Some Baptists, including contemporary Southern Baptists, could be described as partially confessional. In the SBC, Convention employees such as seminary professors and missionaries must affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a term of employment. However, no church needs to affirm the confession to cooperate with the SBC. (Some local associations and at least one state convention do require affirmation of the BF&M to be a member.)

This same confessional diversity plays out at the level of the local church. Because of the Baptist commitment to local church autonomy, different churches place varying degrees of emphasis on confessions. Some churches require prospective members to affirm a confession of faith as part of the membership process. Others simply ask pastors, staff, and perhaps teachers to affirm a confession of faith. Some churches have minimal confessional standards for membership and more stringent requirements for leadership. Some, of course, have no confession at all.

Often, Christians from more strictly confessional traditions bemoan the confessional smorgasbord that is found among Baptists. As a Baptist who is very friendly to confessionalism, I understand that Baptist variety can look like theological cacophony to others (and let’s be honest—it often is). But I do think there is another way to look at this issue, though it probably isn’t a way that more overtly confessional traditions would naturally consider.

In his recent book The Challenge of Being Baptist (Baylor University Press, 2010), historian Bill Leonard offers a constructive introduction to Baptist identity from a moderate Baptist perspective. While I disagree with many of Leonard’s interpretations, I found his discussion of Baptist confessionalism to be quite helpful. Leonard argues that Baptists actually evidence considerable uniformity in their confessions for a tradition that lacks a single authoritative confession and places a premium on local church autonomy and individual liberty of conscience. He writes,

When it comes to defining the nature of Baptist identity, the confessions of faith are surprisingly uniform. In fact, whether written by General, Particular or Seventh Day, Six Principle, or Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit-Predestinarian Baptists, the confessions of faith reflect an uncanny consensus as to the nature of certain common Baptist ideals. They affirm

• The authority of Scripture and the freedom of conscience in matters of religion

• The church as a community of believers who can testify to an experience of grace through Jesus Christ

• Two sacraments/ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper (some later include the washing of feet as a biblical mandate)

• Baptism by immersion as a normative act for believers only (that mode became normative some thirty years after the movement began)

• The autonomy of the local congregation and the fellowship of congregations in “associational” relationships

• The priesthood of all believers and the ordaining of clergy

• Freedom of religion amid a loyalty to the state

(See Leonard, The Challenge of Being  Baptist, pp. 54–55).

Admittedly, there is still considerable room for doctrinal diversity. There is no definitive Baptist view of the doctrines of grace, the nature of the millennium, or the practice of so-called miraculous spiritual gifts (among other doctrines). Nevertheless, I think that Leonard is correct that Baptist groups have historically shared far more in common than not, and this commonality is reflected in the Baptist confessional tradition.

In a recent post at the blog SBC Voices, Bart offers one of the best short summaries of the SBC and our work that I’ve ever read. I’ve copied his first two paragraphs below.

At its formation in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention was consecrated to the cause of “the propagation of the gospel.” The convention existed to enable local churches to expand their common reach in the tasks of calling sinners to repentance and organizing new congregations of disciples. “We can do more together than we can do separately” is not just a Southern Baptist slogan; it is the Southern Baptist raison d’être.

Dare I suggest that the health and value of the Southern Baptist Convention must be calculated along these same lines? Dare I opine further that the Southern Baptist Convention—with its history of scandals and schisms not hidden from view but laid bare to the world’s eyes and amply considered, with the lugubrious pre-obituaries some have published near and far for it notwithstanding, with the changing fads and fashions of ministry given their full accounting—nevertheless remains a healthy and effective part of a Great Commission strategy for local churches? Should I enumerate the specifics, not only why our convention’s strengths empower it but also why its weaknesses do not successfully overcome its strengths? I think so.

I would highly encourage you to read the entire post. And then, if you haven’t already, make arrangements to attend the 2013 SBC Annual Meeting in Houston on June 11–12.

