BIBLE STUDY FELLOWSHIP

A LETTER OF RESIGNATION

September 26, 1997
 
 

Dear _________,

This is my letter of resignation from Bible Study Fellowship. After much Bible study and prayer, I have decided that I must leave the organization in order to be faithful to my Lord and his Word.

Over the last six to eight months I have been challenged to study about Freemasonry in order that I might witness to a man in whose home I was leading a women's Bible study. This man claimed to be a Christian and believed that Christianity and Freemasonry were compatible.

While investigating Freemasonry I sought the Lord's guidance on how to separate from an unbeliever or a believer in error according to the Word of God. Within the same period of time I came to know the definition of Neo-Evangelicalism, the religious movement based on compromising pragmatism. I now can see evangelicals compromising with ecumenists, accommodating apostates and making concessions with the materialistic secular society. This compromising pragmatism - which says the end justifies the means, and if we get results it isn't important if we deny the inerrant Scriptures to get them - then leads to ecumenism. And ecumenism is calling all peoples and religions to return to the authority of Rome.

I was saved from Roman Catholicism and called by God to "come out from among her and be ye separate" in obedience to II Corinthians 6:14-18. I do not now want to return to Rome. What I want to do is to share my testimony so that others might be saved from the bondage of Roman Catholicism. But now because of Bible Study Fellowship's belief in a non-offensive evangelism, I am not allowed to witness at BSF leaders' meetings, on class day, at lunch in a restaurant, nor in a summer Bible study, because my testimony might be offensive to a Roman Catholic.

My Bible tells me Jesus and the gospel are an offense. [Romans 9:33; I Peter 2:8] Do I then not speak of Jesus or the gospel? No! Because my Bible also tells me that when I compromise with error then the offense of the cross ceases. [Galatians 5:11] I will not compromise God's truth to obey man (or woman).

One of the aims in Bible Study Fellowship is to send women back into their churches to support them, no matter how heretical. I also learned from reading Miss Johnson's biography, Created for Commitment (p. 224), that her aim from the beginning was to establish an ecumenical Bible study. She says,

"From the earliest days Bible Study Fellowship has been completely interdenominational. Classes are comprised of members from almost all Christian denominations. Discussion leaders are never to encourage members to switch churches. A Catholic priest attended my class for six weeks and we developed a real friendship. Sometime during the 1960's after Pope John advocated Bible reading we noticed a great increase in Catholic membership. Priests in one of the Bay area churches were so impressed with BSF that anyone who taught catechism on Saturday had to be a current member of a BSF class. Members from Jewish, Christian Science, Jehovah Witness, Mormons and other congregations have become interested in Bible study. Seeing that all denominations are welcome, BSF has a truly ecumenical fellowship."

Therefore today, I, as a leader, am not allowed to point out errors or to make distinctions because that would undermine the ecumenical "unity." Whatever happened to the organic unity of the body of Christ and the building up of the body by discipleship so that we might all grow "unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" [Ephesians 4:13]?

I also believe that Bible Study Fellowship compromised the Word of God by changing from the King James Version of the Bible to the New International Version. God has promised to preserve His Word forever. [Psalm 12:6-7; 119:89; Matthew 24:35;] He has preserved the King James Version by protecting it from men who would seek to change it by their rationalism and modernism because it has no copyright. Furthermore without a copyright there is no need to make changes because there is no monetary reason to do so.

Anyone who takes the time to compare the New International Version with the King James Version, can quickly see the changes made by those who do have copyrights on versions other than the King James. The doctrine of the deity of Christ is attacked. Doubt is produced in the minds of readers by the removal of verses replaced by footnotes which say "some ancient manuscripts omit these verses wholly or in part." In addition, the changes in the NIV promote homosexuality, the New Age and Universalism. They soften the doctrine of hell and remove Lucifer from Isaiah 14 (the only place in Scripture where his name is mentioned).

Understanding that all of these things are a part of the apostate last-days Christianity, and knowing that God has said in Revelation 18:4 to "Come our of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues," I am today separating myself from BSF in obedience to the Word of God, my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Respectfully,

Dianne Feldman

BSF Class Administrator
 
 

Bible Study Fellowship: A Closer Look