by Matthew Arkapaw
I’m interested to know if thinking through the following questions fall within Taskforce 2's frame of reference. And if they do, how do we go about talking about such things? And if they do not, what other ‘interesting questions’ fall outside of the frame of reference? Questions such as:
1. Can you be a liberal ‘Christian’ and be a Baptist? If the answer is ‘no’ what do we understand ‘liberal Christian’ to mean?
2. If we determined that a genuine part of Baptist identity was not in accord with our statement of faith, would we hope to begin a dialogue on that issue? For example, is it ‘Baptist’ to believe that the Bible is our supreme authority or that it is our sole authority? If we were, for example, to say that Baptists ought to hold to Scripture as our sole authority, would we want the denomination to re-visit our statement of faith which refers to Scripture as the supreme authority?
3. Why is a Pentecostal not a Baptist? (No, there is no punch line). Or are Pentecostals Baptists? After all, they believe in a believer’s church and congregationalism in some sense of the word. They practice believer baptism by immersion. They ‘associate’. They believe in ‘born again’ Christianity and evangelism. They are similarly ‘non-liturgical’. They claim to be Bible people who adhere to the solas of the Reformation. If we can’t answer such a question, do we really have a handle on what Baptist identity is and is not? How would we answer that question?
4. Is this statement true? You can be an evangelical and not be a Baptist. That is, you cannot reduce being evangelical down to something synonymous with being Baptist (for there are many non-Baptist evangelical brothers and sisters). However, you cannot be a Baptist and not be an evangelical. Being a Baptist cannot be less than being evangelical.
5. Is the purpose of the taskforce to define Baptist identity according to the majority current opinion in the denomination, or according to the most accurate historical definitions we can come up with, or according to what we think most closely adheres to Biblical Christianity on any given issue?
Matthew Arkapaw is a pastor at Mortdale-Oatley Baptist Church.
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4 comments:
Here’s a quick response to your five questions:
1. A Baptist may certainly be a “liberal” Christian, in the sense of subscribing to politically and/or theologically liberal views. To say “No” and to enforce that position through church instruments would not be Baptist. Nor would it be something Jesus would have done. My approach to problems of orthodoxy/heterodoxy is to be gracious and tenacious toward those who view things differently, believing that “truth will out.”
2. The notion of the Bible as our “sole authority” is untenable. Where does it leave road rules, professional codes of ethics, or moral matters not dealt with by Scripture?
3. The issue this question raises for me is that we are not dealing with separate and autonomous groups (such as, for example, distinct species, or spiral galaxies) but groups with distinctive AND overlapping (and sometimes contradictory) allegiances. This is normal for advanced human communities, and should be celebrated. There’s more to enlightenment than The Enlightenment.
4. I know many evangelical Christians who are not Baptist. Jesus, for example. Paul. In fact, millions of Christians before 1500. You get the point. And I know some Baptists who are not evangelicals (but I can’t name them or the Baptist thought police will track them down…).
5. We are free to define Baptist identity according to all three lines of thought you noted. I think that would be very helpful. For my part, what is most important in the expression of my faith is devotion to Jesus Christ and obedience to Scripture, properly interpreted in the evangelical tradition. I think that aligns me with a lot of good Baptist Christians. Contemporary and historical consensus counts for very little, except in helping me to understand and appreciate the strange ways of most 21st century Christians in the West.
Rod Benson
Good thoughts Rod and Matthew,
Thank you for your intelligent contributions. I think Rod's comment concerning sola scriptura is interesting and developed at point 5... the truth is, how we interpret scripture is interesting.
About a hundred years ago, someone noted how Wesley interpreted scripture, and formatted what has come to be known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. There are basically four "lenses" of epistemology, how we understand anything..It is a way that we have any hope of understanding life.
Proverbs 13 highlights each of these:
12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
This comes by REVELATION
13 Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.
This comes by TRADITION
14 The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.
Pro 13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
1Cor 11:16 But if anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other custom, nor do the churches of God.
Tradition of the community
Pro 15:22 Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.
This comes by REASON
15 Good understanding giveth favour: but the way of transgressors is hard.
This comes by EXPERIENCE.
16 Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge: but a fool layeth open his folly.
The unifying thread that makes all this happen in our relationship with God is the Personal relationship that we have with Him through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Consequently, now knowing Him, we see everything differently
2 Corinthians 5:16 From now on, then, we do not know anyone in a purely human way. Even if we have known Christ in a purely human way, yet now we no longer know Him like that. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.
Revelation becomes the supreme way we have of knowing. But that revelation is interpreted through the authorities of reason, tradition and experience.
As baptists we would consider that reasonable ways of looking at scripture would then be our secondary authority in matters of faith and conduct (respecting the liberty of the conscience) and then thirdly the authority of tradition or community in interpreting scripture (validating our right of free association).
And of course our personal experience of the Lord (regulated by the preceding three "authorities", scripture,reason and tradition) brings us to the priority of the Lordship of Christ in our daily living.
That these ideas significantly harmonise with scripture and reality make me glad to be a Baptist.
Steve
Steve
Rod on "liberal Christians" and "sole authority"
Rod's point (1): Apart from it "would not be Baptist" and vague appeal to WWJD how would you justify this position?
Rod's point (2): I think this is an utterly facile critique of sole authority. I am not sure that "sole authority" and "supreme authority" were always intended to represent distinct positions but the sole authority position has a long history and notable defenders.
Allegorically, one who takes an opposite position for testing a contention, or just to be perverse.
The term 'Devil's advocate' was brought into English in the eighteenth century from the medieval Latin expression 'advocatus diaboli'. To describe someone as a Devil's advocate now is to suggest that they are mischievous and opposing, being opposite for it. In medieval Europe, Devil's advocate wasn't seen so contrarily; it was, similar to "chamberlain" or 'cordwainer', a vocation title.
There are various mentions in Vatican records dating from the mid 1500s of a casual part called 'Diaboli Advocatus'. In 1587, the administration of Pope Sixtus V (disappointingly, there hasn't yet been a Sixtus the Sixth) established the formal post of Promoter of the Confidence, referred to informally as the 'Advocatus Diaboli', which surely must have been the same part as 'Diaboli Advocatus'. The set of working responsibilities wasn't especially onerous, until the point when someone was assigned for either beatification and canonization, and soon thereafter the 'Devil's Advocate' was required to draw up a list of arguments against the chosen one getting to be plainly blessed or consecrated.
The first occasion when that the present type of the expression was used in print appears to be in the 1760 humorous content Impostors Identified:
By rising up and having the genuine impact of the Devil's advocate.
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