The Truth in Crisis, by James C. Hefley

In 1990, when this book appeared, the SBC "conservative resurgence" was still underway, wherein biblical inerrantists (who would insist on respect for biblical inerrancy) were being appointed to denomination agencies. Veteran Southern Baptist journalist and author, Jim Hefley, who had done his prodigious work through non-denominational Christian presses and periodicals, wrote a series of books chronicling, year-by-year, developments in the controversy. He asked me to write the foreword for volume five, which you see here. (Richard Land of the CLC, later the ERLC, had penned the foreword for the previous year's volume.) Mine runs 600 words and helps set the stage for what was transpiring in that day.

Jim included a bit of my research in the body of the text. The year before, I'd spoken in chapel at Oklahoma Baptist University, and the afternoon before that chapel address, I had occasion to visit the Herschel Hobbs files in the university archives, folders full of personal correspondence and ephemera (an archivist's term for memorabilia), including a napkin from a Valentine's Day banquet he'd attended with Mrs. Hobbs.) Earlier, I'd written a chapter on Hobbs for an anthology edited by David Dockery and Timothy George, and, for that work, I spent a couple of hours talking with Hobbs in his Oklahoma City home. I appreciated this SBC giant (past president; voice of The Baptist Hour radio program; chairman of the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message committee), and I was eager to read more. (Incidentally, when I asked the SBC Historical Commission if they had Hobbs material, they said they had, as I recall, something like thirty, file-drawer feet of it.

In sorting through the OBU letters, I found several which laid to rest the fiction that the "fundamentalists" had introduced politics to the denomination. We were led to believe that presidential nominations heretofore had simply fallen from heaven or bubbled up from the floor by acclamation of the Spirit-filled souls in the hall. But these letters showed that the elites (pastors of big churches and an editor of a big state-convention paper) exchanged observations on whose time it was for the honor and how the accessions and successions should be promoted. Nothing evil in it. In fact, I'm glad folks put some thought into it. But it wasn't as innocent of "politicking" as the "moderates" would have you believe. And Hefley included quotes from my research in the book.

One small point of regret. Jim took it upon himself to insert "(no pun on words intended)" in a sentence where I spoke of our being "hard pressed" to name journalists friendly to the resurgence. I hadn't noticed that I used the "hard pressed" metaphor in reference to journalists. Problem is, the expression is either "No pun intended" or "No play on words intended," and he conflated the two. That would have been okay if he had put it in brackets, signaling that I didn't really write it, but that the expression came from outside. But parentheses say that the words were mine.

Yes, I'm being very picky, but that's what editors (a role I sometimes play) do. And writers sometimes need to be picky editors of the editors' work themselves. Pray for me.

Foreword

All journalists have a perspective, a bias, if you will. Their statements may be accurate, but their selection of which statements to make or feature is not neutral. Even the equal allotment of print to opposing viewpoints implies something, namely that these viewpoints warrant equal attention.

 

Photography provides us an analogy. While the contents of a photo may be genuine and the image undoctored, the question remains—Why did the photographer train the camera in that particular direction at that particular time instead of otherwise? Because he wanted us to see something in a particular way. That’s why.

 

To this natural bias in reporting, add the explicit advocacy of the editorial column, and you have the markings of a value-laden publication. And so we can clearly distinguish the flavor of the Washington Post from the Washington Times,the Arkansas Gazette from the Arkansas Democrat.

 

So be it, for thereby we sharpen our wits, fill in our blind spots, scout the foe, and exercise our Christian graces. The free play of ideas can be invigorating.

 

It is unfortunate that the play of ideas in our Southern Baptist house presses has been less than optimally free. While each of the state and national journalists may present valid ideas in their own right, the sheer weight of their editorial consensus has been staggering.

 

In these days of conservative resurgence in our denomination, one has been hard pressed to name more than a few members of the Baptist press (no pun on words intended) world who have welcomed the recent run of SBC presidential elections. On the other hand, one has not been at all hard pressed to name dozens of these journalists who’ve viewed the resurgence with disdain.

 

What is this widely held perspective which affects the choice of stories, assignment of interviews, length and frequency of quotation, spin of headlines, publicity of gaffes and foibles, and typification of personalities as, say, victim or villain, sage or fool? I shall call this editorial perspective “The Great Myth.”

 

The Myth goes like this: The theological problems in our seminaries and agencies have been trivial; only defectives of one sort of another (pseudo-Baptists, demagogues, dupes, extremists) would suggest otherwise and push for change; denominational politics is a recent and wicked phenomenon, the fault of conservatives; the so-called conservative resurgence threatens missions, evangelism, the First Amendment, and the priesthood of believers.

 

For years, dissenters from The Myth were excluded from or patronized on our SBC boards. And many of our journalists were products, defenders, and purveyors of this myth.

 

Jim Hefley has not bought The Myth. He is a credentialed and able journalist who believes that erosion of devotion to the inerrancy of Scripture is real and ominous in critical spots within our denomination. He is, alas, a rare commodity.

 

It was for this reason that I asked him to serve as a columnist during my service as interim editor of the Indiana Baptist. Baptist Press releases were a staple of our paper, as they were of the others across the Convention. I wanted Jim’s voice too.

 

Having worked closely with Jim, I can confidently say that he is a Christian gentleman, one who does not stoop to contempt nor flag in his effort to edify. A widely published chronicler of Christian heroism, he has, in these days, focused upon the heroism of dissenters from The Myth. But all the while, he has not lost his love for those who do not share his perspective.

 

The Truth in Crisis series has been tough work, but someone had to do it. I’m grateful to Jim for his efforts on behalf of all Southern Baptists.