(HT: Micah Fries)

As many readers will know, the SBC Annual Meeting will gather in Houston on June 11–12, 2013. In conjunction with the Convention, I teach an elective travel course at Southeastern Seminary titled The Southern Baptist Convention. The course is divided into three components. First, we meet on campus for one full day to discuss Southern Baptist history, theology, and polity, as well as specific information related to the upcoming annual meeting. Second, the students read several books and articles and listen to numerous audio resources related to these themes. Finally, the students attend the SBC Annual Meeting itself. While at the Convention, the students attend most of the proceedings, meet a couple of times with key SBC leaders, hobnob at the SEBTS booth, and attend the SEBTS Friends and Alumni Luncheon. Most also attend auxiliary events such as the Pastor’s Conference, Baptist 21 Luncheon, and 9 Marks at 9 events, among others.

I thought I would pass on to you some of the resources I use to prepare students for the SBC Annual Meeting. Obviously, we spend quite a bit of time walking through the Convention program, which, along with numerous other helpful resources, is available online. In addition to my lectures and guided class discussions, the students also watch or listen to several lectures, sermons, and panel discussions. This year, I’ve required them to watch the various Baptist 21 panel discussions from previous years (available at the B21 website), which are a helpful gauge of the “hot topics” in the SBC in recent years. I also required the students to watch one of the panels from last year’s 9 Marks at 9. The panel, which included Mark Dever, Al Mohler, and Danny Akin, discussed Fred Luter’s presidential election, the nature of SBC cooperation, and Calvinism, all of which remain important topics a year later.

I also point the students to four lectures or sermons. They watch David Dockery’s fine sermon “Participants and Partners in the Gospel,” which was preached in SEBTS chapel back in February. The sermon is vintage Dockery, calling for denominational unity around the gospel and basic Baptist orthodoxy for the sake of the Great Commission. Students also listen to Dockery’s lecture “The Southern Baptist Convention since 1979,” which helps to orient them to recent Baptist history. The final two lectures are Timothy George’s “The Future of Baptist Identity in a post-Denominational World,” which remains a timely topic, and Al Mohler’s “The Future of the Southern Baptist Convention,” an address that every Southern Baptist needs to listen to at least once.
The students read two books and over a dozen journal articles or book chapters. The first book is Roger Richards’ History of Southern Baptists (Crossbooks, 2012), which is the most recent history of the SBC. The second book is a helpful collection of essays titled The Great Commission Resurgence: Fulfilling God’s Mandate in Our Time (B&H Academic, 2010), edited by Chuck Lawless and Adam Greenway. The latter volume touches upon most of the current tension points in the SBC from a perspective that advocates unity for the sake of gospel advance.

Unfortunately, for reasons of copyright I can’t make most of the additional essays I require available outside of the class. The students read chapters, articles, and booklets written by SBC leaders and thinkers such as Danny Akin (on the Great Commission Resurgence), David Dockery (on Baptist theology), Nathan Finn (on Baptist identity, Calvinism, and the future of the SBC), Timothy George (on Baptist theology), John Hammett (on regenerate church membership and the ordinances), Chuck Lawless (on Calvinism), Al Mohler (on Baptist identity), Paige Patterson (on the Conservative Resurgence), Ed Stetzer (on missional churches), and Malcolm Yarnell (on the priesthood of all believers).

One resource that I can make available to you is Dr. Patterson’s e-booklet “The Southern Baptist Conservative Resurgence: The History, the Plan, the Assessment ” (Seminary Hill, 2012). In this booklet, was which was originally published as three separate articles in The Southwestern Journal of Theology, Dr. Patterson offers a first-hand account of the Conservative Resurgence. It is a helpful look at recent Baptist history from one of the most important shapers of that history. It is also a reminder that Dr. Patterson needs to publish a volume that brings together his collected articles and essays, a topic I have pestered him about in the past. (And again, now, on a public blog . . .)

Anyway, I hope you find these resources helpful. And I hope that many of you will consider attending the 2013 SBC Annual Meeting in Houston. Perhaps I will see many of you there.

