Southern Baptists’ ecclesiology integral

Not long ago, a Southern Baptist traveling the country could visit any Southern Baptist church and find many similarities to his congregation back home. From the Sunday School quarterlies to the hymns, there would be enough common ground to make him comfortable worshipping with another body of believers.

But Southern Baptist churches have become more diverse. Worship styles, facilities, staff roles and the involvement of members give each church a unique identity. Still, bedrock beliefs are fairly stable. Doctrinal convictions drawn from a New Testament model form Southern Baptists’ view of ecclesiology–the study of the church, its structure, order, practices and interrelationships.

When the Southern Baptist Convention formed in 1845, its view of the church was solidly “separatistic and distinctively Baptist,” according to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Thomas Nettles. In “An Historical Perspective of Southern Baptists: 1975 – Present: A Trust Re-established,” a study commissioned by a taskforce of the North American Mission Board, Nettles described the early Southern Baptist churches.

“Regenerate persons, baptized by immersion upon profession of their faith in Christ as their only hope constituted the material for church membership. Forgiveness, righteousness, holiness, and eternal life issued from Christ’s perfect obedience. Members expected to be disciplined by the body to which they belonged,” Nettles added.

Often, when describing the Southern Baptist churches, missionaries and church planters naturally veer toward a discussion of the purposes of a local church–featuring elements such as evangelism, ministry, worship, fellowship and prayer. Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren prescribes balancing all five elements to maintain church health. Many Southern Baptist congregations have embraced Warren’s perspective, finding his approach helpful in renewing and starting churches.

Before determining if a church is accomplishing the purposes of God, SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards said Southern Baptist churches should determine who they are as a people of God. “I think it’s more important for us to settle the issue of who we are rather than what we do. Who we are dictates what we do.”

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary theology professor Malcolm Yarnell told the TEXAN that the covenant of a Baptist church serves as a common confession. “The covenant outlines the authority for and purpose of the church. The confession outlines the doctrines that the church maintains.” While a constitution and bylaws are important in a local church, Yarnell said the covenant and confession are the most important.

A New Testament church definition is dependent upon doctrinal reality, Richards added. “It’s who we are that makes us a New Testament church.” He described the faith of which a Christian testifies as “salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone.” Richards added, “For a church to preach salvation by grace and keep it by works, that in my understanding would disqualify their congregation as a New Testament church. “That is not to say that they are not in the family. There is a difference between the family of God and the church of God.” Combined with that explanation of salvation, Richards said four other beliefs comprise the irreducible doctrinal characteristics of a New Testament church. Included are:

>baptism by immersion of believers only,

>the Lord’s Supper as not sacramental,

>a theodemocracy that rejects a hierarchical form of government, and

>the Bible as the final rule of faith and practice.

“If we are who we are supposed to be then we will accomplish the purposes of the church,” Richards concluded. “By using the five qualifiers for a New Testament church you can go back through history and find in the third through 15th centuries groups of people who banded together and formed a New Testament church as described in the Baptist Faith and Message. They were not called Baptists. I don’t think it’s essential to have Baptist over the door for it to be a New Testament church. There are many evangelical churches that meet these qualifications that are not called Baptists.”

Nettles and co-author Russell Moore, also a Southern Seminary professor, published “Why I Am A Baptist” several years ago, concerned that Southern Baptists need to recover an understanding of their roots. “Biblical authority and theology drove Baptists from the first,” Nettles said, adding that Baptist ecclesiology and Baptist concepts of confessions are worthy of study.

“If we do not recover a sense of Baptist identity, there will not be a Southern Baptist Convention to greet the 22nd century,” Moore said. Two conferences offered in February and March reveal renewed interest in the subject as New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary offers “Issues in Baptist Polity” (www.baptistcenter.com) and Union University address “Baptist Identity” (www.uu.edu).

Yarnell said a church planter should understand Southern Baptist priorities and convictions and intentionally set out to propagate them through the witness of his own life and through the foundational documents of the church.  To that end, NAMB is using the Nettles paper as a resource for church planters in reviewing the historical context Southern Baptists use to plant churches.

Nettles wrote, “The doctrine of the church separates Baptist evangelicals from other evangelicals.  Baptists have historically contended that their view of the church expresses more consistently the biblical gospel than those groups that included baptism of infants as part of their church life.”

