 David Flick Totally Uninformed While working at the Mainstream Oklahoma Baptist booth at the 2003 State Fair of Oklahoma, I visited with people and distributed information about moderate Oklahoma Baptists and moderate Southern Baptists. Thousands of pieces of literature were taken by well over a thousand people. We did not keep records on the exact number of people who took literature, but we did keep a record of the number of people we talked to. I personally encountered 263 persons. Not everyone I visited with was a Southern Baptist. My personal estimate is that about 20% of the people with whom I talked were not Southern Baptist. The remaining 80% were. I was quite aware of it prior to the fair, but now I realize how woefully uninformed Oklahoma Southern Baptists are. Incredibly, almost 100% of the Oklahoma Baptists with whom I talked are uninformed on the most basic issues common to Southern Baptists. There are basically two groups of uninformed Oklahoma Southern Baptists. While there is nothing scientific to my discovery, about a 20% of them are uninformed and are very much aware that they are uninformed about the issues. They are aware of their personal lack of understanding and desire to learn. They had honest questions and were open to hear to what we had to say. About 80%, however, are totally uninformed and have no earthly idea how much they don’t know about Baptist life. The larger group approached our booth and exposed their ignorance with all sorts of fanciful, know-it-all answers to why moderate Baptists are “liberals” who divisively seek to destroy the good name of Southern Baptists. They have been misled to the point that they honestly believe that moderate Baptists, namely Mainstream Baptists, are seeking to undermine everything good about Southern Baptists. Unfortunately, there’s not much a moderate Baptist can do to get the truth across to these know-it-alls who think they have all the definitive answers. I simply stood there let them expose their own ignorance. There are several key issues about which most Oklahoma Baptists are uninformed. 1) They are uninformed about Southern Baptist history. Ignorance concerning even the most basic facts Southern Baptist history is appalling. Most had never heard of the takeover which began in 1979. Most have never heard of Paul Pressler. A few recognized Paige Patterson’s name but knew not that he was one of the architects of the takeover. Oklahoma Baptists have no clue about recent or ancient Baptist history. 2) They are uninformed about Southern Baptist ecclesiology (denominational politics) Most Oklahoma Baptists seem to believe the SBC is built on a denominational hierarchy. That is, the SBC president is the top and most powerful leader in the denomination. The state Executive Directors are on the next tier down, with the associational DOMs being the next on the ladder. Pastors are considered to be “rulers” of local churches. The chain of command, they believe, represents the chain of accountability. The fundamentalists have most effectively duped the average Oklahoma Baptist to believe that accountability is to denominational leaders and a creed, which, BTW, they know nothing about except for name. Most have no idea how the denomination has changed politically and ecclesiastically. 3) They are uninformed about the Southern Baptist leadership. Not only are most Oklahoma Baptists uninformed about who the leaders are, they are uninformed about how they ply their power. They are blindly loyal to the top leaders without realizing how they achieved the power. They are uninformed about how the current denominational political system works. They are uninformed about how leaders deviously superimpose their will on the denomination. 4) They are uninformed about the Baptist Faith and Message. Most Oklahoma Baptists have no idea what the Baptist Faith and Message contains. They know nothing about its content. Those I talked with had never heard their pastors teach or talk about the BF&M. I am convinced that most Oklahoma pastors know next to nothing about the confession. In fact, they don’t know the difference between a confession and a creed. They are unaware that Baptists are traditionally non-creedal people. They are unaware that the 2KBF&M is now being treated as a creed. When I suggested that SBC has changed doctrines dramatically over the past 25 years, their response is grotesquely negative. “Changes?” they say. “What changes? There were no changes. The rewriting of the Baptist Faith and Message was simply an updating of the language to make it more understandable in today vernacular.” A synonym for “uninformed” is “ignorant.” I believe there is an excessive number of ignorant (uninformed) pastors and lay persons in Oklahoma. 5) They are uninformed about where Southern Baptists stand on separation of church and state. The Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists share a booth with the Oklahoma chapter of Americans United for Church and State. Most Oklahomans equate the organization with the ACLU. So it was something of a disadvantage for Mainstreamers to share the booth because they also equated us with the ACLU. Nearly all Oklahoma Baptists have no idea that the Baptist Faith & Message support the separation of church and state. (Article XVII in both the 1963 & the 2000 are identically the same) The attitude of the fundamentalists is that if the Mainstream Baptists support the separation of church and state, they are opposed to it. They think whatever Mainstream Baptists support must be, by default, wrong. 6) They are uninformed about the Southern Baptist seminaries. Most Oklahoma Baptists are uninformed about the seminaries despite the fact that a majority of Oklahoma pastors are seminary trained. In theory, they would agree with Adrian Rogers. The people in the pews would readily agree that if Baptist leaders say that pickles have souls, then the seminaries should teach that pickles have souls. Oklahoma Baptists are uninformed about how the seminaries have changed over the past quarter century. They do not know that the seminaries shifted from being institutions where theological education examined a variety of theological views and permitted students to have academic freedom, to being institutions where students are spoon-fed a diet of radical fundamentalism. 7) They are uninformed about Southern Baptist missionaries. Very few Oklahoma Baptists know that so many Southern Baptist missionaries were fired. One could credit the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger and the state denominational leadership for this ignorance. The Oklahoma leadership has maintained a tight-lipped silence about the atrocities meted out to Southern Baptist missionaries. The general feeling is that if missionaries were fired, there must have been some aberrations in their theology. Another view is that they were “liberals” and needed to be fired so as to keep our missionary force theologically pure. Conclusion: Oklahoma Baptists are woefully uninformed. Credit the top leadership in the Baptist Building in Oklahoma City for much of the misinformation going out to Oklahoma Baptists. Credit the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger for reflecting only the views of the propagandizing Baptist Press. Credit uninformed pastors for much of it. Credit uninformed Directors of Missions for failing to keep abreast of the changes occurring in the denomination over the past quarter century. Credit the people in the pew for not desiring to become informed. Credit the people in the pews for not questioning the views and political tactics of the fundamentalist leaders and pastors in the state. Oklahoma Baptists are woefully uninformed and it is their own fault. They cannot lay the blame on anyone else. This Article was written for BaptistLife.Com Discussion Forums - September 25, 2003 |