(Note: This post is cross-published at Between the Times)

In Theologians of the Baptist Tradition, Dockery contributed a chapter that provides a brief history of Southern Baptist theology through the lens of her key writing theologians. He concludes his chapter with a short section titled “Future Agendas.” Though Dockery wrote this chapter over a dozen years ago, it’s interesting how prescient his thoughts were at the time. If you were to happen upon these paragraphs with no context, you could easily think you were reading an essay written in 2013. I’ve reprinted the relevant paragraphs below.

A paradigm shift has taken place among Southern Baptists regarding the doctrine of Scripture, a shift demonstrating considerable continuity with the views that [James P.] Boyce, [Basil] Manly, and [B. H.] Carroll maintained in the early years of the SBC, though reflecting distance and discontinuity from the progressive positions adopted and advocated in the 1960s and 1970s. While there are several nuanced approaches to Scripture in the SBC, which we have discussed in several other places, generally it can be observed that the majority of Southern Baptists believe the Bible is God’s truthful, written Word. Likewise, they believe it can and should be trusted in all matters. Scriptural authority has now been heartily affirmed, but it must continue to be carefully clarified since the issue is still often misunderstood and misrepresented by progressives, moderates, and even many traditionalists as well.

In coming days discussions will continue regarding the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the church, and worship styles. Southern Baptists have differed over the question of divine sovereignty, election, and the place of human response in salvation. The last decade has seen a renewed emphasis in Calvinistic thinking. This emphasis is likely to continue and perhaps expand in the twenty-first century. Theology in the coming century must become more sensitive to and interactive with global and intercultural concerns.

New insights, groundbreaking works, and the art and practice of contextualizing theology are taking place in Africa, Asia, parts of Europe, and the Third World. The development of these important contributions will help assure that our theologizing is focused on missiological and ecclesiological concerns. We have learned that theologians are not free to think anything, go anywhere, or be anything we like. Future directions must be grounded in Scripture, connected to the church, in touch with missiological issues, and shaped by a doxological emphasis focused on the glory of God.

Theological education must not lose touch with the churches. Baptist theologians must work hard to bring the church and academy together again as colaborers for the cause of Christ. Baptist theologians can help churches enable and educate leaders and enhance worship to bring about spiritual renewal in the church and in our world. Christ-followers, as a result, can grow in obedience to the command of our Lord, who has commissioned the church to evangelize, disciple, baptize, and teach. The same Lord who two thousand years ago commissioned us still calls us to teach and equip his people for service and move them to maturity and unity.

(See David S. Dockery, “Looking Back, Looking Ahead,” in Theologians of the Baptist Tradition, eds. Timothy George and David S. Dockery (B&H Academic, 2001), pp. 359–60.)

Again, this essay reads like it was written yesterday. Southern Baptists have indeed engaged in these conversations over the past dozen or so years. Some of them were addressed early on and with a uniform voice; consider the SBC rejection of open theism, for example. Others remain live debates among Southern Baptists, especially the finer points of Calvinism. Contextualization continues to be an important topic that different Southern Baptists respond to in different ways. (The varied responses themselves indicate the contextual nature of theological reflection.) And, as some readers will know, Dockery was advocating unity around the gospel and basic Baptist orthodoxy for the sake of gospel advance nearly a decade before the Great Commission Resurgence was on anyone’s mind.

For those who are interested in this topic, you should read Dockery entire essay, which I referenced above. I would also highly recommend Timothy George’s essay in the same volume, “The Future of Baptist Theology,” which lays out a constructive paradigm for Southern Baptists (and other Baptists) who wish to do theology for God’s glory.

(Image credit)

Here’s my concluding paragraph from the post:

Their respective arguments notwithstanding, Domestic Slavery is a model of Christian civility. Wayland and Fuller continually refer to each other as “my dear friend,” and in this case, they really meant it. Neither engages in ad hominem attacks of the other. Both men are quick to affirm anything they see as right and truthful in the other’s argument. Though Wayland really does believe Fuller is misreading Scripture, and though Fuller really is convinced Wayland is ignoring Scripture, the two men are always cordial and dignified; they never paint the other as sub-Christian or impugn each other’s motives. These two esteemed antebellum Baptists remind us that it is possible to debate even the most controversial issues in a Christ-like manner.

