman Inquisition. One of the Inquisitors General asked me, “Do you believe that Southern Baptist conservative theology is shaped by cultural considerations, or do you believe that Southern Baptist conservative cultural engagement is a product of theology.” I answered, “Yes,” then awoke before learning whether or not I would be burned at the stake.1
Of the three articles I have been asked to consider, Russell Moore’s is the most direct and sustained critique of Uneasy in Babylon, so I will spend the bulk of my space here engaging him. Moore thinks the central thesis of the book is that for Southern Baptist conservatives, inerrancy and other theological matters are subservient to cultural considerations. He wrote, “Thus, for Hankins, the ‘culture war’ activism of SBC conservatives is not the result of their theological convictions. Instead, the ‘culture war’ informs and propels the theological convictions.” Greg Wills says something very similar in the opening paragraph of his piece. He writes, “In Uneasy in Babylon, Barry Hankins argues that the conservatives who orchestrated the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention since 1979 sought principally to save America from the advance of secularist culture. They promoted inerrancy and orthodox theology as a means to this end.”
The Importance of Theology
It does not surprise me that in this postmodern age others could read my book differently than I would read it or differently than I wrote it. Perspective informs how we read texts. Moreover, my book is about how Southern Baptist conservatives relate to American culture. It is possible that in attending primarily to matters of culture I could give the appearance that theological renewal is subservient to efforts to reform society. This was not, however, my intent in writing Uneasy in Babylon. Rather than attempting to show that theology is subservient to culture war, I intended to argue that the two are so closely related that a failure to understand one is a failure to understand the other. What Moore and Wills have done is set in opposition the two parts of my interpretation of Southern Baptist conservatives. I do not see these two as oppositional.
Apparently, for many Southern Baptist conservatives, one must decide if the co...
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