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Statement of Faith Raises Controversy
By Nathan McMahan
With the election of many conservative leaders in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, people expect a strong push for the convention to adopt more conservative doctrines. One of the doctrines that has drawn a lot of attention is the Baptist Faith and Message.
The BFM is a statement of faith that is highly controversial due to some of the claims that it makes about what Baptists are to believe. Some of these statements are:
- All scripture is true and totally trustworthy (a statement saying that Jesus is the standard by which scripture should be evaluated has been taken out of the BFM)
- The office of pastor is limited to men
- The freedom of a teacher in a Christian school, college or seminary is limited by the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ and the authoritative nature of the Scriptures
- In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose all forms of sexual immorality including homosexuality
- Christians should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death
- A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband
The BFM has been affirmed by twenty-four of the forty-one Southern Baptist State Conventions including the state conventions of Alabama, California, Florida, Indiana, Kansas/Nebraska, Louisiana, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
The affirmation has occurred on many different levels. While some states have only affirmed the BFM as an adequate expression of the Baptist faith, others have completely adopted the BFM and require all institutions and organizational convention members to sign the BFM.
If the BFM were to be affirmed, Mars Hill could find itself having to choose a side. In this choosing, the college would more than likely have to either distance itself from the convention or take stands on issues such as women ministers, academic freedoms, and homosexuality.
The possibility of such theological differences is at the core of the tension that has caused some major universities to separate from the state convention (i.e. Wake Forest University).
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