20 March 2008

I wish I were an Anglican....

Well not really.

You see I am a Baptist and proud of it. It's just that Anglicans, particularly here in Sydney, seem to have such a strong identity. They have a sense of who they are and who they most definitely are not. The only problem is that sometimes I'm not really sure of what a Baptist is. I know who Baptists were in the past, but has that changed? Is it still relevant?

This question is very important to me. It tells me if I have something to contribute, and even how I will contribute it. Otherwise I might as well go and attend some other Church and achieve the same vague things as where I am now.

Yet I can’t escape the conviction that Baptists are uniquely placed to say some things that are very important to say, to do some things that are radically different.

So how do I find out what a Baptist is in NSW and the ACT in 2008? There is no text book that will tell me, no theological treatise that will define it. Finding that I am not alone in this search, our denomination has set up a vision taskforce that will spend the next year or so thoroughly researching the members of our Churches and attempting the impossible: to find out who we are. Be warned, we are coming for your opinions and experiences.

What we want is to discover the things that we can be proud of; the things we do best; the things we can contribute to and do better than anyone else. Perhaps it will be that God is shaping our Churches to take the best of our traditions and to mix them with some wonderful biblical insights. We want to study who we have become in areas like practice, leadership, governance, ministry and co-operation.

Perhaps with a fresh insight into our biblical core values, we can renew our efforts and even lead and influence other denominations.

Now wouldn’t that be something!

Phil Waugh
Carlingford Baptist Church

2 comments:

Groseys messages said...

Baptist Distinctives.
Our Baptist Distinctives do not need to be rewritten.
One of the greatest problems that I perceive as a Baptist in New South Wales in 2008 is that some pastors and most church members are not clearly aware of the historical development that led to our assertion of our Baptist distinctives.
Our year book has a page that attempts to encompass those Baptist Distinctives within the Statement of Principle approved by the 2000 Annual Assembly. It was with a great deal of wisdom that our forebears only a few years ago proposed this Statement of Principle, and we should do all we can to endorse and encourage our churches to understand the importance of the distinctive beliefs that make us “Baptists” as distinct from other evangelicals.

Our Baptist distinctives flow from one solitary belief: that a person can know the living God personally.
To move way from this one central idea is to participate in the depersonalisation of our society and the depersonalisation of our religion.

Regenerate membership means we understand that a church is the community of individual believers who have come to know God.

The Lordship of Christ means that we are a community of believers who have recognised that the only way to know God is through Jesus Christ, and the only way to continue to know God is through a continuing personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Biblical authority
We hold to the concept that the daily Lordship of Christ is found in daily communion with God as He has revealed Himself through His Word. This means that we submit to the authority of the Bible as God’s self-revelation, by which we may know Him.



Soul liberty means we appreciate that each person has the right to find their own way to God and to understand their own truth. We do not demand that all people should be like we are. We respect the right of association for fellowship and encouragement so that others who like us have chosen to know God in Christ through his Word may be able to meet together for such mutual encouragement and exploration of God’s will for their lives. This soul liberty is often termed the Priesthood of all believers as it recognises the individual’s relationship with God as paramount.


Autonomy of the local church. Because we believe that people who know God should have the liberty to band together as they wish, we respect the right of every group of people to associate themselves together on the basis of their shared relationship with God in Christ through the Word.
This means that people of like belief should associate together on the basis of their common faith and common life.

A manner of association together recognising the Directive of the Lord Jesus Christ and the agreement to common life and faith in the context of the local church is the Baptist Distinctive of Believer’s Baptism.

As the local church is an association of like minded souls with liberty to pursue their relationship with God, as described in their common life and belief, therefore the Baptist distinctive of a free church in a free state is an outcome we should respect.
Neither church nor state should control the other, nor should there be an alliance between the two. Christians in a free society can properly influence government toward righteousness, which is not the same as a denomination or group of churches controlling the government or the government controlling the churches. Whilst it may not seem necessary to affirm the last principle at this time, yet in some places this is an important basic tenet of Baptist belief. We signify our solidarity with other believers in other countries not as blessed as we are with our liberties by affirming this belief.

As we move forward at this time, we must at the same time look backwards to our past to see where we are coming from and who we are as Baptists distinct within the evangelical community.

Hefin said...

Cross Posting from the 'Official' Blog

On the 'official' blog these comments were posted:


Colin Chamberlain said...

Phil Waugh’s article raises the general issue- what is a baptist church?
Recently our church -Wollongong Baptist Church -adopted Open Membership - in the process removing believers’ baptism as a necessary part of the entry into the visible local church.
As Phil mentioned the Sydney Anglicans have a strong identity & there seems to be a cross over between evangelical anglicans & baptists on gospel doctrine & as a result very often on the doctrine of the church.
Possibly because we as baptists don’t have a clear view of our own identity there may be a danger that we are accepting the view of the church from the Sydney Diocese - a view of the church that is almost exclusively limited to the word only ( contrary to their own 39 Articles!)
Any discussion about our own identity - sacraments,governance etc. should be profitable.
Colin Chamberlain.

Comment by Colin Chamberlain — April 29, 2008 @ 1:11 pm



Ken Hodson Said...

I am interested to know what the definition of “Open membership” is for our churches in NSW and ACT. There may be various interpretations of this term.

Comment by Ken Hodson — April 30, 2008 @ 10:58 am



Colin Chamberlain also said...

Further to Phil Waugh’s original blog ” I wish I were an anglican” re baptist identity.
One of the main reasons why sydney anglicans have a strong identity is because they have a coherent theology - a moderate( some say narrow) reformed theology around the 39 articles.This has been consistent through their theo. college ( moore) for decades & reflected through the whole of their diocese etc..
As baptists we have had a kind of unity in diversity approach around general evangelical teaching.Diversity is ok in activities but leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to doctrine & theology.
Of course we have a different structure from the anglicans, built around local church autonomy- we largely work from the bottom (local church) up to the denomination. That doesn’t alter the fact that local churches & college-denominational theology need to be coherent in order to have a clear identity.
Probably our college reflects the reason why we battle to have a clear identity in general- we have at least 2 main theo. emphases in the college - this is similar through our local churches & denomination etc..
While we may criticise sydney anglicans,their coherent reformed theology is something we , as baptists , could emulate both in our local churches & supported by our training college.

Comment by Colin Chamberlain — May 24, 2008 @ 10:47 am



To which, Hefin Jones added...

Sydney Anglican identity is forged not only by the broad coherence of their theological vision, but also by sociological factors arising from the residential nature and year-cohort system of Moore College. Beyond the College, the fact that a couple of university ministries have been the source of a large proportion of ministerial candidates also creates a degree of unity and tension within the diocese.



I hope no one minds if I cross-post these as they were responses to Phil's blog which appeared both here on 'Baptists Together' and on the Official Taskforce Two blog.