By Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh
Special to The Alabama Baptist
Baptists are the largest denominational grouping of Christians in the United States. This includes the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which in 2015 reported 46,499 churches and 15.5 million members. It is still the largest Protestant denomination by far although it is at the lowest level since 1993. Weekly worship attendance only numbers 5.67 million Sunday worshippers.
Statistics issued by the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), which exclude SBC figures, reported a membership of churches throughout the world who are members of BWA as being 36,692,191 at the end of 2014.
But who are these Baptists? Are all Baptists alike? Are there distinct features that bring Baptists together and help us to understand what it means to be a Baptist in the 21st century?
Baptists are a rooted people: rooted in the Word of God, rooted and grounded in the love of God and the community of Christ, nourished by both. Baptists today represent diversity of age, education, socio-economic status and a variety of different theological perspectives. Right from the beginning of Baptist life in England, and then within Colonial life, two separate and very distinct groups called General (Arminian) and Particular (Calvinistic) Baptists developed, each with their own theological understanding of the plan of salvation.
General Baptists held to an Arminian understanding of salvation, that God offered the good news of the gospel to all, and that those who responded to His invitation were among the “elect.” They also believed Christ died for each and every individual who has ever lived in the world. They held to a “general atonement” for sin.
Particular Baptists believed that only the “elect,” those chosen by God from eternity, would be saved and that Christ only died for them. Similar differences exist within the SBC today. The old debate between Arminian Baptists and those more influenced by the theology of John Calvin remains alive and kicking.
Is diversity wrong? Are all parts of any great family meant to be like “identical twins” or “triplets” or “quadruplets?”
Tension of liberty, loyalty
Despite the frustration, despite the fact that diversity is threatening to some Baptists, the very passion which we have for freedom is a major reason why there is so much diversity in Baptist life. We are called to be “Free and Faithful Baptists,” a phrase which captures the tension of liberty and loyalty, of change and continuity.
Baptist tradition has often been characterized by freedom. The freedom of individuals to come to personal faith in God; the freedom of the Church from state control; the freedom of local churches to form their own life and mission apart from denominational control; and, above all, the freedom of access to the Bible and freedom of interpretation of the Bible.
Perhaps the greatest problems facing Baptist churches today in terms of understanding Baptist identity is that many people in the congregations were nurtured in other communions (or none) and are therefore unfamiliar with Baptist heritage, life and thought. For many the crux of Baptist identity is believer’s baptism. They do not realize there is much more to a Baptist perspective than that of immersion in water.
Developed out of Anabaptists
Baptists have their origin among the Anabaptist movement in 1609 in Amsterdam, when a group of English believers followed their conscience and adopted believer’s baptism, rejecting their earlier infant baptism. They moved back to England and many of them were part of a larger group who immigrated to the Americas in the 17th century seeking freedom of religion.
Baptists claim a commitment to the Bible as their final authority in all matters of faith and life; affirming the Reformation emphasis on grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone and Scripture alone. They further identify with the evangelical tradition, emphasizing the power and proclamation of the gospel to a lost world.
Live individually, corporately
Freedom for Baptists is not simply a matter of freedom of individual conscience. As individuals Baptists are part of local churches where they seek to discern the will of God for their lives. Baptist churches are linked to other congregations in local Baptist associations and are part of state and national conventions.
The freedom of the individual local Baptist congregation to order its affairs under the guidance of the Holy Spirit must be seen in the context of its commitment to others within the covenant community of Baptists, so that with “all the saints” they seek to discern the mind of Christ.
At the center of Baptist identity is their focus on the Bible. When the early Anabaptists met in Zurich, Conrad Grebel wrote, “After we took Scripture in hand too and consulted it on many points, we have been instructed somewhat.”
This typifies the Baptist way of seeking to give to Scripture an authority which understands it as revealing matters relating to “faith and practice: whereby the members of a congregation live their lives individually and corporately.
