“Do Baptists really know what it means to be ‘Baptist’?”

June 2010

“Do Baptists really know what it means to be ‘Baptist’?” Over the years I have noticed what I believe to be a dilution of key doctrinal ideas that define “Baptists.” I have decided to address some of our distinctives over the new few months in this column. I want to begin with the idea of the autonomy of the local church.

B. H. Carroll in “Baptists and Their Doctrines” said, “Baptists hold that the New Testament church is a particular congregation and not an organized denomination. According to the New Testament: ‘In Christ, each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.’ Each congregation is a complete temple in itself, and has final jurisdiction over all its affairs.”

If you ask the average Baptist pastor, I believe that he would affirm a commitment to the autonomy of the local church. However, I believe that there has been a subtle movement toward denominational hierarchy among Southern Baptists that would have alarmed B. H. Carroll and others of his generation. And I believe that many laymen, who don’t have the benefit of seminary studies in Baptist history, have begun to assume that the denomination has greater authority that it should have.

Even though the “Conservative Resurgence” movement addressed needed doctrinal issues in our convention, one of the unintended consequences of that movement has been an unusual emphasis on the position of the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. It is through the office of President that key appointments are made that directs our agencies. One recent critique has suggested that the great majority of appointments to boards of trustees has come from 15% of our churches (mostly larger and wealthier) whereas 85% of our churches are largely unrepresented. The dominance of large influential churches has been one of the keys in the rise of hierarchy in other denominations.

With the emphasis on biblical inerrancy has come a great deal of pressure on adopting the latest version of the Baptist Faith and Message. I am not criticizing the document itself (I have personally affirmed that version), but my point is that in earlier generations Baptist churches did not have the same pressure to adopt a singular document.

In principle we still hold to the idea of autonomy. But the reality is that there are pressures placed on churches to go along with the decisions of the national body and its agencies. These pressures are not direct, but anyone who has ever decided to “buck” any national trend knows the isolation that comes with that decision.

As an employee of the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists, I remind myself regularly when I am working with local congregations that they are in charge not KNCSB. I also remind those congregations that we are not there to “take over” or tell them what they have to do. I want them to understand that as Carroll said, “Our general bodies are purely voluntary, and composed of individuals, not churches. They are solely for counsel and co-operation.”

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