Baptist ecclesiology builds on a consistent application of core doctrines, Nettles said.  Included in his list are:  the Lordship of Christ; the total depravity of all individuals born of the seed of Adam; the necessity of the new birth; the acceptability of the sinner only through justification by faith; the new covenant as the manifestation of the mode by which God always had saved sinners; Christ as the one who by his death effects the provisions of that covenant of redemption; and the work of the Spirit as the means by which his people are known to the world.  Nettles added that the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 affirms all these distinctives clearly and concisely.

When the Baptist Faith and Message Study Committee presented a revised statement of faith in 2000, chairman Adrian Rogers cautioned against misunderstanding Baptist polity, noting the convention’s affirmation of the BF&M is not binding on local churches.  “We don’t have the right, the authority or the power to limit anybody.  We would resist that.  What we are stating is what we believe mainstream Baptists believe.”

Each phrase in the BF&M article on the church clarifies a particular doctrinal belief and practice.

AUTONOMOUS LOCAL CONGREGATION

The BF&M leads with an affirmation of local church autonomy.  The reorganization of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1995 refocused the importance of the local church as the denomination’s headquarters.  While associations, state conventions and SBC entities exist to assist local churches, every one of the more than 42,000 Southern Baptist congregations is directed by its own members.  Each church decides its involvement at other levels of Southern Baptist life.  Assignments for many of the SBC entities have been revised to focus on “assisting local churches.”

“The local church is the cutting edge of everything we do,” NAMB President Robert Reccord stated.  “It’s not the denominational structure, but the local church that God has placed at the center of everything he is doing.”

Several leaders of the conservative resurgence in the SBC have observed that a denomination’s reformation could not have occurred among many of the mainline denominations because of their ecclesiology.  “Their ecclesiastical systems rendered it ultimately impossible for them to effect a lasting return to the faith of their fathers,” wrote Paige Patterson in a chapter of “Why I Am A Baptist.”  “Because Baptists rejected all forms of connectionalism, and Baptist churches, associations, state conventions and national conventions are independent, autonomous entities, the people in the churches fid it possible, though not easy, to rise up and say, ‘We do not approve of the direction that our denomination is going, and we want this corrected.'”

Essayist and pastor Mark Coppenger applied the same argument in a discussion with members of the conservative, evangelical wing of the Anglican Church who were appalled at the nomination of a homosexual as bishop of Reading.  “My British friends had heard of the Southern Baptist ‘conservative resurgence,’ and they wanted to know how it happened.  How could a large denomination replace leaders willing to accommodate and defend professors and staff who questioned the miracle accounts, preached the finite God of process theology, advocated abortion, disparaged male pronouns for God, and flirted with universalism?  As I tried to retrace the steps, I felt more and more helpless.  I finally had to say (with a smile) that they needed to start by becoming Baptist.”

In his column for Baptist Press, Coppenger explained, “As long as the Bible is read and preached in the churches, the people will keep their leaders honest.  They don’t have to catch the attention of a liberal or secular prime minister to make a change.  They just have to load up a van and head for the convention center.  It’s so Baptist.”

 BAPTIZED BELIEVERS

The most obvious characteristic of Southern Baptist churches is their expectation that candidates for membership first profess their faith and be baptized.  The biblical word for baptism indicates immersion as the proper mode.

“Baptism is no mere custom started by ancient church leaders, then passed down from generation to generation as an encrusted ecclesiastical tradition or meaningless religious ritual,” wrote Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Don Whitney in “Spiritual Disciplines Within th eChurch.”  Ordained by Jesus Christ himself, the practice of the ordinance symbolizes washing away of sin.  The death, burial and resurrection of the Lord are represented by lowering the believer into the water and raising him to a new life.

Only a believer in Jesus Christ should be baptized.  “A Baptist is an individual who has experienced salvation through personal faith in Jesus Christ,” stated James T. Draper, president of LifeWay Christian Resources.  In an essay for “Why I Am A Baptist,” Draper reminded, “Baptist do not believe in proxy faith, where a priest or any other person mediates between the individual and God.  Every individual must come to the time in life when he or she receives Jesus Christ as personal Savior.”

