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HERESY? SBC President Ed Litton’s church holds potentially heretical view of Trinity

The new president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ed Litton’s church statement of faith promoted a potentially heretical view of the Trinity.

The offending statement that Ed Litton’s church holds out as What We Believe said, “God is the Creator and Ruler of the universe. He has eternally existed in three persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three are co-equal parts of one God.”

You can Ed Litton’s potential heresy here.

Parts.

That is an erroneous view of God that some call heresy and others describe as erroneous and possibly leading to heresy or simply being an nuanced irrelevance.

The consensus is that it shows Ed Litton to be another sloppy theological thinker as SBC President. As a reminder, we warned J.D. Greear was sloppy with his theology. Given the last three years, do any conservatives doubt our assessment of Greear?

Of course, the Trinity is a difficult subject. Even analogies, as famed theologian and philosopher William Lane Craig warned, are fraught with danger.

But, hey, don’t worry about theological precision in an SBC President? At least the New York Times loves the SBC.

Within a few hours of social media storm pointing out the heretical wording, the statement was amended.

Of course, it was changed without any action by the church body. As one conservative Southern Baptist wryly noted, “How does an entire body of believers change their statement of faith in 42 seconds?”

Anyone who has experienced Southern Baptist polity knows it takes a business meeting or two to even appoint a committee to investigate. After that, you’d probably need a committee to draft a recommended new language. And then a congregational meeting or two (depending on bylaws) to approve the final copy.

It just goes to show you that theology does not matter to the group of people running the Southern Baptist Convention. Pragmatism is the marching order. Why bother with congregational votes or theological precision when there is a secular world to please?