By Ron F. Hale.
He has served as Pastor, Church Planter, Strategist (NAMB), Director of Missions, Associate Executive Director of Evangelism and Church Planting for a State Convention, and now in the 4^th quarter of ministry as Minister of Missions.

While living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I loved looking down at the cityscape from the perch of Mt. Washington. You could ride the incline car up the steep hillside and see the confluence of the Ohio River as the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers came to an end at “The Point” in downtown Pittsburgh; Three Rivers Stadium is nearby. Depending on the weather in southwestern Pennsylvania, some days you could see muddy waters from one river flowing into the headstream of the Ohio River, while the other river brought much clearer water. These two rivers (one cloudy and one clear) seemed to flow side-by-side while slowly mixing and mingling together in the formation of the mighty Ohio.

Two rivers of theological thought have historically flowed through the mainstream of the Southern Baptist Convention. The waters have been muddied a bit by the Great Awakenings in America, the Sandy Creek revivalist tradition of Separate Baptists in the South, the Charleston tradition influenced more by Particular confessions of faith and their pastors trained in Presbyterian seminaries like Princeton, and the adoption of new Baptist confessions and statements of faith forged in the New World.

Dr. Steve W. Lemke’s précis of the two streams of soteriology (doctrine of salvation) meandering through our Southern Baptist history is enlightening:

To oversimplify a bit, Southern Baptists have two theological tributaries flowing into our mainstream – the Arminian-leaning General Baptists and the Calvinist-leaning Particular Baptists. Unto themselves, these tributaries were essentially free-standing streams, independent of each other. The General Baptists were first chronologically, with leaders such as John Smyth, Thomas Helwys, and Thomas Grantham. The name General Baptist came from their belief in a general atonement – that is, that Christ died for all the people who would respond in faith to Him. These Baptists may not have had access to most or all of Arminius’ works, but they were in agreement with many points of his theology. This theological stream was expressed in doctrinal confessions such as Smyth’s Short Confession of 1610, Helwys’s Declaration of Faith in 1611, the Faith and Practices of 30 Congregations of 1651, and the Standard Confession of 1660. The Free Will Baptists and General Baptists are the purest contemporary denominational expressions of this stream of thought.

In contrast, the name of the Particular Baptists was derived from the fact that they believed in a particular (or limited) atonement – that is, Christ died only for particular people, i.e., the elect. Their best known doctrinal confessions were the 1644 London Baptist Confession (expanded in 1646), the Second London Confession of 1689, and the Philadelphia Confession (of the Philadelphia Association) in 1742. The Second London Confession follows the language of the Reformed Westminster Confession verbatim (except at points that even Calvinistic Baptists differ from Presbyterians), and the Philadelphia Confession likewise copies the Second London Confession almost entirely word for word.[1]

From the Headwaters of the Arminian Stream

James Arminius (1560-1609) refused to accept the teachings of Theodore Beza (1519-1605) on election and reprobation. Beza followed John Calvin at the academy of Geneva and was the architect of the view of predestination known as supralapsarianism. This view argued that before God ordained the fall of Adam, He chose certain persons to eternal life and predestined others to eternal damnation.[2]

After studying under Beza in Geneva, Arminius rejected the teachings of his professor and taught another view. After his death, the followers of Arminius became known as the Remonstrants and they published a theological document that contended for the following five things:

1. God conditionally elects individuals according to their foreseen faith.
2. Christ died for the sins of the whole world.
3. No one has the power within himself to turn to God without the assistance of God’s grace.
4. God’s grace can be resisted.
5. It is possible for a Christian to lose his salvation.[3]

From the Headwaters of the Calvinist Stream

The followers of Arminius (the Arminians) and the followers of John Calvin (Calvinists) were embroiled in a theological debate until the Synod of Dort (1618-1619), at which time all five Arminian assertions were rejected.

The five points of Calvinism sought to respond to the five assertions of the Remonstrants (Arminians):

1. Total Depravity – as a result of Adam’s fall, the entire human race is affected; all humanity is dead in trespasses and sin. Man is unable to save himself.
2. Unconditional Election – Because man is dead in sin, he is unable to initiate response to God; therefore, in eternity past, God elected certain people to salvation. Election and predestination are unconditional; they are not based on man’s response.
3. Limited Atonement – Because God determined that certain ones should be saved as a result of God’s unconditional election, He determined that Christ should die for the elect. All who God has elected and Christ died for will be saved.
4. Irresistible Grace – Those whom God elected and Christ died for, God draws to Himself through irresistible grace. God makes man willing to come to Him. When God calls, man responds.
5. Perseverance of the Saints — The precise ones God has elected and drawn to Himself through the Holy Spirit will persevere in faith. None whom God has elected will be lost; they are eternally secure.[4]

By the time I was pulled from the pagan pool in 1975, Southern Baptists had moved away from Calvinism for almost a century, and there was very little debate between the proponents of Arminianism and Calvinism. The two streams of theological thought had mixed and mingled and the waters had settled down. However, after surrendering my life to God’s call to preach the gospel in 1977, I found the calm waters of Baptist life taking me down some rapids through the years of the Conservative Resurgence. I came out of the rapids holding firmly to the Word of God and convinced that Southern Baptists were making a difference in North America and the world. I found great joy in helping plant new congregations and evangelize in states like Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.

Later I discovered the currents and rapids getting faster again with the Reformed Resurgence or the rise of Calvinism in SBC life. It seems that some rode the rapids of the Conservative Resurgence with the hopes of returning Southern Baptists to what they saw as our “historic roots” in Calvinism. Since I was happy over on Sandy Creek, this seemed new, different, and challenging. I was unfamiliar with many of the names and nuances of the doctrines of Sovereign Grace and the system of Reformed theology.

Recently I was intrigued by the writings of pastor and theologian Dr. Eric Hankins. In a journal article entitled “Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism: Toward A Baptist Soteriology,” he says,

After four hundred years, Calvinism and Arminianism remain at an impasse. The strengths and weaknesses of both systems are well-documented, and their proponents vociferously aver each system’s mutual exclusivity. This paper is based on the observation that these two theological programs have had sufficient time to demonstrate their superiority over the other and have failed to do so. The time has come, therefore, to look beyond them for a paradigm that gives a better account of the biblical and theological data. Indeed, the stalemate itself is related not so much to the unique features of each system but to a set of erroneous presuppositions upon which both are constructed. As the fault lines in these foundational concepts are exposed, it will become clear that the Baptist vision for soteriology, which has always resisted absolute fidelity to either system, has been the correct instinct all along. Baptist theology must be willing to articulate this vision in a compelling and comprehensive manner.[5]

Dr. Hankins is correct that we must move beyond the things that have always divided us. The balkanization of the Southern Baptist Convention will escalate with the quibbles and quarrels growing more intense if we do not move beyond the hair-splitting and nit-picking that has plagued this unending doctrinal debate for almost half a millennium.

Three key understandings help me stay afloat in the white water rapids of change:

1. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). My faith goes back 2000 years to Jerusalem, not four hundred years to Geneva! Jesus is to be first and foremost in my life.
2. “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Books of theology can never satisfy my soul, but the precious Word of God first pointed me to the Savior and feeds my soul until this very day!
3. “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Romans 1:16). The gospel (not the finer points of theology) is the power of God unto salvation! It was the preaching of the death, burial, and glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave with the power to forgive me all my sins that caused my heart to trust Jesus many years ago. And, for over thirty-five years, I’ve seen the gospel break the hearts of sinners as they called on Jesus to save them.

I close with a sentence from the Baptist Faith and Message (Section 1: The Scriptures), “All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.” The two rivers of Baptist theology have been mixing and mingling, and serving effectively in the SBC for the past century and a half. Without the living, vital relationship with Jesus Christ (anchored in Scriptures), our two historic rivers of theology turn into the marshy waters of a moat surrounding defensive walls. It doesn’t have to be this way. We have set up a defense when we are supposed to be on the offense. New Testament charges the Church to march forward filled with the Spirit and preach the Word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword!

By James Leo Garrett, Jr., Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Historical and Systematic Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. This is the first in a series of three articles by Dr. Garrett on “The Future of Baptist Theology with a Look at Its Past,” which was presented at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary at an event. Part 1 reflected on the past in Baptist theology; Parts 2 and 3 anticipate its future.

Part 3: Looking to the Future of Baptists

From my studies of the four-century history of Baptist theology I have come to the conclusion that the principal differentiating issues among Baptists during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries were the Calvinistic-Arminian difference, or to be more specific, the issues that differentiate the Reformed Synod of Dort (1618-1619) and the followers of Jacob Arminius who framed the five Remonstrant Articles (1610). I looked at this issue in the first part of this series. In part 2, I began looking at what issues would likely surface in the future. In this final part, I will continue my look at future issues, focusing on issues important to church and the Southern Baptist Convention

My proposals, of course, do not constitute a complete list even as we acknowledge the difficulty of speaking about the future. I would ask seven questions. The first four questions dealt with hermeneutics, evangelism, and eschatology. I will now continue with three questions that surround church and denominational issues.

5. Are many Baptist churches to adopt ruling elders? Will Baptist megachurches retain a residue of congregational polity?

Although the Philadelphia Association for a time in the eighteenth century had the practice of ruling elders, such has been almost totally absent from Baptist churches in the United States until recent years. Perhaps as a consequence of the neo-Calvinism among Southern Baptists and or the influence of Dallas Theological Seminary, not a few Southern Baptist churches have established ruling elders, sometimes so as to produce major division in the congregation. Some have argued that elders are almost identical with “church staff,” but the crucial issue is whether the elders alone make decisions that according to congregational polity are normally to be made by the congregation. Some insist that all elders be ministers of the church, but to be decided is the question as to whether all elders are equal in authority or one elder, the pastor, has unique leadership. New Christians in Baptist churches or members who have come from other denominations often are quite amenable to ruling elders, whereas traditional or lifetime Baptists tend to be opposed to such. Few seem to realize that this is one of the marks that historically differentiated Baptists from Presbyterians.

For Baptist megachurches the question may not be ruling elders but rather pastor, church staff, and a leadership team. Some have argued that as churches increase in membership and ultimately become megachurches, it is inevitable from the standpoint of practicality that they abandon congregational polity. Such megachurches cannot seat their members for a congregational meeting, for they have multiple locations and/or multiple services. Most all decisions are made by the leadership and reported to the membership. Will the megachurch pattern spread to other churches? Can the great number of Baptist laypeople who are engaged in short-term mission trips overseas and at home be permanently denied participation in the decision-making of their church?

