Yale University was founded because Harvard University was deemed too liberal.
How ironic is that, considering both universities are light-years away from their founding principles. My wife, Jeanne, and I were touring Yale last year with a young tour guide who used the word “secular” more than a dozen times during the 90-minute tour. It felt like an intentional effort to position the brand.
In a moment away from the group, I asked if he knew about Yale’s beginning. He wasn’t sure, saying that maybe it was founded by some Jewish people. Actually, Yale was founded in 1701 (renamed Yale in 1718) by Protestant New England pastors, along with businessman Elihu Yale, as a reaction to their concerns over the secularization of Harvard.
Harvard launched with the mission of being a place for students “to be plainly instructed and consider well that the main end of your life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.”
Yale launched 80 years later to correct Harvard’s intentional drift from that mission — to be a place with explicitly Christian principles rooted in Congregationalist/Puritan theology. Its aim was to train ministers and civil leaders who would uphold orthodox Protestant beliefs and practices.
History reveals that both universities have comprehensively abandoned their noble beginnings.
There is a lesson to be learned from Harvard and Yale, which is why it is important that Southern Baptists remember and celebrate the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M) on its 100th anniversary.
Randy C. Davis
Originally based on the 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith, the BF&M was brought to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in 1925 by a committee led by E.Y. Mullins. It articulated theological beliefs, guided practices, and reaffirmed Christian fundamentals.
It provided a “doctrinal fence” that clearly defined theological fidelity to the inerrant Word of God amidst theological drift rooted in modernism. Mullins, and others, saw the need to clearly articulate biblical truths amidst a “pervasive anti-supernaturalism in the culture.”
Herschel Hobbs led Southern Baptists in revising the BF&M in 1963 to address “assaults upon the authority and truthfulness of the Bible,” and Adrian Rogers led the 2000 revision to, as Baptist historian and professor Nathan Finn states, “remind Southern Baptists that they are orthodox believers who affirm the primary doctrines of the Christian faith.”
Along with launching the Cooperative Program — also an outcome of the 1925 annual meeting held in Memphis — the BF&M is among the most profound, God-inspired actions ever taken by Southern Baptists. It’s been an anchor moored to Scripture that keeps Southern Baptists focused on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.
While offering guardrails for participation that keep us from careening into the ditch of liberalism on one side and legalism on the other, the BF&M is flexible enough to accommodate our strong belief in the autonomy of every Southern Baptist church.
Churches operate independently within the guardrails’ parameters, while we as Southern Baptists have clearly defined expectations so that those who teach in our seminaries, lead convention entities, serve as missionaries, and serve on TBC/TBMB boards and committees work within these guardrails of doctrinal fidelity.
We can freely admit that the BF&M is not a perfect document. It is not the Holy Bible. But it certainly is a Holy Spirit-guided document that is sufficient to keep our network of churches focused on the truth of the Bible, belief in a Triune God, the exclusivity of Christ, and salvation by faith alone.
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Baptist Faith & Message, let’s remember the people of committed Christian faith and strong godly character who traveled before us. They not only lit a torch of truth that addressed their concerns of biblical drift then, but they also handed us a legacy that illuminates our way forward today. Like them, may those who come behind us find us faithful as the Baptist Faith & Message remains a thread that binds us together.
It is a joy to be with you on this journey. B&R
