EDITORIAL: Principles color our Baptist mosaic

Marv Knox

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What makes a Baptist a Baptist? What makes you a Baptist, other than membership in a Baptist congregation?

You might mention one doctrine, such as the priesthood of all believers, or a practice, such as believer’s baptism by immersion, or a characteristic, such as local-church autonomy. But the truth is you can find each of those traits in other denominations. Through four centuries, Baptists have defined ourselves by our unique combination of principle and polity, not by a single distinctive feature.

Editor Marv Knox

This fall, a group of historians painted a fascinating, poignant and accurate mosaic of Baptists. The Baptist Classics Seminar is composed of scholars who gather each September to read and discuss Baptist history from primary sources—original documents—dating from 1610 to today. I started to say they painted a portrait of Baptists, but mosaic is better. A mosaic presents a striking picture by carefully arranging distinct pieces of glass or stone. The seminar’s mosaic reveals Baptists through the refracted light of singular elements.

The features of our Baptist mosaic—listed by the seminar and described by me—are:

• Believer’s baptism. Baptists never have practiced infant baptism. Baptism symbolizes a person’s death to sin and resurrection into a new life in Christ—actions that reflect willful repentance of sin and acceptance of salvation by grace through faith.

• Personal “heart” experience of God. Faith is not a rational belief; it’s a personal relationship with God in Christ.

• Priesthood of all believers. Every person possesses the privilege of relating directly to God. No one needs a priest or other intermediary to pray, repent or seek God’s guidance. Each person also is responsible to be a “priest” to others—to minister to and serve all people.

• Personal and communal devotion to God. We come to God individually, but we live and move and have our being in community.

• The church as the body of Christ. The church, both universal and local, is the presence of Christ in the world. When Jesus ascended to heaven, he left his followers, the church, to continue his work in the world. The church is the tangible representation of Christ in a lost and dying world.

• Autonomy of each local church. This is a corollary of the priesthood of all believers. If believer-priests possess autonomy, so do their congregations, which they comprise.

• Congregational polity. This also is a corollary of the priesthood of all believers. Baptists honor individual liberty by making corporate decisions democratically.

• Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. For Baptists, these hugely significant practices are ordinances, not sacraments. They don’t confer salvation. But they do symbolize our identification with Jesus (both), our death to sin and resurrection to a new life (baptism) and Jesus’ sacrifice of his body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins (Lord’s Supper).

• Voluntary cooperation among churches. We don’t have a pope or ecclesiastical hierarchy. We get things done by working together. Again, this is a practical corollary of the priesthood of all believers.

• Religious liberty and separation of church and state. Similar to honoring priesthood in believers, Baptists honor the conscience of all people. From our founding, we have championed religious liberty, not only for ourselves, but for people of all faiths and no faith. And we have insisted the best way to preserve this liberty is for government to keep its hands off religion.

• Sola Scriptura. The Baptist Classics Seminar significantly labeled this principle, “Scripture alone,” as the foundation for all the others. “We have seen a commitment to … the belief that the Bible alone, neither creeds nor tradition, is the authority for religious faith and practice.” We are, indeed, a people of “the Book.”

 

 


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