You can go to the Fuller Center’s website to read the whole essay.

My favorite Nickel Creek song is “The Hand Song,” which is a Christ-haunted ballad if ever there was one. Check out this 1999 performance on PBS.

If you’re not familiar with Henry, he was a founding faculty member of Fuller Theological Seminary, the first editor of Christianity Today, and one of the architects of postwar neo-evangelicalism. His book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947) offered a broadside against the fundamentalist tendency to divorce evangelism and social engagement, while his six-volume God, Revelation, and Authority (1976–1983) was one of the most important works of evangelical theology written in the second half of the 20^th century. Though he is known primarily as an evangelical theologian, Henry was a Baptist. In fact, for much of his adult life he was a Southern Baptist.

In 2004, Russell Moore wrote an article for The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology titled “God, Revelation, and Community: Ecclesiology and Baptist Identity in the Thought of Carl F. H. Henry.” Moore concludes that Henry was a convictional Baptist, but his ecclesiology was underdeveloped in his writings, in part because of his historical context. Simply put, few neo-evangelical theologians wrote on ecclesiology other than in the broadest strokes, in part because of the parachurch nature of postwar evangelicalism. I would say it like this: Henry was a conservative evangelical who held to Baptist ecclesiological convictions; the accent, however, was on the former aspect of his identity. By contrast, I consider myself an orthodox Baptist, which also makes me, by definition, a type of evangelical.

I would encourage you to read Moore’s excellent essay to learn more about Henry’s Baptist identity. Henry himself discusses this topic in his essay “Twenty Years a Baptist,” which has most recently been reprinted in Why I Am a Baptist (B&H Academic, 2001), edited by Tom Nettles and Russell Moore. For an excellent short introduction to Henry’s thought, including his identity as an evangelical and Baptist theologian, see Al Mohler’s chapter on Henry in Theologians of the Baptist Tradition, edited by Timothy George and David Dockery (B&H Academic, 2001).

(Image credit: This post has been cross-published at Between the Times)

Fuller reminds us to be diligent in guarding the gospel from unhelpful articulations of the saving work of Christ. Though no longer widespread, High Calvinism continues to eek out an existence, always leeching off of evangelical Calvinism wherever the latter is popular. Sandemanian-like views are embraced by the Campbellite traditions and are popular among many revivalistic evangelicals and in the so-called Free Grace movement among some Dispensationalists. As in the past, current versions of these heterodoxies often give rise to antinomianism, whether of the Calvinistic or revivalistic variety. Contemporary gospel-driven pastor-theologians can find a helpful role model in Andrew Fuller.

I hope you’ll go to the Desiring God blog and read the whole essay.

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By the time I was a senior at Brewton-Parker College (BPC), I had become very interested in the history, identity, and theology of the Baptists—what I now call Baptist Studies. My interest arose from my own existential struggles with my place in the Baptist world. I came of age in a conservative Southern Baptist congregation in Waycross, Georgia. When I transferred to BPC as a college junior and began taking classes in the Christianity Department, I discovered that most of my professors were not as conservative as I was. The next eighteen months proved to be crucial in forming me into the minister and professor that I am today.

Honestly, I was pretty confused for those first three semesters I was at Brewton-Parker. On the one hand, I was quite certain my home church wasn’t “fundamentalist,” a word I heard a lot at BPC. (I knew plenty of real fundamentalists.) On the other hand, I was pretty sure that my professors weren’t “liberals,” another word wafting through the South Georgia air. (I had read some real liberals, and my professors weren’t that.) My professors had each earned one or more degrees at either Southern Seminary or Baylor University (or both) during the1980s and now considered themselves to be moderates. My home church’s pastor, on the other hand, was a Criswell College graduate who spoke of W.A. Criswell and Paige Patterson with great reverence. Where was my place in SBC life?

