NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The 2000 edition of the Baptist Faith and Message tract became available July 17 from LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The tract is the edition adopted by messengers June 14 at the annual meeting of the SBC in Orlando, Fla.
Work on the statement began after messengers to the 1999 SBC annual meeting in Atlanta approved a motion calling for appointment of a committee to study the statement and to bring a report to the 2000 meeting. Subsequently, a 15-member Baptist Faith and Message Study Committee was appointed by then-SBC President Paige Patterson.
In presenting the committee’s report to the 2000 annual meeting, Adrian Rogers, committee chairman and pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, Tenn., summarized the committee’s work: “We have sought to clarify the intention of both previous editions [1925 and 1963] of the Baptist Faith and Message. We have made the total truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Bible even more explicit, and we point to Jesus Christ as the focus of divine revelation.”
The committee’s report read in part, “Baptists cherish and defend religious liberty, and deny the right of any secular or religious authority to impose a confession of faith upon a church or body of churches. We honor the principles of soul competency and the priesthood of believers, affirming together both our liberty in Christ and our accountability to each other under the Word of God.”
While not a binding document or creed, the Baptist Faith and Message outlines basic Baptist beliefs related to subjects such as Scripture, God, man, salvation, the church, baptism and the Lord’s supper and religious liberty. The confessional statement was first adopted by the SBC in 1925. A new edition was adopted in 1963 and amended to include an article on the family in 1998.
Copies are available at 20 cents each, a reduction in price from the previous edition, and may be ordered by calling LifeWay’s Customer Service Center toll-free at 1-800-458-2772.
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