Speaking To But Not For - Though Not In N. Carolina

Baptists have always claimed that one Baptist can not speak for other Baptists.

Thus, Baptists engaged in public policy have always operated by the following motto:

Speaking To But Not For

Baptists like James Dunn and Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee and Baptists like the late Phil Strickland and Suzii Paynter of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission have never presumed to be the official spokesmen of locally autonomous Baptist congregations. When testifying before legislative committees in Austin or Washington D.C., these Baptists have always been careful to point out that they speak only for themselves.

Hence, the motto "Speaking To But Not For"

No one Baptist speaks for another. The very distinctive that makes us Baptist is called ‘freedom of conscience,’ ‘soul freedom,’ ‘voluntarism’ or ‘the priesthood of the believer. Each of these expressions suggests that as individuals we stand free and therefore responsible before God for our own beliefs. Back in 1971, James Dunn summed up this baptistic idea:

No one group can be the conscience of Baptists. But because we care, we may stir the consciences of those who share a common calling in Jesus Christ. No one report can bring conviction concerning moral imperatives in a confused and confusing social order. Yet, God’s Holy Spirit can and does work through weak instruments to speak a prophetic word, to challenge injustice, to call for advance and to apply a biblical faith to all areas of life.

Unfortunately, the Council on Christian Life and Public Affairs of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has decided to completely trash the historic Baptist belief that "No One Baptist Speaks For Another." Check out this story. A snippet below:

The Council on Christian Life and Public Affairs announced its intention to move from a committee that speaks "to" Baptists to a committee that engages policy makers in the public forum and speaks "for" Baptists.

Ron Varner, pastor of Falling Creek Baptist Church in Goldsboro, reported for the Council on Christian Life and Public Affairs and said he regretted that he is near the end of his term on the council, because "it's just starting to get good."

"We're talking about a shift from just talking 'to' North Carolina Baptists, to talking 'for' North Carolina Baptists in the public forum," he said.

Sadly, the Baptist ideal of The Unfettered Conscience is no more in North Carolina.

The state best known for its rich Genealogy of Dissent has indeed changed dramatically in recent decades.

Apparently the Council plans in the upcoming weeks to take various conservative political positions FOR North Carolina Baptists. The Council even plans to hold a public forum on "what Charles Spurgeon could teach 21st century Baptists on politics." I got $50 that says the forum will forget to mention that Charles Haddon Spurgeon was one of the most vocal and influential British Baptist peacemakers of the nineteenth century...



typed by Alexis

Reflections w/ James Dunn

This is the eighth post in my Recovering E.Y. Mullins and Saving Soul Freedom series. Past posts include: The Golden Hour to Save Soul Freedom, Recovering E.Y. Mullins - Part 5, Saving Soul Freedom w/ James Dunn, On Being An Authentic Baptist, Priests and Prophets, and the original Recovering E.Y. Mullins.

Today, we're bringing back an excerpt from James Dunn published almost 25 years ago in the October 1983 issue of Report From The Capital.

We as Baptists understand instinctively that unless one has the power to say "no" then his "yes" is meaningless. Unless one can refuse then her acceptance is hollow. We know this inwardly because that is the way God made us. We are programmed for freedom. We're wired up as persons with a choice. Unless our chooser is allowed to function we are less than the persons God made us to be.

The Bible teaching about sin takes into account this free moral agency which can be tainted, perverted and used wrongly. We cannot be forced in matters of the will. Being human means being free.

The biblical doctrine of salvation is indissolubly, inextricably tangled with the other great doctrines. That is why we as Baptists want no state-written, government-prescribed prayer in the public schools. We want no tax dollars for our churches or our schools. The best thing government can do for religion is to leave it alone.

Force, even minimal or subtle force, does not mix with freedom. Religious experience must be free to be genuine. Any religious decision that's not free is useless or worse. We come to Jesus Christ freely in love, drawn by His grace. We live the Christian life because-we-have-been-saved not in an in-order-to-be-saved morality. It's grace not Law, Christ not creed, persons not propositions that take precedence in the Christian life. We can't escape from freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Equal Privileges - A Hallmark of Baptists

This is the seventh post in my Recovering E.Y. Mullins and Saving Soul Freedom series. Past posts include: The Golden Hour to Save Soul Freedom, Recovering E.Y. Mullins - Part 5, Saving Soul Freedom w/ James Dunn, On Being An Authentic Baptist, Priests and Prophets, and the original Recovering E.Y. Mullins.

