Professor Gives Tortured Confession to SBC Family Statement

by Bruce Prescott, Ph.D.

In January 1968 North Korea attacked and captured a lightly armed U.S. naval intelligence vessel. One seaman was killed and the rest of the 82 member crew were held hostage for eleven months.  During their captivity they were beaten and forced to give confessions.  North Korea filmed the confession of the ship’s commander and used it for propaganda purposes until it was revealed that his confession was delivering a different message.  Throughout the filmed confession, Commander Lloyd Bucher courageously blinked his eyes to the cadence of morse code.  His voice confessed what the North Koreans wanted him to say. His eyes blinked out "T – o – r – t – u – r – e – d."

Who could find fault with Commander Bucher for confessing under those circumstances?  He risked his reputation and his honor to save the lives of his crew.

Neither should we find fault with a professor at an SBC seminary who defends the SBC’s statement on the family.  Such professors are no longer free to express their true convictions.  Since the mid 1980’s, when "F"undamentalists took control of the trustee boards of SBC seminaries, the status of tenured professors has been reduced to that of temporary, contract employees.   In our November 1998 issue, Gene Garrison testified that he heard Adrian Rogers openly declare that professors must teach, "whatever they are told to teach. And if we tell them to teach that pickles have souls, then they must teach that pickles have souls!" Professor Wilder has not been told to teach that pickles have souls, but he has been told to teach the family statement adopted by the SBC at Utah in June 1998.  SBC professors who express reservations about the family statement are being deprived of their livelihoods. Two professors at Southwestern Seminary have been forced to resign because they refused, on biblical grounds, to teach it.   At the Oklahoma Baptist Convention last November, Mainstream Baptists presented a resolution that would have asked seminary trustees to reconsider and rescind their demand that all faculty members either sign the family amendment or resign.  One of the ministers who spoke against our BGCO resolution is a trustee at Midwestern Seminary where Dr. Wilder teaches.  Who can blame Dr. Wilder for the tortured article defending the SBC family statement that appeared in January 28, 1999 issue of the Baptist Messenger?  He is being forced to sacrifice his reputation as a scholar to save his livelihood.

On the surface, Dr. Wilder’s article looks like a refutation of articles printed in the November 1998 Mainstream Messenger. A closer examination reveals that the SBC professor concedes on the crucial issue, refuses to draw conclusions based on the logic of Greek grammar (something most conservative New Testament scholars would be loathe to do), and leaves subtle hints that he grasps a meaning that is broader than the SBC family statement permits.

The crucial concession, buried in the middle of his article, is Dr. Wilder’s acknowledgment that in the best Greek texts the verb translated "submit" is found in Eph. 5:21 (submit to one another out of reverence for Christ) but not Eph. 5:22 (wives, to their husbands as to the Lord).  He writes, "the nature of ancient Greek is such that verbs can be omitted in many cases, their presence being understood from the context."  Unable to deny that Greek grammar supports our interpretation, the professor has been assigned the unenviable task of explaining away its meaning.

Conservative biblical exegesis traditionally gives interpretative weight to the signals provided by Greek grammar.  Grammatical connections signal logical connections.  Dr. Wilder’s explanation, however, denies the logical implications of the grammatical connection that he admits.  He diverts the readers attention from the grammar by making an unsubstantiated assertion that a logical division exists between verse 21 and verse 22. Verse 21, he says, "should be understood as a general statement which applies to the church collectively, describing a result of being Spirit-filled (v. 18)"  On this reading, mutual submission between Christians is limited to relations within the church.  "Verses 5:22-6:9 then," he writes, "spell out what this means in specific terms: wives submit to their husbands, children to their parents, and slaves to their masters.   Nothing in this passage hints at a reversal of these roles."  Apparently, relations within Christian homes should be devoid of mutuality. "Though equal in Christ," he says, "No conclusions favoring the egalitarian view follow from the absence of ‘submit’ in verse 22."

How can a mind so keen to perceive subordinate relations between people be so blind to seeing subordinate relations between sentences?   After agreeing that verse 22 is grammatically dependent on verse 21, why does he refuse to acknowledge that verse 22 is also logically subordinate to verse 21?    Why does Professor Wilder divorce the logic of verse 22 from that of verse 21?

Professor Wilder has been forced to adopt this untenable position because that is what the SBC family statement does. He is no longer free to follow the grammar and logic of scripture. He and all the other SBC professors must teach, "Whatever they are told to teach" and the SBC clearly rejected seeing any connection between verse 21 and verse 22 last June.

Professor Wilder must be aware that an amendment was defeated at the SBC convention in Utah that would have reflected the logic of verse 21.  Tim Owings, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Augusta, Ga., moved that the article should be amended to read, "Both husband and wife are to submit graciously to each other as servant leaders in the home."  Owings’ amendment was defeated after Adrian Rogers argued that the thought of mutual submission "confuses things." 

When the SBC repudiated the thought of mutual submission, it forced SBC professors like Dr. Wilder to abandon sound biblical exegesis.   Instead, they are required to parrot the words of SBC takeover leaders.  

