Friday, July 25, 2003

Word games

Robert Tenery claimed in the July 5 (printed) issue of the Biblical Recorder that "it is time to be honest and quit playing little word games" about creedalism in Southern Baptist life. He carefully skirts the real issue: forced faith.

When a denomination converts a voluntary confession into a coerced "instrument of doctrinal accountability," why is that a word game? When a denomination fires seminary faculty and missionaries because they will not comply to narrow, fundamentalist doctrine, why is that a word game? When an SBC meeting takes place in Phoenix with only 7,000 messengers while tens of thousands of Southern Baptists stay home to protest creedal developments, why is that a word game?

For the record, Tenery also claimed that "Baptists have been adopting creedal or confessional statements since 1524." That is impossible. There is no evidence of Baptists in human history prior to 1608-09; check any reliable textbook on Baptist history.

Charles Deweese
Brentwood, Tenn.

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