Differing views on differing Baptists
By Tony W. Cartledge
BR Editor
As the 400th anniversary of Baptist life approaches in 2009, those who study both the roots and flowering of Baptist identity have been busy producing an impressive stack of books on Baptist history and identity.
The following overviews suggest a number of reading options for those who want to know more about the Baptist heritage and identity.
Baptist Ways
Bill J. Leonard's Baptist Ways: A History (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2003, 480 pages) initiated the wave with an impressive analysis of what it means to be Baptist. Leonard, dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest University, notes that others "have sought to delineate the essence of the Baptists" with conclusions "as diverse as the distinctives they sought to define" (p. 2). He suggests a new approach that views Baptist history through the lens of eight areas in which Baptists have held differing beliefs that exist in dialectical tension.
For example, Leonard notes an ongoing tension between Baptist beliefs in the authority of Scripture and liberty of conscience, between local church autonomy and association or convention-wide cooperation, between congregational leadership centered in the laity and views that favor pastoral authority. Other "dialectics" that Leonard identifies include instantaneous regeneration versus salvation as a gradual process, baptism and the Lord's Supper as sacraments and symbols, doctrinal statements as creedal versus confessional, how religious liberty is understood against Christian citizenship, and diversity that is both theological and ecclesial (pp. 6-10).
The ongoing dynamics between these beliefs or practices informs Leonard's presentation of a rather comprehensive Baptist history from the 17th century forward. Though the biggest part of the book is devoted to the origin and evolution of largely Caucasian Baptists in England and the United States, Leonard also provides chapters on African-American Baptists, and Baptists in the Caribbean, Greater Britain, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
The first Baptists were born in dissent, Leonard writes, and contemporary Baptists continue to be marked by diversity of opinion that is often divisive. Leonard concludes with a review of ways in which globalism, pluralism, Pentecostalism, and postmodernism present particular challenges to Baptists, driving them to "revisit their history in search of identity old and new" (p. 424).
Baptists in America
In Baptists in America (New York, Columbia University Press, 2005, 316 pages), Leonard takes a more topical approach, focusing on the many groups and subgroups that have been a part of Baptist life and development in the American context. Diversity remains a key to understanding the rise and fall of Baptist churches and groups, and of differing philosophies for integrating religion and culture.
After a review of Baptist beginnings, Leonard gives special attention to Baptist debates and developments in the 20th century before moving on to discuss Baptist beliefs and practices, organizations and churches, ordinances and polity, responses to ethnicity and race, views on the role of women in Baptist life, and approaches to contemporary American culture.
At every stage, Leonard points to the wide range of beliefs and practices among Baptists, sometimes introducing them via narrative style case studies that engage the reader and help make the book as accessible and readable for the living room as for the classroom. Citing his long study of Baptists and personal participation in three different Baptist denominations, he writes "These experiences keep me a Baptist, ever persuaded by those portions of the tradition that long for uncoerced faith and believers' churches, radical dissent and religious liberty, biblical authority and biblical audacity, and the unceasing power of baptismal immersion (and occasional foot-washings) within a community of faith" (p. x.).
The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a Baptist Church
While Leonard discusses Baptist ways, R. Stanton Norman, a professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, touts a single way as authentically Baptist. In The Baptist Way: Distinctives of a Baptist Church (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2005, 212 pages), Norman says most recent works on Baptist identity have been written by moderates and "reflect a concerted effort to redefine Baptist distinctives from a skewed, prejudicial theological basis" (p. 1).
Norman seeks to offset "these moderate restatements with deliberate and thoughtful affirmations that are biblical, historically, and theologically accurate" (pp. 1-2). Norman recognizes "that there is great diversity in the Baptist family on many issues," but also believes "there are certain traits that make us Baptist" (p. 9). He offers chapters on the subjects of biblical authority, the Lordship of Christ, regenerate church membership, church discipline, congregational polity, the need for church covenants, the ordinances of a Baptist church, and religious freedom.
Norman insists that Baptists have "from our beginning" believed that the Bible is "the inspired and inerrant written revelation of the living God" (p. 17), either dismissing or overlooking non-inerrantists in the Baptist tradition. Surprisingly, he says "As Baptists, we recognize the progressive nature of revelation" (p. 24), but limits progressive revelation to a belief that the New Testament stands above the Old as the doctrinal standard for Baptists and "the starting point from which we develop all matters related to church life" (p. 26). The conviction that all ecclesiology derives from the New Testament "is our core distinctive," he writes (p. 28).
On church membership, Norman bemoans lax policies that do not thoroughly examine prospective members before admitting them to church fellowship. This chapter is not unrelated to the following one, in which Norman laments the lack of church discipline among contemporary Baptists and outlines transgressions he considers worthy of church action.