Dr. Wilder writes, "If husbands must submit to their wives, then is Christ to submit to the church?"  This reproduces the argument Adrian Rogers used on the convention floor to defeat the Owings amendment.  Rogers declared the thought of mutual submission "convoluted" because "it would make it seem as though Christ would find himself submitting to the church."

If Brother Rogers had been more cautious about trying correcting the language and logic of the Apostle Paul, he might have discovered a meaning more profound than his current preconceptions permit.  The logic of the analogy to which he objects is the logic of the cross.  Admittedly, it is a logic that "confounds" the worldly "wise" and the "mighty," but it should be elementary to anyone who preaches "Christ crucified." (1 Cor. 1:23-29 KJV)

Subordinating himself to the church is precisely what Christ did when he submitted to death on the cross. Jesus told his disciples, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."  "No longer do I call you slaves," he explained, "You are my friends, if you do what I command you."  His command was, "Love one another, just as I have loved you." (John 15:12-15 NASB)

No one understood what Jesus meant better than the Apostle Paul.  He recognized that it was love that prompted Jesus to set aside his power and humble himself to the point of being subject to death itself.  Jesus died so that we might live.   He elevated the life of the church above his own life.  He put the interests of the church above his own interests.  Christ’s example inspired Paul to exhort all Christians to be humble, to "consider others better than yourselves," and to "look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Phil. 2:3-8 NASB)  The same example undergirds his call for all Christians to "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Eph. 5:21 NIV)  That Paul expects this to also characterize relations within the home is underscored by his singling out the husbands when applying Christ’s example. "Husbands," Paul writes, "love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her." (Eph. 5:25 NASB)

There is a hint that Dr. Wilder has some perception of a broader understanding of this passage than is permitted him by the narrow parameters that the SBC family statement sets for him.  That hint derives from his describing mutual submission as "a result of being Spirit-filled."  He could be signaling that he grasps the difference that Christ has made in human relations.  Relations based on love are possible only when each member of the community is filled with the same Spirit.   Relations based on power derive from man’s sinfulness.  When mutual submission is not practiced and each member’s conscientious relationship with the Holy Spirit is not respected, then relations in the church and home are reduced to a struggle for power.  When that happens, nothing distinguishes relations in the church and Christian home from the relations that exist within the world.

This time he paraphrases Dorothy Patterson, a member of the committee that drafted the SBC family statement and wife of SBC President Paige Patterson.   At a press conference in Utah last June Mrs. Patterson defended the SBC family statement saying, "When it comes to submitting to my husband, even when he’s wrong, I just do it.  He is accountable to God."

Those who make such outlandish statements show more affinity for systems of accountability that developed in pagan cultures than for those that have arisen within Christian civilizations.  Under the Roman law of Patria Potestas that prevailed at the time of the apostles, the husband was held legally responsible for the conduct of his wife.  If she broke the law, he paid for it.  Roman law made the husband the sole and absolute ruler over his wife.  His will was her law and from his decision there was no appeal.  If he told her to break the law or do something immoral, she just did it.  She had no legal or moral choices.  He was the one who was accountable.

Under the influence of Christianity, Western civilizations have developed systems of personal accountability. Husbands are no longer legally responsible for the conduct of their wives.  Wives are no longer absolved of responsibility for wrongdoing when they submit to their husbands unjust, illegal or immoral demands.   Wives must make legal and moral choices.  Modern law holds each person accountable for his or her own actions.

The Spirit of Christ and the teaching of Paul seems to have had greater influence on modern law than they have on the leadership of the SBC.  Those who hold that Paul teaches male supremacy are misunderstanding Paul's metaphor of the head.   See my article, Dead "Head" Leads SBC Family.

The reason why the drafters and adopters of the SBC family statement are blind to Paul’s logic is that they presume that all human relations, including those within the church and Christian home, must be based on power.   When relations are based on power, it is important to have a clear chain of command.  Chains of command are hierarchical structures in which authority flows from the top down.  In such systems the acquisition of power is the highest good and servile obedience by subordinates is the chief virtue.  Throughout time and history, all such systems have produced tyranny and oppression.

The Bible presents a different basis for human relations. We were created to live together in relations of love and fellowship.  That human relations have deteriorated to a struggle for power is a product of man’s sin and fallen condition.   The history of redemption is the history of God delivering men from the tyranny of the principalities and powers of this world.  God sent his Son to make a new beginning. J esus came to deliver us from the power of sin, to reconcile us to the Father, to make us new creatures, and to incorporate us in a new fellowship where relations are based on love and grace.

That new fellowship is the church of which the Christian family is a microcosm.   In the church and in Christian families relations are based on love – not power. In the church and Christian home, "There is no Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are one in Jesus Christ." (Gal. 3:28)  In the church and Christian home, we all "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph. 5:21)  In the church and Christian home, leadership is defined by the humble servanthood of Christ and his Spirit of self-sacrifice:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:3-8 NIV)