I began reading about recent Southern Baptist history in my spare time, trying to get a handle on “The Controversy” that had clearly affected everything around me. I read books by Grady Cothen, Walter Shurden, Fisher Humphreys, and Bill Leonard. I read Paul Pressler’s autobiography. I found articles by Paige Patterson and Al Mohler and read everything I could find written by David Dockery or Timothy George. Though I learned much and began to figure out where I stood in SBC life, I was in danger of having an ahistorical understanding of Baptist identity. I didn’t yet know the wider Baptist story or really even the Southern Baptist story prior to about 1960. This is where Leon McBeth helped me the most.

My senior year at BPC, I took an elective course in Baptist history. Our textbook was The Baptist Heritage. The book provided me with a coherent grand narrative of Baptist history into which I could contextualize my own Baptist identity. One of our assignments in the class was to write a critical book review of a recent work in Baptist Studies. My professor, knowing of my interest in this topic, assigned me Paul Basden’s edited volume Has Our Theology Changed? Southern Baptist Thought since 1845 (B&H, 1994). Basden was a fine historical theological complement to McBeth, helping me to further put together some of the pieces.

What began as a personal struggle to understand my own sense of Baptist identity was fast evolving into a professional calling. In the fall of 2000, just weeks before I married Leah, we were on a date at a restaurant in Vidalia, Georgia. I asked Leah if she could see me as a church history professor whose expertise was Baptist history. She said that she could. I told her I would have to take school more seriously and work harder to make high grades in all my classes. She told me she thought that I could do that (Leah had always thought I was pretty lazy in my academics, and she was right). I told her I would have to earn a PhD after I finished my MDiv. She said she was fine with me pursuing research doctoral studies. I finished at BPC in December 2001, relocated to Southern Seminary in June 2002, and by August 2007 was teaching church history full-time at Southeastern Seminary.

Leon McBeth didn’t introduce me to Baptist history, but he provided the initial scaffolding from which I’ve erected my own teaching ministry. I don’t agree with many of Dr. McBeth’s interpretations of Baptist history, and The Baptist Heritage is now pretty dated, but I still haven’t found a textbook that is as exhaustive as “Big Blue,” the nickname many have given to McBeth’s magnum opus. I have used it in my classes and regularly recommend it to others. If you are a Baptist minister, you really need to have The Baptist Heritage on your shelf.

Dr. McBeth also wrote many other books on such topics as women in Baptist life, Texas Baptist history, and English Baptist writings on religious liberty, in addition to dozens of influential scholarly articles and contributed book chapters. In 2011, Mercer University Press published a festschrift in honor of Dr. McBeth titled Turning Points in Baptist History, edited by Walter Shurden and Michael Williams. The latest issue of the scholarly journal Baptist History and Heritage is also dedicated to Dr. McBeth. If you want to read some of the obituaries and tributes to Dr. McBeth that have been written in the past few days, check out the links below.

“Baptist Historian Leon McBeth Dies” (Associated Baptist Press)

“A Tribute to H. Leon McBeth” (Charles DeWeese)

“Dr. Leon McBeth Dies at Age 81” (Baptist History and Heritage Society)

“Harry Leon McBeth” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

“Church history professor for 45 years, Leon McBeth, dies at 81” (Southwestern Seminary)

In this issue, I contributed two new book reviews. One is a short book note of the newest edition of Mark Noll’s Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, 3rd ed. (Baker Academic, 2012). The second is a critical review of Jay Riley Chase’s recent monograph An Unpredictable Gospel: American Evangelicals and World Christianity, 1812–1920 (Oxford University Press, 2012). Let me cut to the chase: I really like this book. As I note in the conclusion to my review,

An Unpredictable Gospel is an important book that challenges faulty assumptions about cultural imperialism while also raising new questions about the nature of contextualization, the relationship between evangelism and social control, and the contours of intra-denominational debates about mission strategy at home and abroad. Highly recommended.

If, like me, you are interested in the topic of global evangelicalism, you should also check out two of the other reviews in this issue of Themelios. Emma Wild-Wood reviews Paul Borthwick’s recent book Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church (IVP Academic, 2012). In the second review, Eric Zeller offers his thoughts on two important new study bibles: the ESV Global Study Bible (Crossway, 2012) and The Mission of God Study Bible (B&H Reference, 2012).