Today's excerpt comes from the May 3, 1994 issue of the Report From The Capital of the Baptist Joint Committee. The author - James Dunn.

Quintessential democracy. The starting gun for sustainable human rights. A laboratory for soul freedom. The baseline for church polity and politics. A consistent corollary for the competence of the individual before God. A Baptist distinctive or hang-up or cantankerousness.

One of all of those phrases fits the affirmation that "all believers have a right to equal privileges in the church." It is elemental: Religious Liberty starts at home. It is a revolutionary doctrine. It's an idea to which most free church adherents pay lip service....

The notion, like all ideals, is far from being realized. Some churches bearing the name "Baptist" withhold equal privileges on the basis of gender, age, race or some other external factor. More individious and common perhaps is the de facto denial of full membership privileges because of some selective system of sin-sizing. A sin of certain assessed magnitude can cut off equal access....

So go back to the principle: All believers have a right to equal privileges in the church.

The same regard for Scripture protects one from believing that equality of privilege refers to an equality of spiritual and mental capacities. Nor does this rule of thumb diminish appreciation for diversity of gifts and differences of calling. The right of direct access to God makes the church a family. Brothers and sisters with a common allegiance to Jesus Christ do not take equality before God lightly or as an excuse for self-centered individualism.

The tangible reality of a fellowship of believers in real time with actual flesh-and-blood concerns bound by love serves as a powerful deterrence to cowboy Christianity. The principle of equal privileges in the church tends to curtail, not create Lone Ranger religion. At least, that is the way it ought to work. Powerful paradox: the lordship of Christ and autonomy of individual soul. "Jesus Christ is Lord" was the first confession of the church. As Mullins wrote, "The first and finest expression of Christ's lordship over the individual believer is the gift of autonomy." Pardox? Mystery? Yes....

...The working principle that all believers are directly answerable to Christ is dangerous, explosive, open to abuse. One can be certain that it will be misinterpreted and misused. Yet, the introduction of indirect authority, creedal filters, mediators and intermediaries poses a greater danger. That danger is the failure to see Jesus Christ as sole authority.

For Baptists to be faithful to our own best insights, for Baptists to continue to champion religious libety, for Baptists to be Baptists, we must practice freedom in our churches. We are guilty of high hypocrisy; full-fledged phonies if we talk freedom of religion and act less than freely at churh. Democracy and vital religion share this ennobled view of individual freedom. All believers have a right to equal privileges in the church.

The Baptist Studies Bulletin

The July issue of The Baptist Studies Bulletin is now available courtesy of Mercer University's Center For Baptist Studies.

The Table of Contents is as follows:

"The Divine Gift" - by Walter Shurden
"Why I Am Excited About The New Baptist Covenant" - by David Emmanuel Goatley
"The Spirituality of Roger Williams" - by Doug Weaver
"My Favorite Books on Southern Religion" - by Wayne Flint
"The World's Greatest Preachers" - by Thomas McKibbens
The Decline of Separation of Church and State - by Bruce Gourley

Each and every month the Baptist Studies Bulletin offers a healthy dose of support for soul freedom and religious liberty. Let's enjoy together a few snippets...

From The Spirituality of Roger Williams by Dr. Doug Weaver....

According to Williams, personal heart-centered religious experience must be voluntary to be genuine. In other words, soul liberty was central to genuine spirituality. Coerced faith was an oxymoron. “Knowing” God’s presence via soul liberty provided the foundation for Williams’ clarion call for his spiritual “doing” – his public rebuke of state established conformist religion in favor of complete religious liberty for all....

State religion gutted genuine spirituality because it denied persons the freedom to read the Scriptures. Williams noted the tragic irony of the English Parliament which worked to make Bibles accessible to “the poorest English houses” and urged the “simplest man or woman” to study the Scriptures, yet these readers were forced to conform to the official interpretations of the state church. The only way to have conformity of belief was to commit “spiritual rape” against the conscience.

Real spirituality? Roger Williams knew that for faith to be genuine, it had to be completely voluntary. A person must be free to worship according to the dictates of his or her conscience.

