30 April 2008
How one views re-affirming Baptist identity depends on where one is coming from:
- Always Baptist
- Came from another Christian denomination
- Came from another religion
- Came from no religion.
I and my wife Loreen were raised in the Associated Churches of Christ. My mother was raised in ACOC, my father was raised Methodist and joined ACOC at age about 20 because he was convinced of believer’s baptism. My parents were active supporters of moves towards ACOC-Baptist union, and could not understand repeated failures of negotiations, which my mother blamed on Baptist ‘intransigence’, when practices of both denominations seemed so similar. I came to understand that superficial similarities of practice masked deep doctrinal differences, and gravitated into Baptist membership (with Loreen). I had no early contact with Baptist churches, but Loreen had in Tamworth when posted there as a teacher. Finding no church of Christ, she visited other denominations and found the Baptist church met her needs at that time. She was challenged about systematic Bible study, and chose Melbourne Bible Institute, because among other considerations it was non-denominational in character. She later returned to her parents’ home and we met at Lane Cove Church of Christ where we were married in 1959.
Our experience of Baptist church life after marriage was in Boroko PNG 1966-67, USA 1970-71, NZ 1971-80, and Epping NSW from 1981. The issues which led me (or later confirmed my decision) to make the Baptist denomination my choice were as follows:
1. Does the New Testament contain a blue-print for church life?
ACOC were convinced, but I am not – I think that most Christian denominations can justify their practices from the NT text. The NT describes believers’ adaptations to local conditions.
2. Is baptism essential for salvation?
ACOC then taught baptismal regeneration. Without believers’ baptism by total immersion, one’s salvation was doubtful at best. I felt that this belief was incompatible with the NT concept that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ and His finished atoning work. I cannot add to His work to secure my salvation.
3. Should communion be celebrated weekly?
ACOC taught that it must be so, indeed they practised communion not only every Sunday morning, but also as an appendix to the evening service so that people unable to attend morning service could have communion. To me this is legalistic, tending to support the idea that observance of ritual can make me more acceptable to God. Ritual and habit have their place in a disciplined Christian life, but should not be matters of obligation.
4. Should the congregation bear a denominational label?
ACOC taught that the church should be known only by a title found in the NT. To me that defied historical reality, and in fact ACOC and other branches of the Campbellite movement used NT titles as distinguishing labels – if that is not denominational labelling, what is it?
5. Should the local congregation be governed by elders and deacons?
What is the role and status of the pastor? In ACOC, the presence of elders and deacons, under those titles, was obligatory; and these officials were superior to the pastor, who was ‘a paid preacher’ (a phrase I heard frequently in my youth). As in point 1, this form of legalistic interpretation of the NT presupposes a fixed form of church governance with limited capacity to adapt to local conditions. The status of the pastor was also unsatisfactory in ACOC (not that Baptist churches are always free from pastor-deacon conflict).
6. What is the basis of salvation from sin and entry into eternal life?
ACOC taught personal faith and confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, plus believers’ baptism. I became convinced that salvation is gained by faith alone, with obedience, baptism and continuing commitment following as fruit.
7. ACOC teaching rejected the doctrine of original sin.
I became convinced that human nature was inherently corrupt. Study of the Bible and of Augustine’s and Calvin’s writings on the subject confirmed my new understanding.
8. Tolerance of theological diversity concerning free will and predestination.
ACOC taught strongly the free will view of humanity. I became convinced through Bible and theological study that Calvin’s view of God’s sovereignty in predestination was correct. When looking for alternative churches, I learned that the Baptist denomination, formed by the coming together of both Free Will and Calvinistic Baptist churches in Britain, had of necessity to allow divergence of view on this matter. But even in the 40+ years I have been a Baptist, I find that free will preaching seems to be increasing and Reformed teaching hardly ever heard. I am also worried by current Baptist reluctance to countenance a dispensational view regarding the second advent of Christ – I understand the history of Second Advent teaching in NSW has been a hurtful one, but the denomination needs to be healed and move on.
9. What is the extent of scriptural authority?
ACOC concentrated greatly on the NT (gliding over passages of the NT that did not support their doctrinal preferences). I found that Baptist preaching and teaching had a more balanced view of the whole Bible.
10. What about Christian unity?
The Campbellite movement originated in a belief that all Christians could and should unite into one body, by following the blue print they believed NT study provided. Division was seen as a sin. My study of church history led me to believe that division is a result of sin, and may or may not be sinful in itself. I believe God destroyed the unity of medieval Christianity because that system was leading people astray and challenging His lordship. This conditions my attitude to issues such as the ecumenical movement. I believe in co-operation between Christians (and indeed any fellow citizens) as far as is appropriate to whatever issue is being considered. I believe in the co-operation of Christian individuals and congregations to achieve specific Godly objectives, but not merely to increase the prestige and power of an ecclesiastical organization.
Dr John Stanhope is a member of Epping Baptist Church.
1 comment:
This is a thoughtful post, and raises some interesting points. I am a Baptist by conviction. I come from a Methodist background, and have a lot of respect for Methodism, but I moved into Baptist circles and was converted and have remained.
1. I agree with the first point, that the NT does not provide a blue-print for church life. It does reveal several options, but does not state that any one -- or its later developments -- is the true one.
Of course, this is part of the reason we are talking about Baptist identity. If there were a single blueprint, it would be a matter of identifying and identifying with that blueprint, and we could all go home.