6. Are Baptists to surrender or retain believer’s baptism by immersion and its implications?

From John Bunyan’s day some Baptists have advocated and practiced open communion in observing the Lord’s Supper, i.e., open to all who profess to be Christians. Such has been defended on the basis of Christian unity, Christian love, and/or the absence of factiousness. In England John Collett Ryland, his son John Ryland, and Robert Hall, Jr. defended open communion, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon practiced it. Contemporary with open communion were the advocacy and practice of strict communion, i.e., making believer’s baptism by immersion prerequisite to participation in the Lord’s Supper in a Baptist church. William Kiffin, Abraham Booth, and Joseph Kinghorn strongly defended such, arguing that if believer’s baptism by immersion is required for membership, it should be for the Lord’s Supper and that open communion is a denigration of believer’s immersion. Among Baptists the warning has been sounded that open communion will lead to open membership; and, in fact, it has.

On the contrary, open membership is a relatively modern development among Baptists, especially in Great Britain. This is the practice whereby a Baptist church does not require that all its members be baptized on confession of faith by immersion. Hence in the membership may be persons having been baptized as infants or by sprinkling or pouring or even having had no baptism at all. The priority of baptism to the Lord’s Supper is not recognized. During the twentieth century conciliar ecumenism has influenced some Baptists to embrace open membership. At issue is the importance of believer’s immersion. Oddly enough, whereas numerous English Baptist churches have adopted open membership, in the United States the Baptist witness has been strong enough to help several new Christian denominations, especially between 1830 and 1930, to adopt believer’s immersion. Among Southern Baptists open membership has had few practitioners, but now two leading articles in Baptists Today (December 2009) have advocated open membership. The Alabama Baptist (29 April 2010, among other papers) published my article that advocated that Baptist churches should not adopt open membership. With open membership, immersion becomes dispensable, and there seems to be little rationale for a continuing Baptist denomination.

Coupled with the open membership trend in Britain has been a movement toward baptismal sacramentalism. Beginning with World War II a number of English Baptist authors have advocated the use of the term “sacraments” and disfavored the use of “ordinances.” Moreover, baptism is said to be “more than a symbol” in the sense that divine agency and divine grace are said to be involved uniquely in Christian baptism, not merely the confession of faith of the candidate, and conversion is reckoned as incomplete without baptism. George R. Beasley-Murray and R.E.O. White led the way in these views of baptism. Neville Clark, Anthony Cross, and others followed. English Baptists as a whole are divided on this issue, while Baptists in the United States who know their history are prone to find likeness to the views of Alexander Campbell and Archibald McLean, the “Scotch Baptist,” which were rejected by early nineteenth-century Baptists.

7. Can Baptists mend their fractured unity?

We know that Baptists began as two separate bodies, the General and the Particular Baptists. We also acknowledge that Baptists, perhaps more than other Christians, have had a tendency to divide or separate. It has been said that our congregational polity has made us more prone to schism. The SBC was constituted in an act of separation in 1845. Northern Baptists sustained major defections in the 1930s and 1940s as a consequence of theological controversy, and now more recently the American Baptist Churches (USA) have lost their Pacific Southwest churches over homosexuality and other issues. There are now four Afro-American Baptist conventions. Southern Baptists have had the Frank Norris movement, the Lee Roberson movement, the Alliance of Baptists, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. A quarter of century ago Brazilian Baptists divided over charismaticism and now the same has happened to Argentine Baptists.

Even so, Baptists must know the Pauline teaching about Christian unity (Eph. 2:14-22; 4:3-6, 11-13; Phil. 4:2-3) and how our Lord Jesus, according to John 17 prayed for the unity of his disciples, even as he and the Father are one, so that the unbelieving world may believe that God has sent Jesus. Sometimes those Baptists who have consistently rejected the structured union of conciliar ecumenism have provided meager examples of any form of unity among the people called Baptists. More recently (2004) the unity of the Baptist World Alliance has been fractured by the withdrawal of the Southern Baptist Convention. Once again Baptists have the great challenge of repairing or mending their broken unity without forsaking the gospel or losing essential Christian truth. Cooperation has been an unchanged article of faith in the SBC Baptist Faith and Message Statement in 1925, 1963 and 2000.[1]

Conclusion

In conclusion, we acknowledge that there may be in the near future other pressing issues for Baptists not mentioned here. Likewise, Baptists will continue to need to know how other Christians are doing theology, for such developments have a way of affecting Baptists. But it is of paramount importance that Baptists in the twenty-first century think theologically as Baptists and in reference to the Baptist heritage. I invite and challenge you to engage in Baptist theology and to make your contribution to it. May our Lord abundantly enable, bless, and use you in doing so.

[1] Two issues that have not been identified but are widely discussed among Baptists are (1) the music wars in Baptist and other churches and (2) the role or roles of women in Baptist churches. As to the first, it seems that the conflicts are for the most part not theological but cultural and generational. As to the second, the decision as to male pastors only has seemingly been made among SBC churches but not among the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, American Baptist Churches (USA), and certain Baptist unions in Europe. Furthermore, the role of women, if any, on the staffs of larger Baptist churches is being disputed, and the ecclesiological significance of the church staff itself remains undefined. Similarly, Baptist churches are not agreed as to whether women should serve as deacons. Concurrently the widespread and crucial service rendered by women in Baptist churches is realistically and gratefully acknowledged. These questions will likely continue to be dealt with as Baptists argue from and over the Scriptures in a changing culture that has granted women heretofore unavailable roles.

This series of articles was previously published as “The Future of Baptist Theology with a Look at its Future” in the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry 7.2 (Fall 2010) and has been republished by permission.

By James Leo Garrett, Jr., Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Historical and Systematic Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. This is the first in a series of three articles by Dr. Garrett on “The Future of Baptist Theology with a Look at Its Past,” which was presented at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary at an event. Part 1 reflected on the past in Baptist theology; Parts 2 and 3 anticipate its future.

Part 2: Looking to the Future of Baptist Issues

From my studies of the four-century history of Baptist theology I have come to the conclusion that the principal differentiating issues among Baptists during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries were the Calvinistic-Arminian difference, or to be more specific, the issues that differentiate the Reformed Synod of Dort (1618-1619) and the followers of Jacob Arminius who framed the five Remonstrant Articles (1610). In the part 1 of this three part series, I took a look at the Calvinistic-Arminian debate. In this part let’s look at issues that will likely surface in the future.

Will the Chief Differentiating and Characterizing Issues of the Past
Have a Significant Bearing on the Future?

First, because Baptists closely connect salvation with church membership, it is likely that soteriological concerns about the relationship between humanity and the divine will continue to resurface in Baptist life.

Second, likewise the issues surrounding revelation and the Bible, Christology, human origins, and eschatology are likely to resurface among Baptists.

Third, although some of the Baptist distinctives will continue to be strictly less distinctive of Baptists as other Christian denominations and nondenominational indigenous movements embrace some of them, Baptists may continue to be less than effective in teaching and fleshing out these historic distinctives amid their own people.

Fourth, Baptists may continue to rediscover their debt to the patristic consensus and to recognize their debt to the Magisterial Reformation as well as the Radical Reformation.

Fifth, perhaps the question of interdenominational Christian unity will be answered in rather different ways in the twenty-first century than in the twentieth.

Sixth, it is very probable that the interactions of missiology and theology among Baptists will markedly increase.

What Other Theological Issues are Likely
to be Faced by Baptists in the Near Future?

My proposals, of course, do not constitute a complete list even as we acknowledge the difficulty of speaking about the future. I would ask seven questions. The first four deal with a variety of issues. In part three of this series, I will concentrate on church and denominational issues.

1. Can Baptists in various conventions and unions find a common biblical hermeneutic, especially in reference to contemporary social and moral issues?

This question takes us into ethics. To raise such a question is not to assume that Baptists have always had such a common hermeneutic in the past. The history of American Baptist attitudes toward slavery and racial segregation is a well-known exception. But issues such as homosexual practice, cohabitation outside of marriage, and abortion have tested Baptists as to anything like a common stance in today’s worlds. Moreover, present-day happenings in the Episcopal Church in the United States and in the Anglican communion worldwide make it clear that differences on these burning issues, together with their underpinnings of biblical hermeneutics and biblical authority, can produce major schisms and a divided witness. If Baptists can still agree on the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, then hopefully they can responsibly address these exegetical, hermeneutical, and socio-ethical issues.

2. Is the Baptist embrace of the doctrine of the Trinity sufficient for an effective witness to Muslims?

Baptist theological history for four centuries is replete with evidence that Baptists have consistently affirmed that God is one God yet in three “persons” or “subsistences” – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In such affirmations Baptists have used language hammered out by ecumenical councils of the patristic era. Baptists have also recognized that denial of the Trinity and of the deity of Christ puts one outside the ranks of truth and into the ranks of heresy, as in the case of the majority of the earliest English General Baptists who by the early eighteenth century had become Unitarians in belief, and in the case of modernists in the Northern Baptist Convention in the early twentieth century. But for many Southern Baptists from the latter part of the twentieth century to the present, the Trinity has been a doctrine, the denial of which could evoke charges of heresy while the affirmation of which—through preaching, teaching, worship, hymnody and praise songs, and piety—has been woefully deficient. Now as a major missionary sending body, the Southern Baptist Convention faces the great challenge of witnessing to the Islamic world, in both predominantly Muslim nations, as well as in the United States and Europe. A major roadblock is the Muslim perception that we Christians believe in three Gods, that Jesus is not the Son of God, and that Jesus did not die on the cross. Can Baptists be expected to lead Muslims to saving faith in Jesus Christ if their doctrine of the Trinity is stored in mothballs?