The ultimate authority of Baptists is, however, to Jesus Christ who alone is Lord of the Conscience and Head of the Church and who reveals His will to His people through the Scriptures. Jesus Christ, as the Living Word, reveals Himself through the written Word. And by the Holy Spirit, Christians are encouraged and enabled to look into its pages and discern Christ’s will for their lives in the 21st century. Baptists have always insisted on freedom of access to the Bible and freedom of interpretation of the Bible, because it is the only means of arriving at the mind of the Lord Jesus.
John Smyth, one of the earliest Baptists at the beginning of the 17th century in England, encouraged his congregation to covenant themselves together as those who wanted to “walk in all His ways made known or to be made known unto them according to their best endeavours whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them.”
That is why Baptists study the Bible week by week in Sunday School, during mid-week Bible studies and listen to sermons during worship. They are hungry to know the will of God and seek to live their lives according to His purposes.
Southern Baptists used to speak of the importance of “soul freedom,” affirming the sacredness of individual choice.
Yet Baptists have often been accused of being excessively individualistic. Baptist commitment to the freedom of conscience of the individual before God must be held in creative tension with the commitment which they have made to the community of the Church.
Baptism means, not simply, that people are committing their lives to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord but they are “baptized by one Spirit into one body” — the local church. The freedom of individual conscience must take notice of the conscience of others. Baptists are sisters and brothers in Christ within the family of faith.
‘Walk with each other’
Many Baptist churches in Alabama have church covenants. Baptists understood their identity in light of the covenant which God makes with His people to form them into a community which, as one early Baptist congregation said, would help us to “to walk with each other and with God” and “to watch over each other” in love.
One reason Baptists hold church conferences is so the congregation might together seek to discern the mind and will of Christ in choosing pastors, electing deacons and making financial decisions. Baptists stress the notion of community because as the body of Christ they are all ministers of the grace of God to one another.
One further aspect of Baptist freedom is that of religious freedom, which explores the relationship between Church and State. This can often become controversial. It obviously does not mean Christians oppose political involvement. In the early days of Baptist life in England and the Colonies, Baptists were often persecuted by the State.
However, when they were allowed political freedom they worked for a position where no one denomination or even religion was given a preferred place within the nation. Baptists have historically called for the freedom of religious worship for all — both Christians and non-Christians.
The nature of God teaches us that He has created each of us as individuals with freedom to choose and that no one should never be coerced into a particular belief.
George Washington Truett — pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, in 1920, speaking in Washington during an SBC meeting — voiced the conviction that Baptists have always been in the vanguard of calls for freedom, civil as well as religious. Baptists, Truett affirmed, were the traditional champions of “absolute liberty.” This tradition can be found in the writings of Thomas Helwys, one of the earliest Baptists in England, at the beginning of the 17th century. Helwys argued “the magistrate is not by virtue of his office to meddle with religion or matters of conscience to force or compel men to this or that form of religion or doctrine but to leave Christian religion free to every man’s conscience … for Christ only is the King and Lawgiver of the Church and conscience.” He wrote a book called “A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity” and for this he was imprisoned and died there.
Helwys argued that freedom of conscience and religion meant “men’s relationship to God is between God and themselves; the king shall not answer for it, neither may the king judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews or whatever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.”
Leon McBeth, former professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, called this book “the first Baptist treatise devoted exclusively to religious liberty.”
This clarion cry of religious freedom also is found in the writings of Isaac Backus in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He spoke for all Baptists who had gone before him and all who would come after him. He argued that “true religion is a voluntary obedience to God.” This is one reason why Baptists do not baptize infants who have no ability to choose for themselves, but expect individuals to choose for themselves the way of discipleship through faith expressed in believer’s baptism.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Kenneth B.E. Roxburgh is professor of religion at Samford University in Birmingham and serves as pastor for preaching and teaching at Southside Baptist Church, Birmingham.
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