Baptist defends soundness of position

By MAUREEN MCGUINNESS- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

According to one Southern Baptist, the goal of adopting the statement on the family was not to harm marriages but to take a stand in support of them.

Dr. Jeff Ginn, director of the Northeast Campus of the Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Schenectady, said the statement on family was added to the Baptist Faith and Message so that it would reflect the importance of family life.

"There was no article that dealt with the family," he told The Evangelist. "This was to take a stand for family life."

PC-reaction

While the statement notes that husbands and wives are of equal worth before God, he said, the media focused on the part that requires women to submit graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands.

"It's not surprising," Dr. Ginn said. "We live in a day of political correctness. We live in a time of the sound-bite media approach."

He explained that anything that goes against the politically correct views of the culture is viewed as taboo. "Someone who doesn't have a biblical world view would have trouble with this statement," he said.

Supports addition

Dr. Ginn, who attended the convention in Salt Lake City, is pleased by the addition of the statement on the family. "We took a stand to move to a more conservative theology," he said.

While the media have focused on wives submitting to their husbands, Dr. Ginn pointed out that husbands are called to an awesome task.

"A husband is called to love his wife as Christ loved the Church," he said, adding that it is difficult for any man to do anything in the same way Christ would. He said the passage in Ephesians calls him to give himself to his wife and put her needs above his own.

"Women are not subjugated," he said. "They are not downtrodden. There is an astoundingly high standard to which men are called." (MM)

(07-02-98) [[In-content Ad]]