3. Can Baptists agree on the destiny of the unevangelized?

Before the end of the twentieth century, especially among evangelicals, there surfaced as a major theological issue the destiny of unevangelized peoples. The question, of course, was not new, but it had a new intensity, as contacts with the adherents of non-Christian religions increased. Three major positions soon came to be differentiated. First, there is pluralism, or the view that humans can be made right with God or eschatologically saved in and through non-Christian religions. Second, there is inclusivism, or the view that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ but can occur without particular knowledge of Jesus, without a confession of faith in Jesus, and without Christian baptism but through the agency of the transcendent Christ or Logos. Third, there is exclusivism, or the view that salvation can with certainty come only through Jesus Christ and only through an identifiable acknowledgement of Jesus as Savior and Lord with at least a minimal awareness of the Christian gospel. Few Baptists, if any, have embraced pluralism, as expounded by John Hick. Rather to the extent that they have addressed this issue Baptists have espoused either inclusivism or exclusivism. As to monographs on this subject, more Baptist authors have espoused inclusivism (Russell Aldwinckle, Clark Pinnock, Molly Marshall) than have espoused exclusivism (Ronald H. Nash). Some would join this issue with the question of the destiny of infants and young children who die at an early age. Others would join it with post-mortem evangelization, which the older theologians call “probation after death,” and which has been popularly dubbed “a second chance.” Clear evangelistic and missionary strategy would seem to call for a relatively clear answer to such questions. The 2000 SBC Baptist Faith and Message statement is clearly exclusivistic, but the monographs for exclusivism are few. Moreover, to affirm exclusivism on the basis of John 3:16; John 14:6; Acts 4:12 et al. is not to usurp the omniscience of God but to state what the church today ought to declare with any certainty, leaving final salvation, where it belongs, in the hands of God.

4. What are Baptists to do with Dispensationalism?

This theological system, so widely embraced today among Southern Baptists, did not enter Southern Baptist theological history until James Robinson Graves embraced it late in the nineteenth century. I have proposed that we should reckon Dispensationalism, both a distinctive hermeneutic and a distinctive eschatology, as an “incursion” into Baptist theology. By incursion I do not mean “heresy,” as one of my reviewers seems to think, but rather as a novelty without precedent during the earlier two and a half centuries of Baptist life. Although one cannot with certainty posit any cause-effect relationship, it is noteworthy that the era of Dispensationalism’s greatest influence on Southern Baptists, i.e., the turn of the twenty-first century, was concurrently the time of the greatest restriction of missionary methods in the history of the IMB SBC – the curtailment of theological education, primary and secondary schools, publishing, medical missions, and agricultural missions in favor of direct evangelism and church planting alone. To be sure, American Dispensationalism has undergone at least two transformations since C. I. Scofield published his Scofield Reference Bible a century ago, but its abiding hiatus between the church (the Christians) and Israel (the Jews) is difficult to harmonize with Paul’s teaching about Jew-Gentile reconciliation through the cross and the creation of the “one new man” (Eph. 2:15b-16). Furthermore, Dispensationalism’s two eschatological comings of Christ, “the rapture” and the “revelation,” are hard to reconcile with the synonymous use of parousia, epiphaneia, apokalupsis in the Greek New Testament, all used in reference to the second coming, as scholars of historical premillennialism have readily acknowledged.

In the third and final article of this series, I will address three questions that pertain to Baptist churches and to the Southern Baptist Convention.

This series of articles was previously published as “The Future of Baptist Theology with a Look at its Future” in the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry 7.2 (Fall 2010) and has been republished by permission.

By James Leo Garrett, Jr., Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Historical and Systematic Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. This is the first in a series of three articles by Dr. Garrett on “The Future of Baptist Theology with a Look at Its Past,” which was presented at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary at an event. Part 1 reflects on the past in Baptist theology; Parts 2 and 3 anticipate its future.

Part 1: Looking Back on Four Centuries of Baptist Theology

The Chief Differentiating Theological Issues among Baptists

From my studies of the four-century history of Baptist theology I have come to the conclusion that the principal differentiating issues among Baptists during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries were the Calvinistic-Arminian differences, or to be more specific, the issues that differentiate the Reformed Synod of Dort (1618-1619) and the followers of Jacob Arminius, who framed the five Remonstrant Articles (1610). I have also concluded that the chief differentiating doctrinal issues for Baptists during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were the liberal-evangelical issues. Now, let’s first take a look at the Calvinistic-Arminian debate.

These differences were initially manifested in the separate and distinct origins of the General and the Particular Baptists in England. They are essentially soteriological, dealing with the relationship of the divine and the human in our salvation. I have challenged the accuracy of the commonly used acronym to specify the Dortian doctrines, the TULIP, for it was not so much total depravity that separated these two theological systems from the Arminian viewpoint as it was the nature of repentance and faith— whether they are the gifts of God or the responses of human beings. Each of these Dutch-derived theological stances was capable of spawning extremes, notably Hyper-Calvinism from Dort and neo-Pelagianism from the Arminians. I have offered, possibly for the first time, five distinguishing marks of Hyper-Calvinism: the supralapsarian order of divine decrees; the pre-temporal covenant of redemption made by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Sprit; eternal justification somewhat separated for the exercise of faith in time; rejection of offers of grace to the non-elect; and antinomianism. Hyper-Calvinism plagued the Particular Baptists during the eighteenth century, and Pelagian positions can be detected among the liberal and modernist theologians in the Northern Baptist Convention in the early twentieth century.

The liberal-evangelical issues were not essentially soteriological. Rather they centered on Christology, revelation and the Bible, human origins, and to some extent eschatology. Liberal theology for Baptists and other Protestants developed in response to the new nineteenth century theological climate—especially biblical criticism, Darwinian evolution, and the Industrial Revolution. Whereas liberals embraced the new climate, evangelicals or conservatives did not. Indeed Northern Baptists had mediating theologians such as Ezekiel G. Robinson and Augustus H. Strong. But once again extremists were spawned—modernists on the one hand and fundamentalists on the other. I concur with Kenneth Cauthen’s verdict that liberals and modernists are to be differentiated. For liberals there was still a need for Jesus, however truncated, but for modernists Jesus was dispensable; modern thought instead would suffice. The question has not been settled as to how many fundamentals were defended by the fundamentalists, but George M. Marsden has aptly identified fundamentalism as “militantly antimodernist Protestant evangelicalism” between the 1870s and the 1920s, but especially during the 1920s. Marsden’s definition allows us to conceive of evangelicalism as preceding and succeeding fundamentalism.

Now in the last quarter century among Southern Baptists, there arose a neo-Calvinist movement, a neo-fundamentalist movement, and a moderate movement.

Parallel Baptist Theological Trends

Parallel to, and sometimes contemporaneous with, the Calvinist-Arminian and the liberal-evangelical differences have been other theological tendencies. I cite four of these.

First, Baptists have engaged in polemic in defense of their own distinctive beliefs. This has taken two forms: the earlier and the later. The earlier form was the literature on believer’s baptism by immersion, written against Paedobaptists and focused on the candidate or the mode or on both. This type of writing extended from John Spilsbury to the First London Confession (1644) to Benjamin Keach to John Gill to Dan Taylor to Alexander Carson to John Jay Butler to John L. Dagg to James Robinson Graves. Baptism was seen as the crucial issue between Baptists and other Christians. The later form was a genre of literature, written from ca. 1850 to ca. 1950, on the cluster of beliefs and practices called “Baptist distinctives.” Since the genre was contemporaneous with the greatest influence of Landmarkism on Southern Baptists, it might be easy to posit a theory of cause and effect. But the fact that Northern and English Baptists were at the same time contributing significantly to this genre would undermine any such theory. As R. Stanton Norman has noted, this literature tended either to magnify the authority of the Scriptures or that of Christian experience (notably E.Y. Mullins). One may indeed ask whether the demise of this literature during the last sixty years has been a major factor in the failure of Baptist churches in the United States to teach their members about the Baptist heritage.

Second, Baptists have continued to affirm those basic Christian doctrines that they share with other professing Christian and with all Protestants. Baptists have adhered to the patristic consensus regarding the Trinity and the person of Christ, or made the march from Nicaea I to Chalcedon, even when they did not formally acknowledge such. Note John Gill on the Trinity. Hence Baptists were able to identify heresy, such as the earliest English General Baptists becoming Unitarian in belief by the early eighteenth century. The Second London Confession (1677) of Particular Baptists and the Orthodox Creed (1678) of General Baptists stressed both in structure and in content kinship with the Presbyterian Westminster Confession. Baptists have shared with the heirs of the magisterial Reformation such beliefs as the authority of Scripture, justification by grace through faith, the priesthood of all believers, predestination, church discipline, and either Zwinglian or Calvinist understandings of the Lord’s Supper.

Third, Baptists in the twentieth century made different responses to the Ecumenical Movement with its emphasis on structured transdenominational church union. British Baptists, Northern Baptists, most African-America conventions in the United States, and a scattering of other unions and conventions joined the World Council of Churches. Southern Baptists, Latin American Baptists, and a larger number of unions and conventions did not, being unwilling to go beyond spiritual unity and limited cooperation and expressing fears of a “one world church.” Ernest A. Payne and Edward Roberts-Thompson championed the ecumenical cause, and H.E. Dana and William R. Estep, Jr. represented the other side. The World’s Council’s involvement in social and political issues, such as financial aid to revolutionary movements in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, and away from evangelization and church planting, decelerated any flow of Baptist bodies into the WCC and led to the withdrawal of a few.

Fourth, more recently among Baptists has been the interaction or interpenetration of theology and missiology. We must go back to William Carey’s An Enquiry to the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792). This treatise was not theological , but rather missiological; however, it may have helped to turn missiology into a theological discipline. William Owen Carver, the first Baptist to hold an academic chair of missions at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1899, at first leaning to the society method, treated missions as the duty of individual Christians in relation to the kingdom of God. Through the twentieth century more attention was given to the missionary role of the churches, especially with the advent of short-term church-sent volunteer missionaries to supplement the career missionaries. Missiology, as may be seen in the volume entitled Missiology (1998), edited by Mark Terry, Justice Anderson, and Ebbie Smith, had its essential theological component. Moreover, at the end of the twentieth century with the systematic theologies written by James W. McClendon and by myself, Baptist systematic theologies include chapters on missions. Concurrent with this greater interaction of missiology and theology has been the contextualization of Baptist theology outside of Europe and North America. Perhaps the most notable has been the work of Latin American Baptist theologians, Orlando Costas, René Padilla, and Samuel Escobar. They have joined the supreme authority of Scripture and the need for evangelization and missions with a strong emphasis on social justice and a keen awareness of the Latin American, i.e., Roman Catholic, context. In Nigeria confrontation with African Traditional Religion has been pursued, and in South Korea missiological concerns have loomed large.

In part 2 and 3, I will look into the future ask seven questions about Baptist church and denominational issues.

This series of articles was previously published as “The Future of Baptist Theology with a Look at its Future” in the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry 7.2 (Fall 2010) and has been republished by permission.