ASSOCIATED BY COVENANT IN THE FAITH AND FELLOWSHIP OF THE GOSPEL

One way to preserve a regenerate church membership is by using a church covenant that sets behavior standards.  “Faithful commitment to the contents of a biblically-based covenant can constructively influence the creation and maintenance of a disciplined church membership,” argued Charles W. DeWeese in his study titled “Baptist Church Covenants.”

According to Gregory Wills, Southern Seminary church history professor, this implies agreement to maintain the discipline by which Christ intended the preservation of fellowship.  In an article for SBTS’ journal, Wills said, “The discipline includes admitting those only who credibly profess faith in Christ; correcting, warning and rebuking those who stray from truth or righteousness; excluding those who refuse the church’s loving entreaties to return to the path of truth and righteousness; and restoring the repentant to fellowship.”

While many churches include a covenant statement in their founding documents, few make actual use of it.  DeWeese described it as “a series of written pledges based on the Bible which church members voluntarily make to God and to one another regarding their basic moral and spiritual commitments and the practice of their faith.”  A covenant focuses on Christian conduct, he explained, what a confession of faith centers more heavily on beliefs.

In a study of 300 Southern Baptist congregations aimed at understanding the best way to retain church members, Thom S. Rainer determined successful churches expect more of their members.  The dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at Southern Seminary discovered that less than seven percent of churches required the signing of a covenant for membership.  However, those churches that used a covenant actively had an attendance virtually equal to their membership, effectively closing the back door.

Also noting the value of a new-member class, Rainer reported more that 63 percent of churches used the church covenant in the class.  “Membership in the high-assimilation churches in our study truly means something,” Rainer wrote in “High Expectations.”  “Indeed, the members are expected to live and minister in a way that is consistent with New Testament precepts.  They are expected to attend worship and Sunday School regularly, to adhere to doctrine, to be involved in ministry, to attend new member classes and, if they are new Christians, to be discipled one-on-one, as well as to give a public testimony of their salvation.”

Yarnell said Baptists form churches based on a covenant, building on an ecclesiological understanding of Matt. 18:20.  “When we intentionally gather together in Christ’s name, he brings to us his presence and his power that is seen in his threefold office of prophet, priest, and king.  By virtue of this threefold office of Christ, Christians gathered in covenant have the authority to preach, to pray, and to govern themselves under the authority of Christ.”

OBSERVING THE TWO ORDINANCES OF CHRIST

Southern Baptists set themselves apart from many mainline denominations by limiting the practice of ordinances to the only two ordained by Jesus himself–baptism as the initial identification with Christ and the Lord’s Supper as an ongoing remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.  While some faith groups include other rites passed down by church tradition, Southern Baptists reveal their dependence on the Bible to determine which ceremonies they should practice.

Southern Baptists make it clear that neither ordinance conveys salvation to the participant.  “I’ve known people who wanted to be baptized again and again, or who tried to take the Lord’s Supper as often as possible because they were convinced that such efforts would surely win God’s favor,” Whitney observed.  Only through repentance and faith does an individual become a Christian, he noted.

Not all Baptists remain committed to immersion as the mode of baptism.  In the closing chapter of “Why I Am A Baptist,” Moore related how some moderate Baptists are calling for “A new sacerdotal understanding of baptism that is a marked departure from the Baptist distinctives they once championed.”  He referred to moderate newspaper Baptists Today advocating acceptance of those christened as infants into the membership of Baptist churches “for the sake of ecumenical cooperation.”

GOVERNED BY HIS LAWS EXERCISING THE GIFTS, RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES INVESTED IN THEM BY HIS WORD

No change has ever been made to this portion of the BF&M article on the church, emphasizing the responsibility believers have to minister according to God’s guidance.

“Whatever your gift, God gave it to you for you to use in His service.  And the result of serving Him with your gift is glory to God,” Whitney explained.

SEEKING TO EXTEND THE GOSPEL TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

In this phrase Southern Baptist declare their missionary passion.  The vision of the International Mission Board is “to lead Southern Baptists to be on mission with God to bring all the peoples of the world to saving faith in Jesus Christ.”

Yarnell and Richards warned against an incomplete pursuit of the Great Commission.  “Christians that evangelize but do not seek to incorporate converts into a local church through baptism and continuing discipleship ar not engaging in Great Commission evangelism,” Yarnell said the last two reveal the ecclesiological nature of evangelism.

