John Grisham at the New Baptist Covenant

I love John Grisham’s books.  So I am additionally excited that he will be speaking at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta, January 30-February 1, 2008.  Why is he speaking?

In announcing the addition of Grisham to the Covenant lineup Dec. 20, program co-chair Jimmy Allen described the author as “a Baptist churchman, not only in regular worship but also in active service. The subthemes of his fiction reveal his understanding of the plight of the poor, his commitment to seek justice in our criminal system, his concerns for environment, and his descriptions of the challenge to reach across the racial lines that divide us.”

Grisham, a self-described “moderate Baptist” whose 21 books have sold more than 100 million copies, has said he probably wouldn’t even be a novelist if weren’t for a concern for social justice. As a young attorney in Mississippi, he said, he heard the testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. He determined to write about the tragic consequences, leading to his first novel, A Time to Kill.

Read the entire article by Associated Baptist Press.

Messy Ecclesiology

The following is a blog post from Craig Nash’s blog. on September 17, 2007.  Any of you who grew up Baptist– well, I think you may understand elementally what Craig is writing about.  Part of the purpose of this blog is to disseminate to a wider audience the voice of young Baptists- this is one voice worth hearing:

MESSY ECCLESIOLOGY

The cover story of a recent Charisma Magazine featuring the worship band of a  church in Waco began by stating that the front man (and namesake)  of this particular band is “taking Christian music to a whole new level. And he’s doing it from a Baptist Church full of college students.” The sentence didn’t read “And he’s doing it from, GET THIS!, a BAPTIST church…,” but I’ve been around the block enough to know that a sense of surprise at (and a subtle disdain of) the particular denominational heritage of a church that is impacting the worship music of a generation was most definitely implied.

Unlike many who grew up in a Baptist church, I get a little defensive when others say or imply things about our heritage out of ignorance. Most students at the small Texas Baptist University I attended took great pains to distance themselves from being identified as Baptist. If anyone asked about their church, they would usually reply  “Well, I’m a Christian who just happens to go to a Baptist church.” (Of course, this was before calling yourself a “Christ Follower” instead of “Christian” went in vogue.)  I’ve always found this a little strange, because most people who would ask anyone about their church probably have learned sometime during their lives that Baptist denominations typically identify themselves as Christian . 

But people can only speak to what they know, and what many people know of what it means to be Baptist is understandably limiting.  Whether it be from experience or hearsay, most, if asked to give a description of a Baptist church, would give an array of answers on topics ranging from the abstention from alcohol, premarital sex, dancing, and humor to the singing of hymns written in the 40’s and 50’s out of hymnbooks from the 70’s.  The interesting thing is, pretty much everyone would be correct in at least part of what it means to be Baptist.  We are much more diverse than you may think.  And the great thing is that we are allowed to be.

When I was a junior or senior in high school there was a business meeting at the church I had been a part of since birth that stands out, in retrospect, as one of the greatest testaments to me of what it means to be Baptist.  These meetings typically followed a standard procedure, kind of loosely along the lines of Robert’s Rules of Order.  We opened with prayer then heard reports on people who wanted their membership moved from our church to another.  After a financial report there would then be recommendations from various committees of the church.  Each of these segments would be followed by a discussion and then a vote.  It could be as tedious as bathing a cat, as we voted on things as significant as purchasing land to the seemingly mundane and no-brainer-in-Texas decision of whether or not to fix a broken air conditioning unit. 

I cannot remember what the subject at hand was in this particular meeting, but I remember two things– 1.) It was quite contentious and 2.) Whatever it was about didn’t seem like a big deal to me.  It was strange seeing people who spent life together, took care of each other’s children, even probably  took turns bailing each other out of sticky financial situations, arguing like children over something that seemed so trivial.

And another interesting sight– The pastor, who moderated these meetings, stood in front of the congregation watching his side of the discussion being marginalized, reduced to just another opinion in a room full of equals.  He looked absolutely wounded.  I actually thought I saw a little tear of anger flow down his reddened face.  It was an extremely uncomfortable moment to be a part of.  It retrospect, though, it was absolutely beautiful.

After I graduated high school and left town, I also parted ways with the church whose memory I’ve grown to love, perhaps more than the actuality of being there.  In the years that passed the tensions grew among various factions in the church.  Shortly after I left, a large chunk of the church defected  to become a part of another Baptist church outside of town, a church that has thrived ever since the new influx of people.  A few years later those who remained turned on each other, resulting in about half of the congregants leaving to form a new church, almost equidistant from the original and the destination of the first diaspora. 

The pastor stuck around for a few years, eventually getting the church to “follow his vision” in constructing a much-too-large building with money that didn’t exist.  As is the story with many small-town congregations, after proving he could “lead,” he left the church with massive debt and a building with way too many unfilled seats.

There are books and movements popular these days that extol the virtues of embracing messiness in our approach to church and spirituality.  People are beginning to acknowledge that God’s movement among us can be equally felt when all the edges don’t come out clean and the loose ends are frayed as when things turn out evident and clear. 