By Dan Nelson, Pastor,
First Baptist Church,
Camarillo, CA

A very distinctive mark of Baptists is our insistence that biblical authority as our sole authority for faith and practice. I realize that this is hardly an exclusive claim for every church with a high view of God’s Word. For these churches could make a similar statement. As a matter of fact, there may be a misunderstanding of perceived arrogance by Baptists about this position. So far, I have tried to disclose a biblical perspective for our emphasis. I want to do the same here.

The claim of biblical authority is not inferring that Baptists are the only ones approaching everything from a biblical perspective. What I have always said is that “we don’t say we are the only ones right in our church, but we believe the Bible is our authority and we try to follow the Bible as closely as possible”. This position is my disclaimer statement to those who feel we might sound arrogant or intolerant about this particular topic.

To understand this position, we need to understand the competitors to biblical authority. I am not saying that these competitors erase belief in biblical views but that these factors compete for that position. What are these other sources of authority?

Traditionalism: Catholicism and all who have a similar system of belief structure base their authority on tradition. Catholicism has added much tradition through the years. Cultural practices, papal bulls, biblical illiteracy, and accumulation of practice through the years in many nations contribute to this strong trend. The Bible is minimized when stacked up to tradition. Another way of looking at it is that tradition covers up biblical truth. You have the Bible on a table and you cover it with papers and stuff. The Bible is under there somewhere, but you have to peel everything away.

One of the most obvious contrasts here is that the mode and purpose of baptism is viewed differently between Baptists and Catholics. The sacramental system is built on traditional church practices through the centuries. It hardly has any biblical support.[1]

Revelation and Impulses: Charismatic churches actually suggest they believe more of the Bible today than other churches because of their acceptance of the sign gifts as operative and normative for today. The point of their validity is very well debated. In reality, though, the leadership of the Holy Spirit in their lives as they perceive Him becomes more important in priority. You will hear statements like: “God said this to me.” There are many levels of this type of thinking because of various types of charismatic influence. These churches feel they are thoroughly biblical and following existential revelation that is biblical to them.[2]

Where sign gifts are predominant, knowing the full revelation of God – as taught on a consistent basis – is minimized. Biblical authority, then, is thus deferred.

Liberalism and Cultural Relativism: The battle for the Bible in the twentieth century has led to liberalism and skepticism affecting most mainline denominational churches. Southern Baptists have had a resurgence of biblical authority by affirming our belief in the inspired, inerrant word of God.

The lack of biblical authority is apparent in these denominations when they accept homosexuality and ordain homosexual priests. Skepticism of Scripture has been the source of acceptance for many societal sins. In the political arena, a position of a political party becomes more important than moral values. Some said to me after learning of my criteria for a political candidate regarding moral values, “Why don’t you use something substantial?”[3]

The basis for a low view of Scripture is changing, and the church feels the need to change with it. Gay marriage, abortion, and a lack of religious influence in society are all accepted today by a significant portion of our culture. While I was attempting to explain the Baptist view of things in a liberal church seminar, someone said, “Don’t we need to change with society to bring more people into the church?” I answered, “We don’t change the Bible for people’s sins; we bring people to the Bible and they are changed by its message.” The decline of these mainline denominational churches in the latter part of the twentieth century proves that accepting society’s trends contradictory to the Bible does not bring more people into the church.[4]

Pragmatism: The diversion of pragmatism is more deceptive. Pragmatism is one of the driving forces of many contemporary churches. I will not lump all types of churches into this category. As already stated the driving force is usually a worthy one – to reach people for Christ by whatever means possible. “Doctrine,” unfortunately, in a majority of these churches is not a popular term.

Topical messages and need-oriented ministry predominates in typical churches driven by pragmatism. The “whatever works” mentality is different from liberalism in that it is usually driven by belief in God’s word as truth.[5] The difference in approach to Scripture is the contrast that results in minimizing not only Baptist distinctives but all biblical truths that could be emphasized.

It is easy for me to mark the differences in groups who do not have a high degree of biblical authority. There must be clear delineation of these differences. These distinctives will be broadened and find more agreement with other groups. Yet, our emphasis of these truths determines our depth of authority. These are very definite. There must be a biblical authority in what we believe and basis for why we believe it. Then we will give a reason why we are people of the Book and not just make it a catch phrase.

By Gary Ledbetter, Director of Communications of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, and Editor of the Southern Baptist Texan

The first report of the committee appointed by SBC President Bryant Wright to consider a new name for the SBC indicates that they know their job is a hot potato. Chairman Jimmy Draper assured us that they are approaching the task prayerfully and deliberately. He also made clear that the committee does not favor changing the word “Baptist” in our convention’s name. As expected, “Southern,” seen as some to be an inappropriately regional identification, and “Convention,” with its institutional flavor, are up for grabs.

I’m not surprised by anything Dr. Draper has said up to this point and it is good that he has nailed down that we will continue to be called something Baptist for the foreseeable future. But with that communication from the ad hoc committee, I’m comfortable to sit back and wait for their final report.

I can’t help but wonder if those most dissatisfied with the convention’s current name will be eased by any response that retains the word “Baptist,” though. Some have actually found the term “Baptist” problematic for their ministries. Maybe it’s for embarrassments like Westboro Baptist “Church” (not Southern Baptist but many don’t know) or things we have done like the Disney boycott. Some churches may find a broader base of attenders by not leading with “Baptist.”

Thus, there’s a wave of “we’re still a Southern Baptist church, but we’d rather meet you before you know that” thinking. Many churches formerly “First Baptist [your city]” or “[your community] Baptist Church” now do business as simply “[your community name] Church” or “The Church at [your community name].” Some are more creative still, like Connection Church, launched in South Dakota by my friend Doug Hixson. I don’t really want to argue that your church answers to me or anyone else for the name you choose. I’m arguing instead that if you’re committed to Southern Baptists but are changing the sign out front to something more generic than Calvary Baptist Church, you’ve started down a more difficult road than you might think.

My family attended a Willow Creek-style church in a Midwestern city for about a year. It wasn’t called a Baptist church but we knew it was affiliated with other SBC churches on three different levels. As we considered membership, we began to ask those in our Sunday School class about the denominational identity of the church. They didn’t know we were Southern Baptist. Neither did our teacher know. We were interested to know how the church participated in cooperative missions so we asked a staff member (an SBC seminary grad) we’d met. He couldn’t answer our question but said he would find out. He brought us a budget summary that did not address our question to any discernable degree. We had to talk to the pastor to find out how the church we were planning to join was involved with other Southern Baptist churches for the purpose of missions. As best I could tell, few others knew the pastor’s vision for the church’s denominational involvement. I’ve heard similar stories from members of other churches for over a decade. The dissipation of Baptist identity within those churches was not the intent of church leaders as they chose a name or rename for their church. And yet, there seems to be an inevitable pull toward a more vague identity.

It sounds simplistic but having Baptist in the name means that the pastor doesn’t have to often say from the pulpit, “We are a Baptist church.” In churches with or without the formal Baptist designation, I’m saying he should do just that, and then he should explain why being Baptist matters.

It matters because Baptist churches have been key advocates for religious liberty in America. Our government’s occasional efforts to encourage freedom of conscience for people around the world are the legacy of Baptists in the United States. Baptists advocate for liberty because we were discouraged, even persecuted by other denominations of the time for preaching the gospel without their permission.

It also matters because Baptists in the U.S. have been among the most, if not the most ardent and effective advocates for missions in every place. That’s our heritage but it’s not just the past. We are still working hard to target the remaining unreached peoples of the world. We have a system that serves this purpose and we have a plan to address this goal. Yes, others are doing missions and smaller groups may be more flexible than our large enterprise; but when we call ourselves “Baptist,” we’re saying that we’re committed and poised to work together for the spread of the gospel.

Being Baptist matters because churches, made up of redeemed people who talk to God, operate under the direct headship of our Lord and Savior. No hierarchy and no outside conclave should interfere in that relationship. Self-governing churches made up of people who discern the will of God in community with other like-minded believers are a very Baptist interpretation of biblical (and Reformation) doctrine. Non-denominational churches may operate this way; newer and smaller denominations may be cooperating groups of autonomous congregations. Where this is so, these congregations are behaving in a right Baptist way.

I think being Baptist matters because there is a body of doctrine that describes us. Baptists believe that the two ordinances are symbolic and significant but not salvific. We have a polity we share with others who bear the name. Baptists believe that Jesus is the only means of salvation and that the Bible is his story—faithful in all that is purported there to be true. Of course, some Baptists accept infant baptism; others are not convinced regarding the authority of Scripture or even the uniqueness of Christ. These Baptists are notable exceptions and frankly have a dubious future among us. “Baptist” is still a useful shorthand way of saying something of what a church believes.

And yes, I do very much love and respect the various community churches and “churches at” one place or another. The pastors I know who’ve led their churches to adopt such monikers are Baptists and overwhelmingly not ashamed of it. For this valuing of these churches’ denominational lineage to trickle down over future generations, these pastors must go out of their way to make the story plain.

They must highlight, alongside various projects originated in their local congregations, the work done in concert with national, state, and associational partners. No church can do all that it’s commissioned to do without working with strategic partners.

Pastors of creatively named (and traditionally named) churches should highlight to church members the portion of their church budgets allocated for Cooperative Program ministries. Most vocational church leaders were educated through the generosity of Baptists they never met. Nearly every church was born with the assistance of Baptists in other locations, even other states and most often through CP funds. Freely we have received; freely give.

How about using new member orientation classes to highlight the reason and content of your church’s denominational identity? Years ago, my church used material produced by a sister church that completely bypassed the subject. It was a strange and inappropriate choice for a traditional and quite Southern Baptist church. Now, our material discusses the Cooperative Program and why we support it. Is there any good reason why any Southern Baptist church by any name should not do this as part of its orientation of new members?

Whether it is through Disaster Relief training and deployment, various kinds of ministry training (Sunday School, VBS, etc.), or some other kind of denominational partnership, church leaders should encourage their members to see and do firsthand the work of their fellow Baptists. In my experience, church members so oriented to their Baptist identity become more committed and useful in ministries of their home churches.

It seems clear that the Southern Baptist Convention is not going to change its name in any way that could obscure our Baptist heritage. The trend for new and established churches to choose names less denominational is also observable. It is a very Baptist thing these churches are doing—deciding for themselves how they’ll be known in their own communities. With a bit of intentional and continued work, our churches by nearly any names can also remain very Baptist things.

This article was first published in the Southern Baptist Texan on November 4, 2011 and was reposted with permission of the author.

