AGAINST RETURNING TO EGYPT
by Jeff B. Pool
Category: Religion

Against Returning to Egypt is study of a doctrinal statement recently adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention: "The Report of the Presidential Theological Study Committee." Using criteria developed from the SBC's historic distinction between confessions of faith and creeds, Professor Jeff Pool takes the measure of this doctrinal statement and finds it wanting. He argues that the "Report" represents the greatest theological threat to the denomination in the history of the SBC. This threat consists primarily in that the "Report" intentionally erases the historic Baptist distinction between "confessions of faith" and "creeds," and, in addition, in that it presents - and in fact is based upon - a radically Calvinistic revision of the SBC's historic perspectives on several central Christian doctrines. This investigative study has significance for other traditions and histories during these tumultuous times, rightly characterized as times of "fundamentalist resurgence." The principles, motives, and aspirations examined here appear not only in other denominational histories but in other political, social, and cultural realms as well.