Six Things For Conservative Baptists To Fear -- By: M. James Hollowood
Journal: Central Bible Quarterly
Volume: CENQ 01:4 (Winter 1958)
Article: Six Things For Conservative Baptists To Fear
Author: M. James Hollowood
CenQ 1:4 (Winter 1958) p. 23
Six Things For Conservative Baptists To Fear
Executive Secretary, Minnesota Baptist Convention
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind (II Tim. 1:7).
A few months ago a national magazine carried an editorial purporting to warn Conservative Baptists regarding their internal difficulties and probable eventual demise. Its critical power was in its false inferences. Its true value to CB’s may be determined by the measure in which it forces us to consider, rather than false inferences, the factual existence of threatening forces.
II Timothy 1:7 is one verse within a sandwich of the reading 6–13 embodying excellent advice for us in our movement and in our churches. It is true we have no eternal foreclosure to fear; spiritually we have nothing but positive promise. But a multitude of verses urge us to be vigilant, watchful, shall we say perspicacious, lest we find ourselves out of the place of doctrinal purity and spiritual power where the promises for today and tomorrow can be fulfilled. Those who love the Lord fear such eventualities and it is in this sense we employ the word as we speak of what CB’s have to fear.
Our first fear should be of Neo-orthodox effect on the Bible. The liberals of yesteryear boldly told us they didn’t believe the Bible. Today’s liberals, called Neo-orthodox, claim to believe the Bible message, but also claim that the Bible message is not what it seems to be. Here they have tampered with the doctrine of Inspiration. They tell us the “holy men of old” who “spake” were inspired in thought or concept but were completely free as to their choice of words. And that the task of today’s scholar is to figure out what was truly on their minds when they used the words they did. An illustration of what can happen to the Bible in such hands may be seen by choosing a Bible verse and putting it through a process dictated by the modern formula for inspiration. Let us take Acts 4:12. Concentrate and reduce it’ to ideas without words. (Some philosophers say this is impossible but modern theory of inspiration demands it.) Now convert your ideas back into words. The result may be as general as that “There is no other way than faith in a supreme Being whereby we may be released from inhibitions and the tensions of maladjustment to become resolved into a condition of bliss.” And that is not Acts 4:12!
Our second fear is in the area of Neo-orthodox substitution of synthetic mysticism for spiritual experience. This substit...
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