By Dr. Lemke, Provost, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, occupying the McFarland Chair of Theology, Director of the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry, and Editor of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Reflections on the Daviess-McLean Decision

In Part 1, I shared my perceptions (from admittedly incomplete knowledge) about the decision of Daviess-McLean Baptist Association (DMBA) to deny the membership request from Pleasant Valley Community Church (PVCC). The main point was that although theological issues were involved in the decision because of the strongly Calvinistic doctrine of PVCC, the decision appears to have been based more on attitudinal issues by PVCC that the member churches of DMBC felt could be divisive. Here are some brief reflections on my understanding of the significance of the association’s decision to deny membership to PVCC, and the implications of this action for other churches and associations as we move forward.

(1)   The local church is the center of (earthly) authority in Baptist polity. Local church autonomy is a distinctive Baptist belief (as I have discussed). The local churches in Daviess-McLean Baptist Association were perfectly within their rights to deny membership to Pleasant Valley Community Church. This determination was made not by associational officials, but by duly authorized messengers from the member churches of DMBA. They were voting as representatives of their own local church, not as representatives of the association as a whole. At the same time, DMBA has no authority to force PVCC to change their doctrine or practice. PVCC can worship as they choose, believe as they choose, and do church as they choose. The biblical foundation of church autonomy, of course, is the priority given to local churches in the New Testament. However, theologically it reflects that through the priesthood of believers (another Baptist distinctive), each member seeks the will of God, the headship of Jesus Christ, and the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and represents that divine leadership in voting on decisions in the church. This collective reflection of the will of God is much more reliable than putting this decision solely in the hands of a few fallible authoritarian leaders. This is a wonderful and marvelous thing that inflexible top-down hierarchical denominations like Catholics and Presbyterians “desire to look into” (1 Pet. 1:12, KJV).

(2)  Doctrine matters. The Daviess-McLean Baptist Association decision has underscored the fact that doctrine really does matter. Birds of a feather flock together. Churches that are in agreement in faith and practice tend to be more unified and harmonious. In this case, while acknowledging that the theology of PVCC was not heretical, and not going into specific detail about their theological concerns, the association did “recognize that it [PVCC’s theology] is vastly different than the majority of churches within the DMBA,” and thus would be potentially divisive. This decision is a powerful antidote to the strong pluralistic, ecumenical forces in our day that threaten to dull the doctrinal distinctives of evangelical Christians and denominations to be merged into an amorphous lowest common denominator which does not truly represent anyone’s real beliefs.

(3)  Those who want to be accepted should make themselves acceptable. It is befitting for those seeking acceptance from others to try to minimize any possible hindrances to acceptance. It was PVCC seeking membership in DMBA, not vice versa. The onus of responsibility was thus on PVCC to demonstrate their cooperativeness and fit with DMBA and demonstrate their worthiness to join DMBA, not vice versa. Without knowing most of the details of this situation, it is evident from the overwhelming 104-9 vote of DMBA that PVCC did not take common sense steps to connect in positive ways with the association. PVCC did demonstrate that they valued and sought interaction with other faraway groups in such as the Acts 29 Network based in Seattle, Washington than they did fellowship with Southern Baptist churches in their own area. And when interaction did take place between PVCC and the local churches in DMBA, it evidently was not predominantly a positive experience. The Credential Committee’s findings noted that PVCC had not given evidence that it “would be sympathetic with the purpose and work of the body of the DMBA,” and noted that PVCC had practiced “an overall lack of the key elements of cooperation found in patience, humility, kindness, compassion and gentleness.” It clearly appeared to be these perceived uncooperative and somewhat arrogant attitudinal problems that “ultimately” led to the denial of PVCC from DMBA. This was a preventable tragedy, but PVCC (perhaps in part because of the inexperienced leadership and/or a doctrinaire inflexibility) must bear much of the responsibility for their own rejection.

(4)  This DMBA decision has a very limited impact on PVCC.  The main impact of this decision is that messengers from PVCC cannot vote in the annual session of DMBA.  I don’t think that being denied this minor privilege is going to cripple the ministry of PVCC. The DMBA’s decision does not bar PVCC from attending DMBA meetings. It does not delimit PVCC from attending DMBA training events, such as Sunday School training or Vacation Bible School training, if PVCC had any interest in these. It does not prohibit PVCC from membership in the Kentucky Baptist Convention or the SBC. It does not bar PVCC from participating in the evangelistic or missions efforts of DMBA (if PVCC’s theology did not prevent the church from desiring to do so). It does not prohibit PVCC from sending their youth or children to camps sponsored by the DMBA. It does not prevent PVCC from inviting other DMBA pastors to speak in their church for revivals (if PVCC’s doctrine does not prohibit themselves from having revivals) or in other worship services. It does not prevent PVCC from partnering on projects with individual DMBA churches. It does not prohibit PVCC from contributing money to DMBA or its related ministries. If PVCC were genuinely interested in demonstrating their cooperative spirit to DMBA, doing any or all of these things (and doing so in a sweet spirit) would go a long way in changing the perception of the churches in the association that PVCC has an uncooperative spirit. Again, the point is that one should not make more of this decision than the minor impact it has on PVCC.

(5)  Sometimes unity requires division. As I noted in an earlier series of articles about the fault lines that divide Southern Baptists, there is a point at which it does not appear fruitful for two groups to continue walking together.  More unity is found by dividing into two groups rather than continuing irritating each other by constantly arguing and bickering with each other in the same group. I described this as the “in Adam” option – unity through division (that is, taking human fallenness into consideration, divisions like this are inevitable). This was true of Southern Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and it may yet (and the odds are, it will) cause further such divisions over the issue of Calvinism (as SBC Executive Committee CEO Frank Page noted in a recent SBC Today interview) and/or along other fault lines in Southern Baptist life (as I have noted). For example, if churches like PVCC continue finding more commonality with groups such as Acts 29 or the Founders group prior to and over against local associations – networking with them, going to their meetings, seeking their counsel, etc., as Pastor Edwards’ interview on the Acts 29 website indicates – it is inevitable that these alternative groups like Acts 29 and Founders will functionally become an association to themselves, start breaking down into statewide and regional fellowships, and eventually split into another denomination. If narrow doctrinal agreement is required for fellowship, these sorts of splits are inevitable in the SBC in the interest of unity and harmony.

(6)  True unity requires toleration of a greater range of differences. I believe that the Lord’s ideal for his churches is not that they splinter and divide, but that they “dwell together in unity” (Ps. 133:1). This is what I have called the “in Christ” option – unity through diversity. For such a broader unity to be a reality, it is necessary that believers (and churches) be more tolerant and forgiving of each other. It requires that we must be content to agree on major points and agree to disagree on other points. It means in this case, for example, that PVCC not describe widely accepted Baptist patterns of church governance as “unbiblical.” Had Edwards just said in the interview that PVCC sought to discover the church polity that they felt the Bible affirmed, that would have been fine. But to condemn the polity of others as “unbiblical” does not build unity. Again, the DMBA finding that PVCC demonstrated “an overall lack of the key elements of cooperation found in patience, humility, kindness, compassion and gentleness” indicates that DMBA did not consider PVCC willing to demonstrate the tolerant attitudes demanded of true unity.

Unfortunately, the association’s written findings were rather vague both in regard to the specific doctrinal issues which were problematic and in listing specific examples of the attitudinal issues which they found problematic. However, DMBA’s overwhelming 104-9 vote suggests that PVCC wasn’t even close to being acceptable. This was evidently not a hard decision for the association.

However, to achieve unity in a broader spectrum of churches, we must tolerate a wider range of differences. We must respect the autonomy of each local church, and respect the right of that church to be different in some ways. We must not insist that our perspective is the only biblical perspective on operational issues that are not clearly required in Scripture. We must have some flexibility in doctrinal issues, as long as they are not clearly unbiblical. We must strive to improve our communication and the attitudes we express in working with fellow believers to avoid repeated experiences such as this one in other associations.

By Dr. Lemke, Provost, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, occupying the McFarland Chair of Theology, Director of the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry, and Editor of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

News stories from the Western Recorder, from Associated Baptist Press, and Baptist Press reported last week that the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association in Kentucky chose to deny membership to Pleasant Valley Community Church, purportedly in part because of the strong Calvinism affirmed by Pleasant Valley Community Church. In this article, I want to suggest my best guess of the factors which led to this decision. In Part 2 I want to suggest what could be some implications of this decision for other churches and associations in the SBC.

Some Important Caveats

These are some wise dictums which we should normally heed as guidelines for wise living:

Dictum 1: Don’t get enmeshed in other people’s fights.

Dictum 2:  Don’t speak about things about which you have little knowledge, because when you open your mouth you’ll reveal your ignorance.

I’m going to risk cautiously disobeying these wise dictums in order to comment on the denial of the application of Pleasant Valley Community Church to join Daviess-McLean Baptist Association in Kentucky. (I could note that many blog commentators frequently violate both of these dictums). So let me do so with these important caveats:

(a) I do not know anyone on either side associated with this event, nor have I spoken with them personally or communicated with them. The only thing I know comes through published reports and commentaries, and a couple of conversations with persons closer to the situation who have communicated with some of the persons involved. I have not read all of the documents associated with the event. So I am writing based on the limited published information I have seen, along with some hearsay evidence. That’s not very strong evidence in a court of law or in the scholarly world, and as a former journalist I would not publish such unconfirmed opinions as a factual news story. So what I am sharing is just my opinion or speculation based on my best understanding of the limited information I have.

(b) I am not a member of a church in the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association, so I have no real standing in this discussion. This is their decision, not mine. I am simply commenting on the event as an outside observer.

With those important caveats in mind, I will share my perception in this Part 1 of the root causes of this event. As I best understand it, there are two primary contributing causes that led to this event – one more theological in character, and the other more attitudinal in nature. At this point, I am more interested in describing the perceptions involved than the realities involved – that is, I’m attempting to understand what perceptions may have led to this decision.  I have no way of judging the accuracy of those perceptions. Perceptions aren’t always the same as reality, but they do impact reality. Again, I want to be very clear that some of this at least to some degree speculation on my part, based on the available evidence. Then, in Part 2, I’ll suggest some implications of this decision in other associations, and propose a way that might help avoid repeated occurrences of similar events in other associations.