And from "The Divine Gift" by Dr. Walter Shurden....

I believe . . .

that Congressman Chet Edwards of Texas spoke precious truth. He spoke it at the Fountain Plaza of Upper Senate Park in Washington, D. C. on June 29, 2007. The occasion was a Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty and a partial reenactment of George W. Truett's historic 1920 speech from the steps of the U. S. Capitol. The sponsor was one of the most important religious organizations in this Republic―the Baptist Joint Committee For Religious Liberty (BJC).

Congressman Edwards called religious liberty "The Divine Gift." It really is!! Religious Liberty is God's gift to creation. And how we take it for granted! The political expression of "The Divine Gift" is the separation of church and state. And how that needs to be so desperately guarded in our time.

So, check it out!

Historical Amnesia: A Response to Beth Newman

Beth Newman is a Professor of Theology and Ethics at the Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond. In addition to co-authoring the Baptist Manifesto, Newman writes guest commentary for the Associated Baptist Press.

Recently, Newman advocated the use of creeds in an opinion piece for the ABP.

Newman writes....

Professor Walter Shurden has commented recently on the diverse dangers arising for what he terms the “historical amnesia” of the Baptist people.

Foremost among these dangers he places the movement “from a Christ-centered to a creed-centered faith.” The substitution of which he speaks means, I suppose, the abandonment of a vital experiential faith for a structured recital of theological propositions. These propositions would presumably be used to enforce some rigid orthodoxy.

Now I would agree that historical amnesia is one of the greatest dangers faced by today’s Baptists -- and by most other Christians, by the way. Where I find myself in profound disagreement with Dr. Shurden is his location of danger in the creeds. The creeds are our surest defense against the very historical amnesia that threatens us.....

The historic creeds, while they certainly do not replace Scripture, are a way of shaping this lens. In 2005, in fact, the Baptist World Alliance recited the Apostle’s Creed as it had done at its beginning one hundred years earlier. The first president of BWA, Alexander Maclaren, in his address to the assembly, proposed that their very first act be an affirmation of the historic Christian faith through saying the creed. He rightly saw that saying the Apostle’s Creed is not antithetical to being Christ-centered. Read the rest here.

It was fine for the BWA to recite the Apostles Creed in 1905 but let's remember why this was done. The purpose of the recitation was to let other Protestants know that "we are like you in our basic beliefs. Don't worry about us. We are no less Christian than you."

But again, let's don't think for a moment that most Baptists in 1905 knew the Apostles Creed by heart or that they recited it or any other creed regularly. And let's not think for a moment that Alexander Maclaren was pushing creeds into Baptist Life. There was no effort then or in subsequent years to use a creed in the BWA. In fact, the opposite is the case. Throughout its history, the BWA has been staunchly anti-creedal.

Baptist moderates have always been willing to teach the history of the church and have always used the phrase - "All of Church History is Our History." We've taught the creeds. However, we've simply felt that creeds need not be recited or given a privileged position to have unity (by the way, exactly what creeds is Newman referring to; the Apostles' Creed, Nicea, and others of the early church or do we include Protestant statements like Westminster?).

When we have achieved any unity it has been through a common personal religious experience with Jesus and a common commitment to the authority of the Bible. Perhaps, Newman's historical amnesia is her failure to find value in the Baptist heritage and its warnings about coercive creedalism. Baptists can surely recite creeds if they want to; they are free! But Baptist history tells us over and over again about groups imposing their interpretations of creedal statements against believers. We have no historical amnesia about that.

Throughout her history, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has been criticized for not having an official detailed "confession." That is in part a reaction to fundamentalism and its coercive practices and I expect a recognition that creeds haven't produced much voluntary unity. Nevertheless, the CBF is not without principles. It has adopted a set of core values or doctrinal beliefs. The very first core value is Soul Freedom:

Soul Freedom – We believe in the priesthood of all believers. We affirm the freedom and responsibility of every person to relate directly to God without the imposition of creed or the control of clergy or government.

Allow me to recapitulate: Why put creeds between a believer's reading of the Bible and his/her relationship to God?

No Freedom For The Soul With A Creed!