“Great Commission evangelism demands incorporation into a local church through baptizing,” he stated, adding that Baptists historically understood that believer’s baptism is the door into the church.  The reference to teaching implies continuing life in a local church, he explained.  “The most orthodox teaching occurs not on an ad hoc basis, but within the ongoing life of the local church under the leadership of a God-called and congregationally-ordained pastor.”

Yarnell expressed concern that some southern Baptist missionaries hesitate to encourage the formation of a visible Christian congregation.  “For instance, I have seen one too many pictures of Muslims converted to Christianity who have not formed Baptist churches and still pray like Muslims.”  Missionaries with whom he spoke feared the prospect of persecution in the culture where new Muslim converts live.  “My rejoinder is that such Nicodemite Christians may be worshipping in spirit, but if they are not visibly congregated as Christians, they are not being truthful.  Perhaps our seminaries have not been as adept at putting out Baptist church planters as we shoul have been.”

Richards appreciated the urgency of the mission task, while warning against practicing “a truncated Great Commission” by failing to incorporate new converts doctrinally.  “Winning converts is really different from making disciples.  You have to change some of the meaning of the words to say[we must] win converts and baptize, but never teach them everything Jesus said we were to teach them.”

OPERATES UNDER LORDSHIP OF CHRIST THROUGH DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES

Former SBC President James Sullivan distinguished between a pure democracy and theodemocracy in the practices of Southern Baptist churches.  “Theodemocracy operates in a different spirit and manner, and it seeks answers which it feels are God’s solutions to the problems, rather than advancing personal opinions.”  By ascertaining divine purposes over personal prejudices, Sullivan added that a theodemocracy produces calmer business meetings and more correct and permanent answers.

EACH MEMBER IS RESPONSIBLE AND ACCOUNTABLE TO CHRIST AS LORD

The BF&M study committee regarded soul competency–each person is ultimately accountable to God and able to discern biblical truth–in light of Baptist theologian E.Y. Mullins’ clarification that it is “a competency under God, not a competency in the sense of human self-sufficiency.”

SCRIPTURAL OFFICERS ARE PASTORS AND DEACONS.  BOTH MEN AND WOMEN ARE GIFTED FOR SERVICE.  THE OFFICE OF PASTOR IS LIMITED TO MEN AS QUALIFIED BY SCRIPTURE

This section of the BF&M attracted the most media attention in 2000.  “The Bible is clear in presenting the office of pastor as restricted to men,” stated Rogers.  With far less than one percent of SBC churches having ever called a woman as pastor, Rogers said Southern Baptists are united in this conviction.  Although the office of deacon is mentioned in the BF&M, the committee did not choose to identify the role of an elder as the 1925 FG&M did.  (See related article on elders and deacons on page 9.)

While deacons are vital to the operation of a church, Sullivan emphasized in his book “Baptist Polity” that Scripture designates deacons as servants, not as legislators or administrators.

Yarnell noted that a church becomes a church when it is convenantly gathered in Christ.  Electing and appointing biblical officers helps the church toward completeness.  “Without a pastor, the church may be a church, but it will be anemic and in danger of ultimate dissolution.”  He quoted 17th century Baptist father Benjamin Keach in his book “The Glory of a True Church,” as stating, “‘Therefore such are very disorderly Churches who have no Pastor or Pastors ordained, they acting not according to the Rule of the Gospel, having something wanting.'”

THE CHURCH AS THE BODY OF CHRIST INCLUDES ALL REDEEMED OF ALL AGES, BELIEVERS FROM EVERY TRIBE, AND TONGUE, AND PEOPLE, AND NATION

The language of the 1963 BF&M regarding the universal church was retained in the 2000 revision.  Rogers explained the reaffirmation of the New Testament heritage of Baptist congregationalism expressed in the 1925 BF&M while affirming the contribution of the 1963 statement.

It is in its role as reflector of the wisdom, power, and grace of God that Nettles finds the church’s preeminent function in the proclamation, defense and confirmation of the gospel.  “Of great consequence, therefore, to both pastor and people, is the determination that they agree on the content of the message that largely will give shape to their lives together and their mutual efforts to glorify God.”