2. I think we need to look carefully at the issue of baptism. I suspect that we have not adequately understood it ourselves. As far as I can see, it is far more there for the recipient and the community with which the recipient is associated than it is for God.
What I mean is that we need, as human beings, a point at which we can say, "I have made the transition from thinking about being a Christian to taking action about it." It is not that my salvation depends on my baptism, but that I may not have committed myself to salvation without it.
That means that our view of baptism in no way dismisses the importance of infant baptism to someone who has been through that ritual: it is just that that ritual can't possibly satisfy our need for a marker at the point of faith. It is a clear witness to our parents' desire that we come to faith and of our former church's willingness to support our parents in that desire, but says nothing to our own desire to follow Christ.
My suspicion is that we Baptists are often a little indefinite about why we baptise. We confess that it is an act of obedience and that it is not necessary in itself to salvation, but I am unconvinced that we are clear enough as to why a person should then go on to be baptised having been through a substitute ritual as a baby.
3. I don't think that the issue of regularity of communion is particularly important. We have moved around at Marrickville between the traditional first Sunday morning /third Sunday evening to first and third Sunday mornings, to weekly, and back to first and third Sunday mornings. All have their positive and negative aspects.
4. As to label, I disagree with the Churches of Christ, because their non-label has become their label. We are Baptists because people thought we might just take over Hartington or Seaford and turn it into an English version of Münster like Jan Bockelson's Anabaptist group. What scary folk we be! I don't think we need to tamper with our name, even if we didn't choose it for ourselves.
5. When it comes to government of the local congregation, we are the original anarcho-syndicalists, and can be proud of it. It is a great strength that we are good at including our members in decision making and that our pastors are widely involved in the decision-making process.
For me, a great learning experience was being managed by a board in one of my roles. They existed to tell me what to do, but I found that they equally needed me to tell them what it was that they should tell me to do. I suppose that that is the Baptist way.
Where we do have problems are that, (a) we are very poor at quick responses to complex issues. This shows up in a number of ways. For example, we tend not to be heard on social questions, because no individual is in a position to make a statement without clearing it through an Assembly (I exaggerate, but not much!)
(b) we elect leaders and then mistrust them to carry out the task for which we elected them.
These are ultimately issues of faith. If we can't trust our brother whom we can see, how can we trust God, whom we can't see? It's that simple.
So, ultimately, our leadership issues are really spiritual issues: issues of faithlessness.
6 & 7. The points at which I would question John's views on sin and salvation are not particularly germane to this discussion. I will just say that I think we could add more to this topic in another forum somewhere.
8. It is good that, as a denomination, we can handle diversity. It is not only on the free-will/ predestination level, but our ability these days to incorporate charismatic Baptists and dispensational Baptists is another example of appropriate flexibility.
I disagree, though, that Calvinism is fading away: if anything, it is probably as likely these days to splittist tendencies as Pentecostalism was 30 years ago. Coming from a Methodist background, I find I can go about as far as to Fuller, but not a lot further; though perhaps I am just repulsed by a tendency in some Calvinist circles to divorce election from the finished work of Christ, and make it an almost magical event.
What does sadden me is that there has been a growth over the past two decades of separation between the various expressions of Baptist identity which has led some of the more extreme congregations to separate themselves from the Baptist mainstream. A de-facto schism is still schism.
When it comes to dispensational teaching, I am not sure that there is any conscious decision to exclude it; more that it is foreign to the way that most Baptists think. It has been criticised from a number of angles as not strongly based in scripture, and both classical Calvinism and Kingdom theology are more influential among us now.
To an extent, the dispensational congregations have sidelined themselves by not producing any substantial challenges to mainstream thought.
9. Having had little exposure to ACoC preaching, I can't say if this criticism is correct; but I do think that we Baptists are generally fairly balanced. However, I would add that a lot of Baptist preaching of the Old Testament when I was in my teens and early 20s was along the "using a text as a pretext" line, and that this may not have helped my generation of Baptist preachers very much, because our models of Old Testament preaching were often weak on content.
10. Christian Unity is an important consideration. Part of our Baptist lack of faith has been an inclination to avoid other Christians, except for those clearly pre-defined as Evangelical (but not Charismatic) and therefore safe.
This has had us in bed with some distinctly kinky Sydney Anglicans at times. "There was no one else around at the time," is never a really good explanation, is it?
I had the interesting experience of being involved in an interdenominational Pastors' book study some years back. It was fascinating to see the Baptists and Catholics aligned against the Anglicans and Salvationists at one time; the two Baptists at loggerheads at another (though we remained good friends despite disagreeing at this point) and then the Baptists and Unitings all together against the world.
Our traditional understanding of who is like us and who is unlike is simplistic and far from consonant with the real world. Denominational and doctrinal boundaries are shifting, and we need to re-engage with other Christians in order to see what the current state of play is.
We once had an evangelical Anglican angrily refuse to work with our church because we would not remove the Catholics from a list of Church service times our church distributed as part of our outreach into the community. Sadly, the man had no idea of how closely all the churches in Marrickville have worked together on projects like distributing the Jesus video, supporting each other's ministries, and developing an attitude of cooperation with each other.
It is possible to have a unity which transcends our differences but does not obliterate them. When the world sees us truly loving and caring for each other despite the labels we bear, they will fall on their faces and declare, "Jesus must be Lord!" I long for that day!
Peter R Green, Pastor, Silver Street Baptist Mission
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