The Theological Aspect

The presenting problem, as it has been described in all the published reports, is the theological problem that the other churches in the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association (DMBA) found the strong Calvinism of Pleasant Valley Community Church to be unpalatable. The brief DMBA statement unfortunately offers an overly abbreviated their discussion of this issue, rather than providing a more detailed discussion. As reported in the Associated Baptist Press story, the Credentials Committee noted that the doctrine of Pleasant Valley Community Church was “Calvinistic in nature,” and “affirms the doctrine of election and grace.” Clearly, this alone would not make the doctrine of Pleasant Valley Community Church unbaptistic. Article V of the Baptist Faith and Message is entitled “God’s Purpose of Grace,” and begins with the words, “Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which God regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end.” So belief in election and grace would make a church’s doctrine baptistic, not unbaptistic. The association would have to go into much greater detail than their statement does (at least, the part of it quoted in published reports) to clarify what they found problematic in PVCC’s doctrine. It would have been especially helpful to us outside observers had the association been more specific about the doctrinal issue involved.

However, from what we can discern about Pleasant Valley Community Church, its doctrine was apparently so obviously and distinctively Calvinistic that a more detailed statement seemed unnecessary to the association for this purpose.  It was sufficient for the Credentials Committee to note that “we do recognize that it [the theology of PVCC] is vastly different than the majority of churches within the DMBA.”  The association voted 104-9 to deny admittance to Pleasant Valley Community Church to DMBA. This wasn’t a close vote. This indicates that the doctrine of PVCC was well known among the ministers in the association, and it was significantly different in some important ways.

It is not surprising that that the overwhelming majority of pastors in this or another association would differ in doctrine from a church that is strongly and exceptionally Calvinist in its doctrine. LifeWay statistics indicate that 90 percent of Southern Baptist pastors are not five point Calvinists. If most associations were minded to deny or remove from membership all Reformed churches, the majority of most associations could do so merely by voting their own doctrinal beliefs. In fact, however, few associations have denied membership to churches over the doctrines of Calvinism, and the pastor who nominated PVCC for membership in DMBA was not a five-point Calvinist. By and large, associations that are made up predominantly of non-Calvinist churches have been accepting of Calvinist churches into their fellowship. So what made PVCC stand out so much from DMBA?

The “Pastor of Preaching and Vision” of Pleasant Valley Community Church, recent Southern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate Jamus Edwards (whose picture reflects a handsome young man), downplayed his church’s distinctive Calvinism to the Western Recorder, telling them that the church does not self-identify as Calvinist because it is not “helpful in most contexts” but rather “distracting and largely misunderstood, precisely like it was in this situation with the DMBA.” However, Edwards’ statement seems a little disingenuous in light of a number of factors. First of all, not only did PVCC refrain from using “Baptist” in their name, but also rather than making the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 their confession, the church has its own 60 page doctrinal confession instead, which is unambiguously Calvinistic. For example, the PVCC confession affirms hard determinism:

“From before the foundation of the world, in order to display His glory, God freely and unchangeably ordained all things that would come to pass. From the casting of the lot, to the bird falling from the sky, to the activities of the nations, to the plans of politicians, to the secret acts of individuals, to what will happen to us tomorrow, to scheduling the very day that we will die, God has written our stories and the stories of the entire universe.”

Also in the PVCC confession, God’s absolute predestination of everything that happens includes “the results of His plan of salvation as set forth in the Gospel of Jesus Christ” in double predestination:

“We believe that God’s election is unconditional — from Old Testament Israel to individual sinners. That is, from before the foundation of the world, God chose in His grace to save for Himself an elect people through Jesus Christ. God’s choice of His elect was in no way affected, or conditioned by, some merit or deed that He foresaw these individuals would possess. Neither (as many argue) did God make His choice based upon those whom He foresaw ‘would’ have chosen Him of their own will and accord.”

Another piece of evidence – PVCC’s strong identification with the Acts 29 Network – undermines Edwards’ claim that PVCC does not self-identify itself with Calvinists. Edwards has an interview in the Acts 29 Network website in which he clearly identifies PVCC with that group (giving special appreciation to the influence of Mark Driscoll on his life). Since the Acts 29 confession requires agreement with Calvinistic theology (note Acts 29 doctrine four, being “Reformed” in its view of salvation) as a prerequisite for participation, it appears that Edwards should have at least qualified his statement somewhat. Indeed, it is evident from the article that PVCC sought the approval of the Acts 29 Network before it sought membership in the DMBC.

Furthermore, Edwards states in the interview that in becoming pastor he “inherited an unbiblical leadership model (church government structure).” [Edwards does not describe specifically what this “unbiblical leadership model” was, but one could imagine that it was a polity common in Baptist churches, and perhaps closer to the polity outlined in the Baptist Faith and Message than PVCC’s elder-led polity]. Edwards continues: “In an effort to transition out of this unbiblical model, we took over a year to teach through 1 Timothy and the biblical model for church government. The Scriptures began to do the work and eventually the church body eagerly accepted the elder-led model.”  However Pastor Edwards reads 1 Timothy 3, the chapter that discusses the qualifications and responsibilities of the two scriptural offices in a New Testament church, it cannot possibly advocate the Presbyterian elder-led model as opposed to Baptist polity – in fact, the word “elder” doesn’t even appear in that chapter! Edwards obviously appears to be reading his Calvinistic theology into Scripture, rather than allowing Scripture to determine his theology.

So, taking all this evidence into account, it appears that Edwards’ claim that the church did not self-identify as a Calvinist fellowship is somewhat inaccurate. In fact, the church took a number of steps to distinguish themselves from other Baptist churches in name and doctrine, and sought to align themselves with Calvinistic groups before seeking membership in the DMBC. This unambiguous Calvinism was evident to the other churches in DMBA.

This is not the first time or the only issue that the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association has chosen not to be in fellowship with a church whose doctrinal views significantly differed from the other churches in the association. As the Associated Baptist Press story mentioned, DMBA voted 242-24 to withdraw fellowship from the Journey Fellowship (formerly named Seven Hills Baptist Church in Owensboro) because they hosted a group which they viewed as accepting or endorsing homosexuality. So the DMBA does not appear to be on a one-issue “witch hunt” about Calvinism, but is interested that the churches in the association be of like faith and practice in the interest of unity. This concern for doctrinal agreement is commendable. In fact, associations in general tend to be rather generous (perhaps overly so at times) in allowing for doctrinal diversity and respecting local congregational autonomy. For example, Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas has been removed from membership from both the Southern Baptist Convention and the Baptist General Convention of Texas because of their open advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle, but last I heard, they are still members in good standing with the Tarrant Baptist Association.

However, returning to the DMBA issue, as we often discover in counseling, it is often the case that the “presenting issue” cited as the problem at the beginning of the conversation turns out to be not the major issue when the problem is explored in greater depth. It becomes evident that there is some other deeper issue which is the most basic problem. While I’m confident that discussions about Calvinist doctrine were an important aspect of these discussions, it seems to me that the doctrinal issue was more of a “presenting issue” than a “real issue.” That leads me to the next section, the Attitudinal Aspect.

The Attitudinal Aspect

As the Baptist Press story on this issue underscored (and this has been confirmed to me by persons familiar with the situation and have talked with some of the persons involved), although it appears that there were doctrinal issues involved in denying membership to PVCC, the issues involving Calvinism did not appear to be the primary problem.  (The Baptist Press story brought out this attitudinal aspect more, while the Associated Baptist Press story underscored the theological aspect of the decision). Indeed, according to published reports, the association’s Credentials Committee said, “Ultimately, we were not satisfied that Pleasant Valley Community Church would be sympathetic with the purpose and work of the body of the DMBA,” and expressed concern about “an overall lack of the key elements of cooperation found in patience, humility, kindness, compassion and gentleness” from PVCC.

The Daviess-McLean Baptist Association committee openly acknowledged in their documents that the Pleasant Valley Community Church’s doctrine was not heretical or aberrant. According to published reports, the Credentials Committee findings stated that “We believe the teaching of Pleasant Valley Community Church to be sound in their doctrine,” and that “We know the doctrine is not heresy.” Clearly, then, the association had no question about the fact that PVCC was not aberrant or heretical in doctrine, but they did “recognize that it is vastly different than the majority of churches within the DMBA.” So, although the “presenting issue” in this case was doctrinal, it would appear that this was not just the doctrinal issue, and in fact, the issue clearly appears to be primarily one of fellowship, not doctrine.  It may be (and this is just my speculation) that the mention of Calvinism in the decision was directed more toward the nexus of negative attitudes and actions sometimes associated with some neo-Calvinists than purely the theological issues per se.

One public relations or image problem being experienced by contemporary neo-Calvinism is that the negative attitudes and actions of a few have come to stereotype the whole. This is not an observation made only by persons on the opposite side of this issue. Calvinists and other non-agenda driven friends such as Ed Stetzer, Joe Thorn (and here), Dave Miller, William Thornton (and here), Howell Scott, and others have expressed concern and even embarrassment about some neo-Calvinists who express these attitudes. As they correctly note, these attitudes give “angry Calvinists” (and their Lord) a bad name. It was a high Calvinist who taught me the term “Calvinazis,” referring to a fringe group of neo-Calvinists who sometimes exemplify strongly negative attitudes and actions at times. They characterize persons of this ilk as sometimes being angry, argumentative, arrogant, belligerent, combative, contemptuous, divisive, and schismatic. By no means are these attitudes represented by all or most neo-Calvinists, and nor am I suggesting that these attitudes were necessarily represented by anyone associated with PVCC. However, it is the nature of such stereotypes that the negative attitudes and actions of a few can color the reputation of the many. In this cyberspace age, a pastor of a small Reformed church plant can have as much or more impact through the evangelical blogosphere as larger church pastors and respected leaders. The extreme actions of a few color the perceptions of the many. Hence there is need for more circumspect neo-Calvinists to attempt to control those within their own fellowship who are more extreme in expressing these negative attitudes and actions (as many of the articles cited above sought to do).

The 104-9 vote by the messengers of local churches in Daviess-McLean Baptist Association to deny admittance to Pleasant Valley Community Church suggests that DMBA had experienced some problems with the attitudinal perspectives expressed by PVCC in a way that made the churches in DMBA reluctant to enter into fellowship with them. This was evidently why, despite acknowledging that PVCC had no doctrinal error, the member churches of the association agreed with the Credentials Committee that “ultimately” there was reason to doubt that “Pleasant Valley Community Church would be sympathetic with the purpose and work of the body of the DMBA,” and that PVCC demonstrated “an overall lack of the key elements of cooperation found in patience, humility, kindness, compassion and gentleness.” It was evidently the offensive attitudes that were exhibited by PVCC (as perceived by the member churches of DMBA), perhaps some of the attitudes stereotypically associated with some neo-Calvinists, which led the DMBA to choose to deny membership to PVCC in DMBA. The churches of DMBA (by overwhelming numbers) evidently valued harmony and unity in the association over the inclusion of a church whose leadership had already given the churches in DMBA a perception that they were lacking in cooperativeness and gentleness of spirit.

