“My goal for this initial meeting was not to argue theology or to try to change each other’s minds. It was to listen, to learn and to hope. My hope is that we as a diverse body of Baptists can agree to a genuine, joint acceptance of Great Commission responsibility….”

An advisory team on the issue of Calvinism met “to listen, to learn and to hope,” SBC Executive Committee President Frank Page reported after the 16-member group met Aug. 29-30 in Nashville, Tenn.

The goal for the meeting, Page said in an Aug. 31 statement to Baptist Press, “was not to argue theology or to try to change each other’s minds. … I was greatly heartened by the civil tone that marked the meeting.”

Page named the advisory team — “not an official committee” — in mid-August to develop, as he told Baptist Press at the time, “a strategy whereby people of various theological persuasions can purposely work together in missions and evangelism.”

When he announced the advisory team, Page said at some point in the coming weeks and months he is hoping for “the crafting of a statement regarding the strategy on how we can work together.”

The full statement issued Aug. 31 by Page after the advisory team’s initial meeting follows:

“My goal for this initial meeting was not to argue theology or to try to change each other’s minds. It was to listen, to learn and to hope. My hope is that we as a diverse body of Baptists can agree to a genuine, joint acceptance of Great Commission responsibility.

“We must reclaim the principle of respect in our dealings with others. A common theme around the table is that we need to stop the exaggerations and caricatures of those whose perspective on the extent of the atonement is different from ours. We must avoid the twin ditches of anger and arrogance that threaten to pull us off the road of cooperation.

“I was greatly heartened by the civil tone that marked the meeting. As you can expect, the personalities and theological positions represented in the room are vastly different. But the meeting was permeated with a spirit of reverence for the Lord and a shared passion for the preaching of the Gospel and witnessing to the lost in our own nation and around the world.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on Baptist Press—however, the link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]