While the Associated Baptist Press certainly has the freedom to use Beth Newman or other commentators - it's just a bit ironic that ABP, whose existence is so heavily interwined with the CBF, has published an op-ed which appears to contradict moderate Baptist core values.

Since the ABP has chosen to publish opinion pieces, perhaps they should also make room on their website for letters to the editor. The Texas Baptist Standard and North Carolina Biblical Recorder both do this.

Many publications include a disclaimer that says that the views of commentators do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher. The ABP has no such disclaimer. Perhaps a disclaimer is needed?

Or perhaps it's time to add a voice consistent with the principles of soul freedom and religious liberty that most people identify with ABP itself?

The Golden Hour To Save Soul Freedom

This is the sixth post in the Recovering E.Y. Mullins and Saving Soul Freedom Summer Project. See all past posts here. As E.Y. Mullins, J.M. Dawson, G.W. Truett, and James Dunn said time and time again - the freedom of the individual conscience is the cornerstone that precedes and demands religion liberty and her essential corollary the separation of church and state.

The writings of Mullins, Hobbs, Gaustad, Dunn, and most recently Underwood have infected me with the "soul freedom bug." Instead of dabblin' in the latest warm & fuzzy theological trends, perhaps it's time for younger Baptists to recommit themselves to the most basic of our Baptist distinctives...now is the "golden hour" to Save Soul Freedom.

So, I leave you with excerpts from The Wit and Wisdom of James Dunn...

"Freedom is not absolute. No one is 'free as a bird.' Only a bird is free as a bird. We are not free to deny basic freedoms to others. When anyone's freedom is denied, everyone's freedom is endangered."

"We are not free without responsibility. Freedom and responsibility are like two sides of a coin, inseparable. No matter how thin it is slice, the coin of responsible freedom still has two sides. God made us able to respond, response able, responsible, and if responsible, free."

"The competence of the individual before God does not demand and in fact precludes Long Ranger religion. No matter what critics left and right may say, autonomous individualism...does not mean that everyone's church is one's own hat...The longing for community and social Christianity presupposes voluntarism. Without individual autonomy, there can be no authentic community, for folks to be herded together by some sort of semi-sacramentalism or joined in a crusade for social justice does not community make."

"This Baptist belief in religious liberty is not just 'doctrine,' or First Amendment or a political elective. It is, rather, THE baptist basic: soul freedom. Each individual comes immediately to God. All vital religion is voluntary. Even God will not trample the freedom to say 'yes' or 'no' to God."

"There is not such thing as 'required religion,' no such thing as 'forced fellowship' or 'coerced community.' All those phrases are oxymorons, and folks who force, coerce or require are ordinary morons.

"Believing in the separation of church and state doesn't make one a Baptist. But it is hard to believe that one could be a Baptist and not cling tenaciously to that baptistic doctrine. How else do we protect and defend those seminal beliefs in freedom of conscience, the priesthood of all believers, the right of private interpretation of Scripture, real religious liberty for all believers, as well as those who refuse to believe, a free church in a free state?"

"No pastor or priest, no doctrine or disciple, no book or belief, no church or creed comes between the individual and God."

Recovering E.Y. Mullins - Part 5

In an interview with Louie D. Newton in 1955, Karl Barth stated: "How I thank God for E.Y. Mullins. Mullins gave the world a mighty phrase - the competency of the soul." While Mullins did not invent the idea of "soul competency" - he invested energy and meaning in the phrase, placed it at the center of a coherent cluser of beliefs that define Baptists, and explored its religious, social, and political implications.

So, we return to Mullins writings on "soul competency" to explore our Baptist principles...

"The Biblical significance of the Baptists is the right of private interpretation {of}, and obedience to, the Scriptures. The significance of the Baptists in relation to the individual is soul freedom. The ecclesiastical significance of the Baptists is a regenerated church-membership and the equality and priesthood of believers. The political significance of Baptists is the separation of church and state. But as comprehending all of the above particulars, as a great and aggressive force in Christian history, as distinguished from all others and standing entirely alone, the doctrine of the soul's competency in religion under God is the distinctive signficance of the Baptists.

For more posts from this series - see p1, p2, p3, and p4.

Who was E.Y. Mullins?

