Southern Baptists Expand the “Baptist Faith and Message”

LOUISVILLE, KY — (Baptist Press) Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., President, CEO, and Oracle of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary today announced a dramatic expansion of the central doctrinal statement of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), known as the “Baptist Faith and Message 2000.” The revision will be voted on by the denomination’s delegates, officially known as “messengers” and sometimes referred to as “the sheep,” to the 2021 meeting of the SBC in Nashville.

Mohler, who is a well-known preacher, administrator, and inquisitor in SBC circles, headed the revision committee, referred to by some as “The All-Truth Brigade.” Mohler introduced the expansion as a “much-needed articulation of pure, sane doctrine in this age of confusion, relativism, and liberal wokeness.”

“The current statement has only eighteen clauses in it,” Mohler mansplained, “and clearly there is far, far more on which Southern Baptists agree—or had better.” New clauses will deal with a much wider range of issues, from authorized sports teams (“None from the Pac-12”) to appropriate Sunday after-church meals (“solely roast or barbecued meats, and definitely no sushi”) to approved music for personal listening (“Only country, and pre-1980 when it all went to hell”).

“We’re definitely wanting not to exclude any genuine Christians, of course,” said Mohler. “We’re happy to welcome people of color, so long as they’re not—how to put this—too colorful. And we like women, of course, so long as they remain in their appropriate social locations.”

Northerners, however, get their own clause as “reprobate” (“We’ve known all along that they were damned,” said Mohler with a frown) and so-called “progressive” Christians do as well. “‘Progress’ is just another name for liberal wokeness,” Mohler pronounced, “and the dozen or so of us middle-aged white men who run things on behalf of 15 million Southern Baptists want none of that brazen nonsense. This postmodern cultural Marxist critical race theory liberal wokeness has got to be stopped dead in its tracks, and we mean to do it by any means necessary.”

J. D. Greear, Pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, and current President of the SBC, said at a separate news conference held online that he was dismayed by the new revision. “It’s, like, eighty pages long! What happened to ‘soul liberty’? What happened to congregational autonomy? What happened to common sense?”

Russell Moore, former Mohler co-conspirator and now reasonable person under fire for being reasonable as President of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, also expressed reservations. “This is nothing short of radical Puritanism,” he declared, “without all the fun parts and excellent clothes.”

Mohler, however, was adamant. “It’s time we got new leadership,” he said, as he handed out buttons for his campaign to succeed Greear at the helm of the SBC. “Let’s face it, some people can’t even spell their own last names properly.”

Robert Jeffress, Senior Pastor, CEO, and Chief Trumpeter of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, was also on the revision committee. “My sole concern,” Jeffress averred, “was to ensure godly politics that would Make America Great Again. I’m very pleased that there are three new clauses that endorse Donald Trump as president-for-life, condemn the Democratic Party as the Horde of Satan, and recommend that voter registration be conducted by God-fearing, Second-Amendment-honoring Christian brothers who can identify righteousness at 100 yards—or more, of course, with a proper scope.” Franklin Graham, President, CEO, and Major Embarrassment of several Christian organizations, was in charge of the section dealing with alternative religions. “My personal concern was with Islam, of course,” Franklin said with his trademark grin, “but we made sure to denounce all the other false religions as well, including Mormonism, Catholicism, and Episcopalianism. We made it crystal clear how God feels about those devilish abominations, since we know God feels as we do.”

John Piper, Senior Pastor, Chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, and Exemplar of Infallibility, expressed his agreement with his southern counterparts. “I have long been concerned about liberal wokeness myself,” he said from his ice castle on one of his state’s one billion lakes. “I applaud what the SBC is doing here, and I will soon be offering a new sermon series, book, and podcast that will say so, called, ‘John Piper Shares His Heart about Southern Baptists Finally Getting Things Completely Right.'”

Mohler did not comment at length on Piper’s commendation, muttering something about Yankees minding their own business, but then concluded his announcement with stirring words. “No more should anyone walk in deep darkness unaware of how we feel or what we think about any issue crucial to Christian correctness. The Word of God is our guide, and we have now set out fundamental Christian positions on plate tectonics, the wave-particle duality of light, the Nazca Lines in Peru, the use of chiaroscuro among Dutch Masters, and the Oxford comma. We are Great Commission Baptists who take seriously Jesus’s commands to attend to every jot and tittle of the Law, to tithe mint and cumin, to come out from among the woke liberals, and to bind everyone we possibly can here on earth in anticipation of enjoying the same duties on a much larger scale in the world to come.”

When reporters began to suggest that perhaps Mohler hadn’t quite gotten exactly right the various commands of Jesus he had mentioned, he closed the press conference with a final remark: “I have campaigned for inerrancy my whole life and I’m now pretty much free of error. Y’all should respect that. And if you don’t, these good ol’ boys here from my seminary will convince you—won’t you, boys?”