Conclusion

Let me say again that my knowledge of this situation is limited and from outside the situation, so it is possible that I may have read the situation incorrectly. But this is the sense I got from reading the published reports and talking with people familiar with the situation. In Part 2 of this article, I will suggest some possible implications of the DMBA decision for future similar situations in other churches and associations in the SBC.

By Dr. Lemke, Provost, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, occupying the McFarland Chair of Theology, Director of the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry, and Editor of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Introduction/Summary

This series has attempted to delineate historical doctrinal differences between Baptists and Presbyterians. Most of the nine points I have addressed were explicitly held by the Particular Baptists in contradistinction from the Presbyterian or Reformed theology from which they separated themselves. These, then, are distinctively Baptist beliefs. The first Baptist distinctive I addressed was a cluster of interrelated beliefs — soul competency, priesthood of all believers, and religious liberty. The second Baptist distinctive addressed was the age (or state) of accountability; the third Baptist distinctive I addressed was believer’s baptism (or “the gathered church;” and the fourth Baptist distinctive was baptism by mode of immersion, the fifth Baptist distinctive (in contrast with Presbyterian Calvinism) was baptism and the Lord’s Supper as symbolic ordinances, not sacraments; the sixth Baptist distinctive addressed congregational church polity (in contrast to Presbyterian elder rule); the seventh Baptist distinctive, examined the autonomy of the local church and how it is not a hierarchical denomination; and the eighth Baptist distinctive, I described the two scriptural officers (Pastor/Bishop/Elder and Deacon) and how they are not three (Pastor/Bishop, Elder and Deacon). The ninth and final Baptist distinctive that I will discuss is the importance of human freedom at conversion and how that undergirds the rationale for decisional conversion offered through gospel invitations.[1]

Distinctive Baptist Belief #9:
Decisional Conversion/Gospel Invitations

One basic fault line between most Baptists and Presbyterians regards the ability of sinful humans to respond to God.[2] The BF&M repeatedly affirms human freedom to respond and to make decisions. The “future decisions of His free creatures” are foreknown by God;[3] and God’s election to salvation “is consistent with the free agency of man.”[4] Persons are created by God “in His own image,” originally “innocent of sin” and endowed by God with “freedom of choice.” Even after the Fall, “every person of every race possesses full dignity.”[5] Salvation “is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.” In regeneration the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus,” and repentance “is a genuine turning from sin toward God” and faith is “acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Savior.”[6] The picture that emerges from the BF&M is that while sinful humans certainly cannot save themselves by any combination of good works, God requires persons to utilize the freedom of choice He created within them to respond to His gracious offer of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.[7]

Central to this Baptist perspective is that salvation fundamentally involves a response or choice on the part of the convert. Note the role for human response in the words of W. T. Conner, longtime theology professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in expressing the balance between God’s sovereign grace and human agency:

Jesus regarded men as sinful–all men–but He did not believe that men were fixed in their sinful state. He knew the love of God toward men, and He believed in the possibility of winning men to a favorable response to God’s grace. . . . Jesus did not believe, then, that man could lift himself out of his sinful state in his own strength, but He did believe that men could respond to God’s grace and let God lift them out of their sins. It is true that this response was one that was won from the man by the grace of God offering to save man. Yet it was man’s response. And Jesus counted on such a response on the part of sinful men. . . . He welcomed such a response. He eagerly watched for it. He said there was rejoicing over it in the presence of the angels in heaven.[8]

The primary vehicle for facilitating and experiencing this sort of human response in decisional conversion has been the public invitation. The Second Great Awakening engendered the explosion of the number of Baptists in North America, and although models for offering public invitations go all the way back to Pentecost, the use of the public invitation or altar call became a fixture in Baptist worship services after the Great Awakenings. The Separate Baptists of the Sandy Creek tradition brought this revivalistic focus into the Southern Baptist mainstream. There have been many famous Southern Baptist pastors and evangelists for whom the public invitation has been designed to be the high time in the worship service – none more prominent than the famous evangelist Billy Graham, whose image is canonized in a statue in front of the SBC building in Nashville.

There are scriptural and historical reasons for offering such a public invitation,[9] but doctrinally a decisional public invitation is logically entailed in other Baptist beliefs such as soul competency, believer’s baptism, and the gathered church. Only adults (those beyond the age of accountability) can have soul competence, can make a life commitment through repentance and faith that is the prerequisite to believer’s baptism, and become a member of a gathering of intentional believers. Many such decisions come at the end of a fairly long process as the Holy Spirit works through many events to lead the person to make such a decision (by convicting them of their sin and convincing them of the life-saving truth that is in Christ), but at some point it all comes down to a moment of decision. This moment of decision often comes in the midst of a worship service in response to the preached Word of God. The preaching of the Word in a worship setting and public invitations provide a particularly effective vehicle for the Holy Spirit to enable persons to get away from the distractions of life and focus on eternally significant spiritual issues. The public invitation presupposes what might be called a “decisional” view of salvation, as opposed to a more gradual or developmental view of salvation. In the “decisional” view of salvation, a sinner presented with the gospel can respond to God’s calling in a decisional moment through repentance and faith. Public invitations provide the opportunity for persons to be confronted with life-changing decisions and to make public the decisions that have been made.

There are many forms of public invitations. Some call for the person to come to the front of the church at the end of a worship service, counsel with the pastor or other spiritual counselors, and if the person comes to a decision for Christ (or has already made a decision), that decision is announced to the congregation. This approach is called by some an “alter call” (though I do not prefer that designation). Sometimes a more gradual approach might be taken, asking persons who are struggling with a decision to raise their hands or stand, pray for them, and then make an appeal to come to the altar if they feel led to make a decision. In other cases those who are struggling with a decision may be invited to come to the altar to pray, or to sit on an “anxious bench” (this was utilized particularly in the Second Great Awakening), or to go into another room to receive prayer and spiritual counseling. However, what all these various methodologies have in common is that they present an opportunity for persons struggling with a spiritual decision (whether for salvation, rededication, church membership, or a call to ministry) to come to a prayerful decision. It also affords a way to meet the scriptural requirement to publicly identify themselves with Jesus Christ, who Himself said, “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33). Thus, any form of invitation which provides an opportunity for personal decision and public confession would seem to be consistent with the requirements of the BF&M doctrine of salvation.

Presbyterians, on the other hand, tend to downplay public invitations and decisional presentations of the gospel. Although there are notable exceptions, most Presbyterians tend to focus on a more gradualist developmental approach to salvation. After infants are sprinkled, they later undergo catechetical training and are confirmed. In practice, the catechetical training is often more cognitive than volitional, and confirmation is more age-driven and developmental than decision-driven. The anti-conversionist “Old Light Calvinists” opposed the Great Awakenings because of their soteriological convictions. Although the pro-conversionist New Light Calvinists became the majority, the presence of infant baptism nonetheless diminishes the significance of decisional conversion in the Presbyterian doctrine of salvation. Modern day Old Light Calvinists such as David Engelsma reject the notion that adult or decisional conversion is required at all: “Speaking for myself, to the brash, presumptuous question sometimes put to me by those of a revivalist, rather than covenantal, mentality, ‘When were you converted?’ I have answered in all seriousness, ‘When was I not converted?’”[10] Further, Engelsma declares, “As a Reformed minister and parent, I have no interest whatever in conversion as the basis for viewing baptized children as God’s dear children, loved of him from eternity, redeemed by Jesus, and promised the Holy Spirit, the author of faith. None!”[11] This gradualist, covenantal view of salvation is far from the Baptist decisional view of salvation.

Some strongly Calvinistic Baptists have become enchanted with the Presbyterian model and would like to inject it into Southern Baptist life, particularly in regard to public invitations. In a discussion that would be astonishing to most Southern Baptists in the pew, a Southern Baptist seminary publication printed a debate between three of its faculty members about whether or not it is unbiblical for churches to have an invitation for the lost to be saved at the end of the worship service.[12] Jim Elliff argued that “it is my contention that our use of the altar call and the accouterment of a ‘sinner’s prayer’ is a sign of our lack of trust in God.”[13] Elliff claimed that “there is no biblical precedent or command regarding a public altar call,” but it was an invention of Charles Finney, and that “the sad truth is that it [the sinner’s prayer] is not found anywhere but in the back of evangelistic booklets.”[14] Elliff further questions the practice of pastors who would share Scripture verses about assurance of salvation with new believers, or to present them to the church publicly for baptism, because Elliff believes that the majority of these would-be converts are probably not genuinely saved.[15] As Ken Keathley has demonstrated,[16] Elliff’s suggestions do not stand up to the tests of Scripture and logic. While we should always guard against excesses of revivalism or emotional manipulation which might lead to a mere emotional response that lacks any real commitment, we should be eager to accept even a thief on a cross into the Kingdom. C. H. Spurgeon complained that some of his fellow Calvinists seemed “half afraid that perhaps some may overstep the bounds of election and get saved who should not be,” and claimed that “there will be more in heaven than we expect to see there by a long way.”[17]

It may be that the move away from having public invitations in Baptist churches is a contributing cause to why Southern Baptists baptized 50,000 fewer people per year in 2010 than we did in 1955, when public invitations were standard in virtually every Southern Baptist worship service. SBC churches baptized only 349,737 persons last year, which is 84,546 baptisms fewer than the 416, 867 baptisms we witnessed in 1955.  This stunning decline in baptisms is made all the worse by the fact that in the last 55 years our churches have increased significantly in every key statistical area except baptisms. We have over 15,000 more new churches in 2010 than in 1955, an increase of 50 percent (45,000 now vs. 30,000 then), but we had about 85,000 fewer baptisms. Church planting alone has obviously NOT been the answer. We have almost doubled our church membership from 8.4 million members in 1955 to 16.1 million members in 2010, but with 85,000 fewer baptisms. Our giving has increased exponentially from $334 million in 1955 to almost $12 billion in 2010, but there were 85,000 fewer baptisms. The population of the United States nearly doubled since 1955 (from about 165 million to over 308 million), but baptisms in Southern Baptist churches has been reduced significantly. In 1955 a person was baptized for every 20 church members; in 2010 that had more than doubled to 49 church members needed to reach and baptize one person. What’s worse, over half of the adult baptisms in SBC churches are actually rebaptisms, including believers coming from other denominations, so to count them is really double counting the same people. And nearly 80 percent of our churches are plateaued or declining.[18] At some level, if one might transpose the truth of James 4:2 (we have not because we ask not) to a different application, it may very well be that we have fewer decisions for Christ because we ask fewer to make decisions. It would seem that a re-emphasis on intentional evangelism and well-crafted public invitations could help reverse these embarrassing numerical trends, which reflect that we have been disobedient to the Great Commission and that we are not being the pliable vessels that God is using to transform lives through our churches that we were fifty years ago.