Perhaps nothing creates more messiness in church life than certain Baptist distinctives. Ideas such as Soul Competency and The Priesthood of all Believers, in flowery religious language, celebrate the ability of every person to approach God, and make religious decisions on their own without coercion from the “spiritual elite.” In more streetwise vernacular, however, they are a big middle finger  to the presumption of any single person who believes their position with God and among other believers makes them better able to exercise decisions about church life than anyone else. These distinctives are why Baptist churches tend toward congregational decision-making.

I don’t believe every church should be one-member/one-vote in all decision making. The way most non-rural congregations are, it’s hard (and I believe unwise) to strictly define who is and who isn’t a member. And, frankly, there are decisions such as whether or not to replace a broken air conditioner in Texas, in the middle of the summer, that would be foolish to wait until a business meeting to make.

But I do believe churches silence the voice of the congregation at their own peril. Sure, things run more smoothly, facades remain in place, and, frankly, most people in the pews could care less. But when large decisions are made unilaterally by the strongest, or most prominent, personalities, a sense of loss is felt among those whose very lives and vitality are centered around the life of the church. Long dissertations on the value of “community” become empty and meaningless when community is encouraged in every corner of our lives together, except where important decisions are concerned.

The irony is that when big decisions are handed to the congregation, if true life-giving community is going on, the congregation will typically look at it and discuss it reverently, give guidance, then hand it right back and say “Ok, we trust you, because we know you. We know you do not take your responsibility lightly. We know your devotion to God and to the church, and so we believe you’ll make the right decision here.” When this happens then value, God-given, extravagantly holy value, can be acknowledged in the lives of everyone from the biggest rock star to the lowliest person of simple faith.

Otherwise, no matter how many times we repeat the word community, we might as well just cross ourselves and face Rome.

Joining Together in Atlanta

Jimmy Carter has a brief opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today, where he talks about “Global Divisions faced as Baptists Plan to Convene.  He is talking, of course, about the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, in Atlanta, Georgia, January 30-February 1, 2008.  He writes:

One of the basic premises will be that the doors will be open to all Baptists who choose to share this long-awaited experience.Our common ground will be the words of our Savior when he returned to his home town in Nazareth after his miraculous ministry had been demonstrated around the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

These words are both inspirational and a call to action as we strive to emulate, in our own individual ways, the perfect life of Jesus Christ. There is no way to avoid his emphasis on “poor,” “brokenhearted,” “captives,” “blind” and “bruised.” We pray that the “spirit of the Lord” will also be upon us.

We meet at a time when the global Christian church is numerically strong and changing rapidly, but is sadly afflicted with unnecessary divisions that sap away the strength of our collective ministry.

The event in Atlanta truly is a Celebration- of our strengths as individual streams of Baptists, of rejoicing in the call of Christ on our lives to use our gifts to share the message of His Grace and Peace with the world.  It is a time that we can come together as Baptists to fellowship and share ideas and ministries.

Registration for the Celebration is free.   Go to http://www.newbaptistcelebration.org for more information on speakers, special interest sessions, and how to register.

Family Reunions…Lynchings or Love-ins?

An article by Peggy Hester, of North Carolina:

Michael and I are talking about going to a family reunion in January, a Baptist family reunion. It is the first Baptist event that has caught my imagination in a long, long while. The purpose is not to start a new denomination but to establish connection and respect between many Baptist groups. There will be African American Baptists and white Baptists, liberal Baptists and evangelical conservative Baptists, political Baptists, southern Baptists and northern Baptists, many races, cultures and theologies but all Baptist. Some of the public Baptists like Marian Wright Edelman and Bill Moyers and Jimmy Carter have earned my respect through the years for the living out of their calling in the glare and gaze of an often unsympathetic culture. Other Baptists attending and leading have lived their calling as pastor or teacher or lay person or minister at large somewhat removed from the hurly burly world of public religion but all are searching for what is common and shared among them, not what divides them. There will be women ministers, women pastors of churches and folks who don’t believe women should be ordained in this group, probably. There will be Republican and Democratic Baptists but political affiliations are not the measuring standard for this group. The planning committee has chosen Jesus’ words from his first (and only) sermon in his hometown as the guiding light for this gathering.

Jesus quoted Isaiah… “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” as his text. Jesus then announced that this scripture had been fulfilled that day, in Nazareth, in that synagogue, and everyone was so pleased. They were bragging on Joseph’s boy. The RSV version says “They wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.”

But then Jesus began to meddle. He reminded them that God had done wondrous things for all God’s children, not just the Jews. God had used people from alien lands and religions and cultures to accomplish great things. They were filled with wrath and launched a lynching party, pushing Jesus out of the city and up to a cliff where they intended to push him over. Just like us, whatever our religious identification, our first instinct is to cast out the one who bears a message we do not want to hear.

