what is a Baptist?

Good point. If orthodox doctrine is not maintained, Baptist faith disappears as in the case of the early British General Baptists, as you remind us.

A similar case is occuring in the American Baptists, which denomination has been shrinking ever since the Modernists defeated the Fundamentalists and took control of the denomination in the 1920's and 1930's. To give just one figure I can grab quickly, there were 22 ABFMS missionaries in Japan in 1980, but only 9 in 2007. The IFB missionary force, in the meantime, is the only Baptist group in Japan that has increased in that time.

(A nod of the head to tinytim here, whose Virginia crowd seems to be trying to reverse the trend.)

 

I haven't been back over the thread to check, but I think that this is the first time that creeds have been mentioned. I have always been taught that baptists have avoided creeds in favor of faith based on a personal relationship with Christ. This belief was one reason for the opposition to the changes made in the BF&M and to the ways in which it has been applied.

Tim Reynolds

 

"There have appeared men in these later days who feel persecuted if they are not allowed to enter pulpits established to uphold a given set of principles, and there to overthrow the very doctrines the church is set to defend. Men who do not preach the accepted doctrines of the Baptists, have no right in Baptist pulpits, and it is no abridgement of their rights nor any persecution to keep them out. We are under no sort of obligations to furnish heretics with means to subvert the truth." (Ten Years in Texas, p 129)


J.B. Gambrell, the President of Mercer University from 1893 - 1896

 

Let us expound ........please include what a Baptist is not!

For one, a Baptist is not a child of the Unholy Roman church, in any shape or form, from any period of history.

Bartimaeus

 

McClendon wrote several books. Most prominent is his 3-volume "baptist" systematic theology. His structure is unique. The three volumes are titled Ethics; Doctrine; and Witness. Of particular interest to the pastors on this forum might be his book Making Gospel Sense: To a Troubled Church (James William McClendon, Jr., Pilgrim Press, 1995) which is a collection of sermons McClendon delivered while serving as an interim pastor to a small congregation wracked with dissension after a series of what he terms "pastoral disasters" (i. e., firings, resignations, failures).

He is also one of the compilers of Baptist Roots: A Reader in the Theology of a Christian People (Curtis W. Freeman, James William McClendon, Jr., and C. Rosalee Velloso da Silva; Judson Press, 1999). It is a collection of original writings beginning with the 15th century. I have only read a few selections from it, but I find it very instructive for my understanding of what it means to be baptist.

Tim Reynolds

 

I've heard the same thing a number of times about Baptists and creeds, but I'm not sure it is completely accurate historically. I would say instead that Baptists don't feel bound by creeds when they do have them, since one Baptist distinctive is the autonomy of the local church, and another is the Bible as the sole rule of faith and practice.

In modern times, most if not almost all Baptist organizations have a "statement of faith" which is very close to being a creed.

 

Thanks for the information, Tim. I'll keep my ears and eyes open for him. One thing about being on the mission field is that we often miss what is happening and being published in the homeland, though the Internet is helping that. I knew about Grudem's Systematic Theology coming out, but not McClendon.

God bless.

 

I suspected that you are right, but I wanted to do a little digging. I found a paragraph in Leon McBeth's The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness (Broadman, 1987).

Leon McBeth was professor of Church History at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary when he wrote this. I assume that he is retired now.

Tim Reynolds

 

Biblical authority
Autonomy of the local church
Priesthood of the believer
Two ordinances (Believer's Baptism and Communion)
Individual soul liberty
Separation of Church and State
Two offices of the church (Pastor and Deacon)

This is one of 4-5 acronyms I have saved over the years on the subject (the others are on my other gutless wonder computer).

 

Thanks for the quote, Tim. I have McBeth's book, and it is a good one.

By the way, if you are interested Maranatha Baptist Bible College has a CD out now for the PC with many, many Baptist history resources on it.
http://www.mbbc.edu/page.aspx?m=1223

God bless.