A Call for Doctrinal Integrity and Diversity within Christian Unity

In an earlier post entitled “The Middle Way,” I asserted that centrist Baptists are “the middle way” between Arminians and Calvinists/Presbyterians, and listed a dozen ways in which centrist Baptists differed from various Arminian groups. Now, this series has focused on nine key doctrinal differences between Baptists and Presbyterians (which did not include the five point summary of Reformed soteriology best known by the TULIP acronym–for a critique of five-point Calvinism from a centrist Baptist perspective see our book Whosoever Will).

Why all the focus on differences of belief?  Because we live in an era in which doctrinal distinctives tend to be minimalized in a non-denominational and ecumenical babble that suggests all Christians essentially believe the same things, or relegates important doctrinal issues to a tertiary status through a subjective theological triage. The high value given to multiculturalism and toleration in our culture tends to encourage breaking down barriers and to discourage the erection of fences between various traditions. The purpose of this series has been to point out that real doctrinal differences do still exist between various Christian traditions. To paraphrase Robert Frost, “Good fences make good (denominational) neighbors.”

In no way is this series of articles intended to diminish the practice and beliefs of fellow believers in other denominations. All denominations that broadly share the Reformation heritage share more beliefs in common (orthodox Nicean Christianity plus key Reformation beliefs) than beliefs on which we differ.  I have spent little effort in arguing that the Presbyterian perspectives are incorrect (which is not to say that I do not have reasons for believing so). My focus has been pointing out that real differences exist in doctrine between Presbyterians and Baptists, and to define what some of those differences are. Each of us has the right and responsibility before God to interpret the Bible to the best of our ability and practice what it says.

Let Baptists be Baptists by conviction, and let Presbyterians be Presbyterians by conviction. May we be unified as witnesses to Christ for the glory of God, and one in the Spirit in our affirmation of Jesus as Lord, but also people of integrity who do not compromise our doctrinal convictions!

By Dan Nelson, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Camarillo, CA

Great confusion exists over what the church is. If we understand what the church is and what God wants to do through us in the church, then we can function as the body of Christ. This will help us to grow as Christians.

There are several reasons for the confusion that exists over what the church is. Luther did not get it right in the Protestant reformation. He affirmed the way a person is saved is by grace through faith in Christ’s sacrifice for us, but he retained the invisible church, retained infant baptism, and the Lord’s Supper remained more than a memorial ordinance. Just because non-denominational groups are everywhere does not mean God can not use them. These groups go to visible churches to take up offerings. A recent Christian televangelist said, “Take your money and send it to a spirit-filled church.” The assumption is every believer makes up the church. They comprise the kingdom of God but not the church.

I want to help you understand what the church really is if you will hear with the word of God. I do so that we can be the church as the body of Christ in this community.

These progressions tell us what the church is:

I. The Church is a PEOPLE.

“For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Eph. 2:18).

The church is not a building but a people. It is a living organism. He is the head, we are the body. John was beheaded and he ceased to exist in this life. Christ’s body is people and the head and body should not be severed. The chicken with its head cut off could function but not for long.

I started to entitle this message, “How not to be a Spiritually Homeless person. Some homeless people chose to be where they are but others are forced out and we are to have compassion on them and try to help them. But no born-again believer should be without a spiritual home. If I were to ask you where you lived and you said everywhere, that would be a crazy answer unless you lived out of a motor-home.

But that’s the way many believers are who say they are not members of a local church but members of the invisible one. You are just as much spiritually homeless as one is physically homeless.

The building is not the church. We say we are going down to church. What you really ought to mean is you as a church are going to assemble at the meeting place of the church. We sometimes call the building “the sanctuary.” That actually means a place where endangered species live. The church is not an endangered species. It is marching against the gates of Hell. There are those in society who would like to put the church in a closet or put us out of existence, while bringing out things that should not even been in the closet in the first place.

The early church did not have buildings. So they rightly understood that church was people. Paul reminds them of who they were and what they had become. It is a sign of inclusion instead of exclusion. To be fellow citizens with the saints means that we share common rights and privileges.

The Baptist church is the closest form of government to our own government because of free election on church matters. James Madison went to a Baptist business meeting conducted by John Leyland to see a working model of how our government should operate.

II. The Church is a PEOPLE LIVING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT.

“In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22).

To be a church people have to be born-again by God’s Spirit and indwelt by the Spirit of God.

We look at the church page in the newspapers and there are so many churches. God’s Word doesn’t necessarily say that every group that calls itself a church is a church. The true church of Christ brings God’s Spirit into the building where it meets.

We are building together on the foundation of Christ, 1 Cor. 3:9. We are building together. We are not like bricks tossed to one side, charcoal fire burns better together.

I find it interesting we come together for God to inhabit us. God does inhabit the praises of His people. People can come together without the Holy Spirit and God will not be there in their lives. People can meet together in houses called churches and the Holy Spirit in our lives.

God is omnipresent through the Holy Spirit. He can be in more than one place at a time. We are building on the foundation of Christ, Matt. 16:18. The Holy Spirit is the connecting link. The same Spirit that raised Jesus is the one who was in the early church, and who is in us. Acts 2:42; Matt. 28:20.

Each of the medieval cathedrals took more than a lifetime to construct. They were in a building program all the time. God is constructing his churches through us, and he is still building on them.

III. The Church is a PEOPLE LIVING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT IN A PLACE.

“In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21).

The church meets at a place at a particular time on a regular basis. It is not invisible but a house made of real people who have been called out of the world. It is not an invisible body but a real one.

There is no such thing as the Baptist church. There is a Baptist church at a certain place. We are not a part of the Baptist church. We are one of many Baptist churches affiliated together for missions, and fellowship. When you say “Baptist Church,” I ask, which one are you talking about?

You can only be at one place at one time. Do you live in a specific address? By the term “universal” we are saying it is everywhere.

Emphasizing denominationalism over a local is the wrong move. I would rather have a church built on the Word than just a big church without any convictions (John 17:17).

It’s like the argument people use against baptism. Someone says baptism doesn’t save anyone so why make it an issue. It’s because I’d rather stand before God baptized the right way than the wrong way.

If everyone is the church as I heard this week, who then is the pastor? What type of government will we have? Where do you meet? When do you meet? Do we emphasize Calvinism or Arminianism?

I believe in doctrinal purity over just shutting our eyes and saying whatever you believe is alright. Many give the impression “Don’t confuse me with the Bible. I’ve already made up my mind.” I’m amazed so many are so adamant on salvation, security of the believer, the Bible, but are loose on the church.

There are three big reasons why I believe the church is local:

A historical reason: Baptists have resisted the notion of a universal church encompassing nations, regions groups, etc. The refused to be forced into a state church they did not want to be a part of. Many lost their lives because being a part of the state church meant that they had to have their babies baptized. They would rather die for their faith at the hands of a state church than violate their consciences and go against God’s Word. You say it’s not that important. It is important because people have died for it.

A biblical reason: The term used in the Bible almost always refers to a local church. Some places it refers to the church as an institution but never as a universal invisible body.

These scriptures help us see the church as local: Acts 2:41, 1 Cor. 12:13. Eph. 2:21. Can you inhabit a spiritual invisible place.

Eph. 3:21: “Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

Eph. 5:30: “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Does Christ have an invisible body?).

1 Pet. 2:5: “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”

I Cor. 5:3-4: “For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,”

2 Cor. 2:6: “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.”

A commonsensical reason: Do we have a house at a specific address? God has churches at specific places. Some say I don’t want to get that deep into it. It is a matter of doing the right thing, being a participating member of the local church. Would you rather have partial or full obedience to yourself as a parent?

J. M. Pendelton said,

“The churches in those early times were entirely independent, none of them being subject to any foreign jurisdiction, but each governed by it’s own rulers and laws, for through the churches founded by the apostles had this particular difference shown to them, that they consulted in difficult cases yet they had no judicial authority over them no supremacy.”

IV. The Church is a PEOPLE LIVING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT WITH A PURPOSE.

“And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:20).

The two great purposes of the church are:

(1) The Great Commandment:

“And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself” (Luke 10:27).

We must endeavor to keep or maintain unity as the bond of peace. God says if you can’t love others you can’t love Me (1 John 4:20-21).

“And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end” (Heb 3:5-6).

We have building inspectors that look at houses or buildings. We have fire marshals. God is always checking us out to see how we are doing.

Just because we take a stand for morality does not mean we don’t want certain people in our church. We want them all to come but our textbook is the Bible, not people’s personal opinions. The church does not operate by focus groups but by God’s Word. That is the focus of this group.

(2) The Great Commission:

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matt 28:19-20).

You need to be in a local church because you need a place to practice the Great Commission. The Cooperative Program does just that. You don’t live everywhere; you live in a specific place. He doesn’t say that para-church groups can’t do some of the Great Commission. God’s design is that the churches do that.

The problem is that for the church to be effective it needs to be a verb instead of a noun. We are a verb when we take the gospel to people, baptizing, and teaching. This commission applies until the end of the world, because Christ is always with us. The last group of disciples died before the first century. However, He is with us if we evangelize, baptize and disciple people.

Baptism is an ordinance the church practices as an act of obedience, and it symbolizes the incorporation of the new believer into the body of Christ—the church. How can the church be the church if we fail to do the second thing Christ commanded us to do in the Great Commission?

There is strength in delegation. If you had 12 disciples go bad and even one stays true, you have not wasted your time. There are many things I don’t want to be affiliated with if I am in a universal, invisible church, but the Great Commission is accomplished through the local church.

Why is it important to believe in a local church free from government and ecclesiastical interference?  Felix Manz was drowned in Lake Geneva in 1525. Why, because he baptized believers only and refused to have the babies of his congregation baptized. The law said everyone was in the state reformed church instead of freely letting them chose.

Will we function as the body of Christ in the world today? When we understand who we are and what we need to be doing, we should be Christ’s body whatever we do.