Norman sees "the priesthood of all believers" as being fulfilled in self-sacrifice, witness, and intercession (pp. 96-97), insisting that the term applies only in the plural. "The priesthood of the believer" is "a confusing, nonsensical statement," he says, a misunderstanding of the collective meaning that "cannot and should not serve as a basis for autonomous individualism or doctrinal infidelity" (p. 98).
While Norman defends congregational church government, he says that "does not preclude strong, biblical pastoral leadership," (p. 102) with the challenge being for Baptist churches "to keep both congregational polity and pastoral leadership in their proper balance" (p. 103).
In promoting church covenants to which every member must agree, Norman says "the covenant of a Baptist church must affirm three things: the lordship of Jesus Christ over the church and its members; the divine inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of the Bible; and the membership of the church consisting only of regenerate persons who have professed their faith as believers in Christ" (p. 118).
While the other books reviewed here acknowledge both the diversity and legitimacy of divergent Baptist traditions, Norman's book suggests that there is only one true "Baptist way."
Baptists in North America
William H. Brackney's Baptists in North America (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, 296 pages) offers both a chronological essay on the development of Baptist life in the United States and Canada, and interpretive chapters dealing with Baptist diversity and dissent in areas such as missions and social concerns.
Brackney, director of Baptist studies at Baylor University, highlights the Baptist penchant for dissent and division as "the come-outer tradition," borrowing vocabulary from Paul's quotation of the ancient admonition to "come out from them, and be separate from them" (2 Cor. 6:17, p. 146).
In a very helpful chapter, he reviews the development of Separates, Regulars, Old Regulars, Primitives and others, and shows how Charles Spurgeon's popularity as a heroic figure among those with a Calvinistic and fundamentalist bent led to further schisms, as did J. R. Graves' Landmarkist movement and other controversies.
Brackney traces the various divisions and offspring of Northern, Southern, and Canadian Baptists, and includes a separate chapter on "The Uniqueness of African American Baptists."
The book includes a list of nearly 90 Baptist groups in America and Canada, along with a glossary of terms commonly used by Baptists.
The Story of Baptists in the United States
Pamela R. and Keith E. Durso set out to fill the lack of "a well-illustrated, brief narrative introduction to the history of Baptists in the United States" (p. 9), and have done a commendable job in The Story of Baptists in the United States (Brentwood, TN: Baptist History and Heritage Society, 2006, 224 pages).
Pamela Durso is associate director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society. Husband Keith is a free-lance writer. Together, they write in a straightforward narrative style, tracing American Baptists from their beginnings in England and through their diverse development in the American colonies and the westward expansion.
Narratives often focus on individual stories, adding to the readability of the book, and helpful distinctions are made between the varieties of early Baptists, especially as related to the inevitable tension between General Baptists who followed Arminian thought and Particular Baptists who held to Calvinist theology.
Five chapters trace Baptist developments in the North and South during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries while continuing to use stories of individuals to reflect the broad amalgam of partnerships, schisms, cooperative efforts and different paths that Baptists took while growing from roots as a tiny and persecuted minority to become the largest Protestant group (or collection of groups) in America.
Throughout the book, the authors draw on the collection of the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville to provide drawings, documents and photographs that illustrate the narrative beautifully and enhance the reader's experience.
The Baptist River: Essays on the Many Tributaries of a Diverse Tradition
The most recent contribution to the effort to delineate a Baptist identity is a collection of essays edited by W. Glenn Jonas, Jr., chair of the department of philosophy and religion at Campbell University. In the first chapter of The Baptist River: Essays on the Many Tributaries of a Diverse Tradition (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2006, 288 pages), Jonas searches for a common characteristic running through the history of Baptists, and concludes that "the essential quality that identifies Baptists is diversity through dissent" (p. 3).
Jonas details four aspects of the Baptist tradition that "make diversity-through-dissent inevitable" (p. 4). These are "a polygenetic provenance" that has deep roots in both Arminian and Calvinist theology, "a bent toward biblicism" that makes the Bible central while subject to differing interpretations, "a propensity toward primitivism" that seeks to follow a New Testament church pattern that can't be precisely defined, and "a fealty to freedom" that celebrates both individual freedom of conscience and local church autonomy.
Representatives or students of 10 existing Baptist groups that constitute about 90 percent of Baptists in America provide chapters highlighting the distinctive character of the different groups. These include American Baptists, Southern Baptists, National Baptists, Independent Baptists, Free Will Baptists, Primitive Baptists, North American Baptists, Canadian Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Lydia Huffman Hoyle, associate professor of Baptist History at Campbell University Divinity School concludes with an essay on "Baptist Americanus" in which she highlights many of the smaller offshoots that have branched from the Baptist river, tracing particular factors that led to their formation.
As Baptists close in on 400 years since the establishment of the first Baptist church, these books provide enormously helpful windows into the history that lies behind the variegated landscape of contemporary Baptist life.
