In the closing years of the 20th century we are witnessing a remarkable cross-fertilisation of new (or not so new) ideas about the nature and purpose of the church, and how various faith traditions should respond to those ideas.
In my last pastorate [in Queensland, Australia] there was greater diversity within the churches of my city than ever before. We had mainstream evangelical pastors who found profound blessing in mystical and contemplative spirituality, while the leaders of the two largest churches - both Pentecostal - were captivated by the North American pragmatism of Bill Hybels and Rick Warren respectively.
Other local Christian leaders, having given up on the institutional church, are experimenting with house churches and seeking new paradigms to express what it means to be the people of God. In this hybrid, post-denominational and postmodern environment, you might be forgiven for wondering whether, in the ebb and flow of history, the end is near for denominational identity or formal church membership. But there is more at stake than personal preferences.
A Baptist distinctive?
If there is nothing distinctive about being Baptist, the news has yet to reach the scholars. For example, in 1907 Henry Vedder devoted a chapter of his Short History of the Baptists to distinctive Baptist principles. In mid-century, W.R. White argued that Baptists needed to propagate their distinctives, suggesting that "there are certain emphases and combinations [of basic evangelical principles] which are peculiar to us."
In a similar vein, Paul Beasley-Murray acknowledged in 1992 that, while there was no one distinctive Baptist belief, one could still speak of Baptist distinctives. He suggested that although many beliefs or practices common to Baptists were found in one or another faith community, the fact that all were common to Baptist churches gave them the status of Baptist distinctives.
Closer to home, in his summary of Baptist beliefs in Queensland, Stan Nickerson likewise takes the broad approach, speaking of Baptist distinctives in the sense of a particular combination of convictions and emphases.
The argument for a distinctive Baptist identity, then, has shifted from the early position of privileging one issue (such as believer's baptism) to the celebration of a constellation of biblically-based principles and practices the sum of which is not presently reflected in other faith communities. This can be viewed as an exercise in semantics or as a serious attempt to identify the shared sociological and theological character of Baptist churches in a global culture of rapid change.
But what is there about Baptist life and faith that is generally perceived as attractive and/or distinctive? I want to highlight seven issues frequently wheeled out in defence of Baptist distinctives, and offer some reflective comments in conclusion.
More in the next post....
Rod Benson is a NSW Baptist minister and ethicist. He attends Dural Baptist Church.
1 comment:
Did Early Baptists Privilege One Distinctive?
Rod seems to suggest in this piece that the early arguments for a distinct Baptist identity privileged one issue. In some senses this might be true. The early Particular Baptists, remarkably enough the main stream from which modern NSW/ACT Baptists flow, were conscious of their massive agreement with their Presbyterian and Independent (Congregationalist) contemporaries. Relative to the Independents Believer's Baptism was the sole distinctive. Even though there were formal differences between the ways Baptists and Independents stated their ecclesiologies it turns out that most of the alternative formulations used by Baptists were from Independent sources.
However conscious of the role Baptism played in their largely amicable separation from the Independents, the early Particular Baptists don't seem to have made Baptism a be-all and end-all of their identity. Baptism was the terminus of their ecclesiological and sacramental reflection, not its principle.
It seems to me that in the English/Welsh/Colonial Baptist scene that the elevation of baptism as the key distinctive really reached its peak much later in the 19th century. The pressure for unity within and across denominations led to the relative isolation of baptism as THE distinctive. Baptism became a rallying point for the unity of the Particulars and the New Connexion Baptists. Baptism became a rallying point in maintaining Baptist identity against slipping into a broad 'evangelical' pond. This is illustrated in the early documents surrounding the formation of the New South Wales Baptist Association (later Union). A broad evangelical consensus in theology seems to have been largely assumed but affirming believer's baptism was a necessity. Early presidential addresses frequently spend significant time defending the propriety of the Baptist viewpoint on baptism in the light of evangelical cooperation.
To me, believer baptism is rightly seen as the consequence of much more important beliefs. I think this is how it would have appeared to many early Baptists also. The consequence is vitally important, but it is a consequence. It is a distinctive, but I'm concerned that too narrow a focus on the distinctive consequence might distract us from commitment to the vital principles which gave it birth.
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