Nature of the church
Baptist understanding of ecclesiology has historically set apart Baptist faith and practice from those of other faith communities, and may be divided into two parts: the nature of the church (comprising the doctrines of regenerate membership and the headship of Christ) and church polity (dealing with the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers and the principle of congregational government).
As noted above, John Smyth believed that baptismal confession of Christ as Saviour should form the basis for membership in the church. In other words, admission to church membership should not be on the basis of one's political citizenship or on the basis of a divine covenant ratified by infant baptism, but on the basis of a personal faith in Jesus Christ. In this respect early Baptists differed sharply from Anglican, Reformed, Puritan (and many Separatist) Christians in their application of the principle of regenerate membership.
In his major study of Baptist history, H. Leon McBeth suggests that the origin of Baptists may be best explained as a search for a pure church composed of true believers, observing the gospel ordinances and obeying the commands of Christ. Indeed, Vedder, a fellow Baptist historian of an earlier generation, identifies the insistence upon a regenerate membership as the chief distinctive principle of Baptists, emphasising the fact that the true church finds its identity not in a worldly organisation or body but in spiritual life.
Similarly, Brackney describes Baptist ecclesiology as "a new vision for the visible church" and hails it as "the most fundamental contribution which Baptists made to Christian theology." These comments by Vedder and Brackney are strong statements and need to be weighed against available historical evidence.
As noted above, although the Reformers returned to the doctrine of justification by faith, they held to a covenantal view of membership in the body of Christ and the local church. The Puritans and Separatists also, due to their insistence on infant baptism, favoured covenant membership.
However, the early Anabaptists, who certainly preceded the earliest Baptists by a couple of generations, generally taught believer's baptism and regenerate membership in addition to the principles of congregational church government and the separation of church and state. Thus Baptists were not the first group of Christians to hold the doctrine of regenerate membership, even in the immediate aftermath of the Reformation.
It is certainly true that seventeenth century Baptists made a significant departure from their Puritan and Separatist fellows in adopting regeneracy as the requirement for membership, but other dissenting groups of Christians had previously held such a belief (for example, Moravians and Mennonites). It is also true that Baptist ecclesiology developed over the following three centuries to arrive at particular views of the sacraments, membership, denominational organisation and Christian ministry, but again none of these views is unique to Baptists.
In his discussion of baptism and church membership in present-day Queensland, Nickerson affirms the doctrine of regenerate membership but mentions it only in passing, devoting more space to reasons why certain Baptist churches admit to membership persons not baptised by immersion as believers. Beasley-Murray refers to the notion of a community covenant in relation to membership, stressing the responsibilities and relationships that exist within a church of regenerate people in contrast to the prevailing situation among Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in Britain.
Baptists have, from the early seventeenth century to the present day, held to the scriptural principle of a regenerate church membership. This high view of the visible church sets Baptists apart from other faith communities who support notions of a state church or covenantal membership, but aligns them with other Christians who share a common belief in regenerate membership and for whom such a belief is also distinctive.
More in the next post....
Rod Benson is a NSW Baptist minister and ethicist. He attends Dural Baptist Church.
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On Covenantal Membership
(1) In his previous post (part 2) Rod suggested that the Reformers generally adopted some form of covenantal membership. This is true in so far as the Reformed Churches (Presbyterian, Dutch/German/Swiss/Hungarian Reformed) were concerned but is not strictly accurate with respect to all the Reformers. One the one hand Anglicanism didn't formally adopt a particular theory of infant baptism and membership. On the other Lutherans don't seem to have adopted Covenant theology to explain Infant baptism.
(2) Separatists/Independents/Congregationalists seem to have been split on the issue of covenant membership. Their commitment to a covenantal interpretation of infant baptism implies covenant membership rather than regenerate membership. But by the 18th century the issue of whether some form of adult profession was required for continued membership raised its head - most famously in the case of Jonathan Edwards.
(3) Of course using the term 'covenant membership' is an useful shorthand, but it might tend to obscure the fact that Baptists also believe in covenant membership, but they believe that membership of the new covenant and regeneration are co-extensive. Baptism as a new covenant ordinance is to be administered only to those who have a credible profession of faith in Christ and thus are regenerate.
(4) In modern times many paedo-baptists who espouse covenant membership recognise the force of Jonathan Edward's critique and maybe even the logic of the baptistic position and also seek to maintain a regenerate membership of those who are of an age.
(5) Regenerate membership (in the sense of membership on the basis of a credible profession of faith in Christ) is a necessary but insufficent condition of being Baptist (see my comment on Rod's 2nd post)
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