What would my father, Adrian Rogers, say regarding SBC21?
The truth is, none of us knows for sure regarding every detail. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since he left us back in 2005, and a lot of new issues have arisen that he never had the occasion to address directly.
As his son, I had the privilege to know him up close and to speak with him at length on various occasions about matters such as theology and denominational politics. We all know that he was a champion for the authority of the Word of God. We know that he stood for integrity and righteousness. And we know that he was a key leader in the Conservative Resurgence of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, and that he chaired the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 Committee.
As we approach the SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville next week, a lot of controversial issues are in the air, and there has been sharp disagreement among many Southern Baptists over these issues. Ironically, from what I gather, key representatives of each of the different sides of these issues all hold my father in high esteem and regard him as a spiritual hero. Unfortunately, some of these leaders have accused those on the other side(s), despite holding to biblical inerrancy and all the other matters spelled out in the BFM 2000, of “drifting leftward” and compromising on biblical and social imperatives.
I know that my father was good friends with many of the leaders on different sides of these issues. I imagine some who read these words may well have had personal conversations with him in which he expressed his opinions on various matters related to the SBC. I was not privy to all these conversations, and I imagine some opinions were expressed in them that go beyond matters I had the opportunity to discuss with him. But I do know of one specific conversation I had with him in the summer of 2005 a few months before he passed away.
In this conversation, he expressed to me his apprehensions about the future of the SBC. While he did not budge one inch on his convictions regarding the issues spelled out in the BFM 2000, and did not regret his role in the Conservative Resurgence, he told me that the one thing that worried him the most about the future SBC was the rising influence of a group of people he colloquially called the tire-slashers.
The tire-slashers, according to my father, were the foot-soldiers of the Conservative Resurgence who were so enthusiastic in their support of the conservative cause that in the midst of their zeal for correct doctrine they forgot about Christian charity and treating those with whom they disagreed with decency and respect. They were those who were willing to cut ethical corners in their words and actions, all for the advance of the cause. Another name he sometimes called this same group was the Young Turks.
One of the most oft-quoted statements of my father is the following:
“I’m willing to compromise about many things, but not the Word of God. So far as getting together is concerned, we don’t have to get together. The Southern Baptist Convention, as it is, does not have to survive. I don’t have to be the pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church. I don’t have to be loved; I don’t even have to live. But I will not compromise the Word of God.”
While I am quite confident that, were he still with us today, he would say the same thing without reservation, it is important to understand the context of this statement. He by no means was minimizing the importance of Christian unity or of agreeing to disagree agreeably over secondary and tertiary doctrinal matters. By way of the BFM 2000, the BFM 2000 Committee decided to codify or “set forth” certain doctrinal distinctives that Southern Baptists believe, and at the same time they decided not to include others, thus distinguishing between denominational doctrinal essentials and non-essentials.
Make no mistake about it, my father was not willing to compromise on any of the essentials. But he most certainly also believed in unity and charity on the non-essentials. Personally, I believe he would be heartbroken by the lack of unity and charity demonstrated by certain Southern Baptist leaders today toward those who disagree with them on non-essentials.
Nate Akin very perceptively describes here a big part of what I believe is happening in SBC life today (listen to the podcast linked below for the full context):
“There are two things I’m burdened about, and I think it’s maybe a part of the issues we’re facing. One is how driven we are by politics. So one of the things that I’ve noticed in all of these fights right now is that politics is uniting people—when you think about who’s united, it’s uniting people who have radically different soteriologies and ecclesiologies, but because they have a very similar political position. And it’s dividing others who have a similar or same soteriology and ecclesiology. And I think that is awful and I think that is sad. If anything should unite us, it should be soteriology and ecclesiology, and not politics. And yet it is uniting and dividing based upon political lines. And not even just political lines, how you view how we should be involved in politics and how you view, basically, I would say, cultural engagement, which I think is the big issue that people are missing. There’s a difference in how we think we should engage culture. And it doesn’t make one of us right or wrong. But it is kind of what’s dividing us. But when it does make it wrong is when you look at the person across the aisle who views cultural engagement different than you, and then you call them a liberal because they view it that way.”
Once again, my father is not here to speak for himself. But based upon conversations I had with him, I believe he would say amen to Nate’s words here.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/baptist-21/id1441454363?i=1000524720539