A slightly deeper dive on my reaction to the @SBCExecComm report about the @ERLC that dropped yesterday: https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/erlc-focused-task-force-releases-report/

I want to take a moment to reflect not upon the CONTENT of my reaction (which I think was clear enough not to require further elaboration) but upon the INTENSITY of my reaction. Why is this such a big deal?

Religious Liberty is a Baptist distinctive. In other words, unlike a particular view of the millennium or of the spiritual gifts (and I have opinions about both), there is no viewpoint-diversity possible within Baptist life on the subject of Religious Liberty.

If you don't affirm Religious Liberty, you aren't a Baptist. By definition. Anyone who has ceased to affirm Religious Liberty should be honest with himself and with the world about what he now is and is not.

We have advocated for it. We have given the biblical basis for it. We have given the political basis for it. We have given the philosophical/theological basis for it. We have done this on multiple continents. We have done this in multiple centuries. It is a core Baptist belief.

So, let's take this core Baptist belief out of the picture and replace it with another core Baptist belief. What if a messenger rose on the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention to rebuke an entity head for believing in believer's baptism? What response would you expect?

Would you be pleased if that entity head replied by saying, "Well, that's a complicated question. A lot of people have suggested that Jesus would want us to sprinkle infants and make believe that it is baptism, and we're sorry for having been so controversial about this"?

While you ponder your answer, let me give you mine: I'd be outraged by that response.

The only good answer to a question like that on the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention is to state, "Those ideas don't belong here. They are contrary to the Baptist Faith & Message, as they are, indeed, contrary to every Baptist confession of faith ever written.

"Maybe, dear brother, you ought to study these things more carefully. And if further study does not lead you to change your view, you ought to go in peace and join your nearest Presbyterian church."

So, because Religious Liberty holds PRECISELY the same status in Baptist theology as does Believer's Baptism, I would've gladly cheered if @drmoore's response to that question had been stronger yet than it was.

And to anyone who would dignify in a Southern Baptist report a complaint EITHER that an entity head refuses to baptize infants OR that he defended religious liberty. Let me say as clearly as I can that I find this highly inappropriate and worthy of opposition.