[1]ORLANDO, Fla. (BP)–The overwhelming acceptance of the revised Baptist Faith and Message will be “highly significant” culturally and historically, R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told almost 500 alumni, friends, faculty and students.
“June 14 in the year 2000 was a day when the Southern Baptists made history by standing upon God’s truth, standing in defense of God’s Word and being authentically Baptist,” Mohler said at the seminary’s June 14 luncheon in conjunction with the June 13-14 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
“For most of us in this room, this will be the defining revision of the Baptist Faith and Message for our lifetimes,” Mohler said. “What took place today was a generation of Southern Baptists … saying these are the definite doctrines that we believe.”
Southern Baptists can see the significance of the revision of the Baptist Faith and Message by understanding the historical and cultural context, Mohler explained.
“Virtually every American denomination has been moving progressively to the left,” Mohler said of the period between the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message and today.
“Most denominations in America that have touched their confessions or articles of faith have reduced biblical content, accommodated to the culture, diluted the gospel and abandoned the total truthfulness of God’s Word,” he said.
[2]Culturally, Southern Baptists today encounter greater and more diverse challenges than ever before, Mohler said. These threats require a renewed resolve to ground Baptist faith in the Scriptures.
“At the end of the 20th century, we understand challenges our forefathers and foremothers could not even have imagined,” Mohler said. “In light of those challenges, we are not going to accommodate to the culture.
“We are not going to surrender the high ground of biblical authority. We are going to seize it by God’s grace. And we are going to say before the world, ‘This is what we believe. This is where we stand. And we shall not be moved.'”