Saving Soul Freedom w/ James Dunn

This is the fourth post in our newly launched Recovering E.Y. Mullins and Saving Soul Freedom Summer Project. See here, here, and here. Our inspiration for this Project is none other than Bill Underwood, President of Mercer University and New Baptist Covenant organizer, and his Baptist Summit speech given in January, 2006.

Without further ado, I give you James Dunn in his own words excerpted from Charles W. Deweese's Defining Baptist Convictions: Guidelines for the Twenty-First Century.

Soul freedom is the fire that burns in the innards of every true Baptist. From Thomas Helwys' insistence that "the king is not the Lord of the conscience" to this day, the identifying mark of the breed called Baptist is that dogged determination to be free.

No proof text is needed, because the passion for freedom is rooted in the person and nature of God in whose image all humankind is created. Before any constitution, any social contract, even before the biblical revelation lies the way in which we were all made - responsible to God and free to respond (and take the consequences).

If that is the biblical and theological principles driving religious liberty, then the ethical, moral, and social implications of that transforming idea demand that same freedom for every other human being. If we do love our neighbors as ourselves, if we do unto others as we want them to do to us, if indeed, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, we want religious liberty for everyone.

Anyone's religious libety denied is everyone's religious liberty endangered. Firmly rooted in biblical belief and the ethical demands coming directly from those convictions, Baptists have stood for separation of church and state since we were first labeled "Baptist."

The same King James whose name is in the front of your Bible is the one who ordered the death of Thomas Helwys, the first Baptist pastor in England. Helwys' crime was simple: the king was not his spiritual master. Government, however good, could not be God.

One does not go to the Bible for instruction as if it were a political science textbook. Yet, the Bible speaks to the relation of religion to political life. Baptists who slight the distinctive of church-state separation deny their birthright.

Some today cannot see that clear biblical teachings inform one's estimate of humankind, sin, righteousness, and redemption. Biblical doctrine fuels and empowers believers to seek spiritual libeation for all. The Bible has shaped our best insights and noblest traditions as "people of the Book." The universal freedom of religious conscience is taught in the Bible.

On Being An Authentic Baptist And More...

How to recognize a "real" Baptist if you see one

By James M. Dunn

1. If soul liberty is important.

2. If the priesthood of all believers is more than a slogan.

3. If one insists on interpreting the Scriptures for themselves.

4. If one defends the right of each person to come to the Bible and, led by the spirit, seek its truth.

5. If one believes that one must accept Jesus Christ personally.

6. If the church functions as a democracy.

7. If in the fellowship of churches each one is autonomous.

8. If there is no pope or presbyter, president or pastor who rules over you.

9. If religious liberty is the password to public witness and the separation of church and state is its essential corollary.

10. If no mortal has the power to suppress, curtail, rule out, or reign over the will of the local congregation.

In addition to all the fundamentalism-fightin' and random posts about all-things Baptist , we here at www.thebigdaddyweave.com will be Saving Soul Freedom and Recovering E.Y. Mullins slowly by steadily over the next months.

Also look forward to more posts on the upcoming Celebration of the New Baptist Covenant. To help celebrate the upcoming gathering, several new bloggers are about to make their blogosphere debut - including an ordained American Baptist minister who is both female and employed! So, see, some of us do practice what we preach!

With the CBF and ABC hooking up in just a few short weeks, expect pre-coverage and quasi-live coverage straight from ChinaTown. And to plug the William Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society one more time, I will be posting a fascinating story on American Baptist missionary Lauran Bethell and her fight against the Global Sex Trade. So, stay tuned.

Priests and Prophets: Saving Soul Freedom

Back in February, Dr. James Dunn, former Executive-Director of the Baptist Joint Committee and current visiting professor at the Wake Forest University Divinity School, delivered the Walter B. and Kay W. Shurden Lectures on Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State.

Below is a snippet from his lecture entitled "Priests and Prophets"

“If soul freedom is important,
If the priesthood of all believers is more than a slogan,
If one insists on interpreting the Bible for himself/herself,
If one defends the right of each person to come to the Bible and led by the Holy Spirit seek its truth,
If one believes that she must accept Jesus Christ personally, freely or not really …
If in the fellowship of churches each one is autonomous….
If religious liberty is the password to public witness and the separation of church and state is essentially corollary,
If no mortal has the power to suppress, curtail, rule out or reign over the will of the congregation,
You have probably been baptistified.”