Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 05:1 (Summer 2000)
Article: Standing with the Apostle Paul
Author: David Wegener

Standing with the Apostle Paul

David Wegener

Sbc Is In The News Once Again On Issues Of Gender

The Southern Baptist Convention is back in the news, and once again its courageous stand on gender issues is at the heart of the controversy.

Two years ago, Southern Baptists made headlines when they added an article on the Family to their confessional document, the Baptist Faith and Message Statement (BFM). Amazingly, the controversy erupted because of the section that called on wives to submit graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands—an exhortation that could have come directly from the mouth of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter five. But in this day of compromise on issues once taken for granted in the Church, their actions are courageous.

At last year’s convention, Paige Patterson, president of the SBC, appointed a committee to review the BFM Statement and bring any changes as recommendations to the June 2000 meeting. The document was originally adopted in 1925 and revised in 1963, with the article on the Family added in 1998.

The committee, chaired by Dr. Adrian Rogers, Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, released its BFM review report on May 18, in which several important revisions were recommended. This report, along with its recommendations, was adopted on June 14 at the SBC’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida.

But why revise a document that has worked so well for so long? According to Rogers, the revisions were made in several areas because “each generation faces the responsibility of speaking to the issues of its day, and facing the challenges of its own climate.” Some of the key doctrines that were introduced or made even more explicit in the new statement include the complete truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Bible; God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and His exhaustive foreknowledge; the substitutionary nature of the atonement of Jesus Christ; the fact that there is no Savior but Jesus and salvation is found only through faith in Him; and that all races possess full dignity in God’s sight.

But most of the controversy was reserved for the addition of a sentence to Article VI on the Church. “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

It is not hard to see why this statement would raise the ire of the secular media and the liberal religious press, both of whom are uncritically enamored with the idol of egalitarianism. But most Baptists applauded the work of the committee.

“The committee’s report does not announce any new beliefs,” noted Michael Whitehead, interim president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. “It j...