July 10, 2000

Soul freedom worth saving, Dunn stresses
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___ORLANDO, Fla.--Now is the "golden hour" for defending the Baptist concept of soul freedom, James Dunn told members of the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society at their annual meeting June 29.
___The society presented Dunn with its William H. Whitsitt Courage Award. The society

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

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and award are named for the church historian who was forced to resign the presidency of Southern

JAMES DUNN

Baptist Theological Seminary a century ago, when he created a storm of controversy by asserting that Baptists trace their beginnings to the 17th century. Whitsitt subsequently has been exonerated by the overwhelming consensus of church historians.
___Dunn recently retired as executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, a religious liberty watchdog organization based in Washington, D.C. He now serves as president of the committee's endowment.
___ "Soul freedom feeds the deep heart-hunger found in millions of persons seeking authenticity and immediacy in religion," Dunn declared. "If there's ever been a time when the world wanted what we Baptists at our best have, it's now. If there's ever been a time when we doubted our resolve to deliver soul liberty, it's now."
___Six words "characterize our soul-freedom message these days," Dunn said, noting soul freedom requires that religion be:
___ Personal. "Human personality is the only adequate medium for the self-revelation of a personal God," he said, quoting E.Y. Mullins, a Southern Baptist leader and theologian who led in drafting the 1925 version of the Baptist Faith & Message statement.
___"We sing, 'I know whom I have believed,' not '... what I have believed,'" Dunn quipped.
___ Social. "The competence of the individual before God does not demand and in fact precludes Lone Ranger religion," he insisted. "No matter what critics left and right may say, autonomous individualism ... does not mean that everyone's church is one's own hat."
___"The longing for community and social Christianity presupposes voluntarism. Without individual autonomy, there can be no authentic community, for folks to be herded together by some sort of semi-sacramentalism or joined in a crusade for social justice does not community make."
___ Experiential. "Theology comes out of our always-limited attempts to explain religious experience, not the other way around," he said.
___ Voluntary. Dunn cited a litany of Baptist characteristics that reflect Baptists' notion that they voluntarily embrace the faith and serve God together--"local church autonomy, democracy, anti-creedalism, personal interpretation of Scripture."
___"That soul freedom bundle of belief changes everything," he claimed. "We come to God freely, or not really."
___ Pluralistic. "Pluralism does not mean moral relativism," he explained. Pluralism recognizes other people hold different beliefs, but it does not affirm "whatever you do is fine."
___"Christians must find a way to keep one's values and identity while living amongst other values that we can neither destroy nor approve. That's the kind of world we live in, and boycotts and targeting and arguments by assertion aren't the answer. ... Soul freedom does not fear pluralism."
___ Androgynous. "Yes, it's time for a sort of scriptural, spiritual androgyny--gender blindedness," he said.
___"Can you honestly take the whole message of Jesus, the spirit of the New Testament and the Spirit, the living Lord and all the verses that could be made prooftexts to prove an argument and believe that any of us mortals can tell God whom he may call to any aspect of ministry?"

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