This powerful text calls Christians to follow in the steps of Jesus and Isaiah by tending those who are overlooked and undertended. It reminds us that we are all strangers in a foreign land and the only way we can survive is to care for one another. Those who can, do and those who need, receive. The give and take, the receiving and giving, flow from the Source, The Spirit of the Lord. Often when I find myself weary of peace and social justice work, I need a balancing act. The Spirit of the Lord, the seeking first for the Source of our Being, the Love that called us all into existence must be the Ground on which I stand, the Rose that lifts my spirit with a sweet fragrance, the Breath that keeps me living in hope, love, joy and peace during times that offer precious little of them. And when I read this text, I find all the doing of good flows from the Spirit. Battle fatigue sets in when we forget to whom we belong and do not visit the Home Place often enough.

“Who are your people?” is a question heard throughout the South and a question that demands an answer. My people are the ones who love God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit in all the shapes and forms and names that we have created to describe the indescribable. My people are the ones doing the work of the Lord in many different ways… visiting women’s prisons, visiting the nursing homes, working to abolish the death penalty, serving as guardian ad litems, sitting with the old and the young, bringing food to the grieving, serving meals at the shelter, those who provide shade in a weary, hot land that has little mercy for the weak and weary.

So bless you all, you angels of mercy who spring from the Source and walk among us as bright beacons of the Light. You are my people and I am proud of you, my kinfolk. May we all, whatever our calling and however we define our faith, remember from whom we come and to whom we will return. May the Spirit of the Lord fall upon us all these holy advent days so that we might show how greatly we have been loved by the breadth and width of our love for others. Amen.

Baptists in the Community- Voluntary cooperation of churches

I hear a lot that my generation is “post-denomination” and they feel that denominations are rather useless.  I have to disagree on several levels.  On the most basic front, however, Baptists have a distinctive that our denominations are built from the bottom up- individual churches voluntarily cooperate together in an effort to do more with the resources they have.

One example of this is our Baptist institutions which include universities, hospitals,  and Baptist Child & Family Services. From their site:

Programs managed or offered through BCFS include residential services for emotionally disturbed children, assisted living services and vocational training and employment for special needs adults, mental health services for children and families, foster care, pre-natal and post-partum health services, and international humanitarian aid for children living in impoverished conditions in developing countries

Here are two examples of what the Baptist Child & Family Services have been at work doing recently:

San Antonio, Texas- the Guadalupe Street Coffee House:

The coffee house is a ministry on San Antonio’s West Side designed to specifically address the root causes of poverty through holistic empowerment of the community’s residents. It is a cooperative program developed by BCFS in partnership with Trinity Baptist Church, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the San Antonio Baptist Association and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Read More About the Guadalupe Street Coffee House.

Because of the efforts of these partners, the Guadalupe Street Coffee House won a Redevelopment Award.

In Laredo, Texas- Healthy Start Laredo works with colonias in Webb County to provide residents with medical and case management services in an effort to decrease disparities in access to health care in the area of maternal childcare. BGCT News had an article about the program yesterday.

These are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the fruit that our cooperation in a denominational system produces.  Before we throughout the denominational baby with the bathwater, we need to seriously think about what we lose when we try to operate our churches completely independently.

Feedback on the Priesthood of all Believers

In thinking about Baptist distinctives, one of the most important, yet simultaneously troubling, is the priesthood of all believers.

As Baptists, we all believe that we each have direct access to God without the need for a mediator (aside from Christ). I firmly believe the priesthood of all believers to be the single most important theological contribution Baptists have made. This belief, coupled with soul competency (the belief that I am freely responsible to interact with God of my own accord), emphasizes the individual’s personal responsibility in salvation and (hopefully) personal responsibility in discipleship.

I use the term “troubling” in the opening paragraph, however, because this priesthood opens up a Pandora’s Box of sorts within local, autonomous congregations. I’d like to list some of the difficulties with the priesthood of all believers and get some feedback from other young Baptists on how these can be engaged effectively within the church:

* The possibility of disunity. Baptists are notorious for their squabbles, and the belief that each person has heard directly from God contributes to this notion. This “ain’t nobody but Jesus gonna tell me what to do” attitude cuts both ways.

* The idea of the priesthood of all believers is supported by two mentions in the New Testament (1 Peter 2 and Revelation 5). In both mentions, it is a collective/plural mention. However, in contemporary Baptist practice it can easily tend toward individualization. How to balance this without being coercive?

* From a pastoral perspective, there is the issue of teaching. Is the pastor simply “one among many priests”? Is there any difference between the pastor and the other priests in the congregation? If so, what? If not, then why a pastor at all?

* How to emphasize the priestly duties that are not simply about myself? Priests have always been charged with helping others connect with God. How does that materialize in Baptist life? Looking forward to any thoughts…

Observations on young Baptists

As Alexis alerted us of, there has been a good discussion happening on the BGCT blog conerning Ken William’s article which appeared in the Baptist Standard last week. Alexis has asked me to post a version of my comments in that discussion here on the TBYPN blog.

These are my thoughts and observations.

First, let me say that I thought Ken’s piece was a good OpEd piece and I am glad the Standard ran it. With so much change on the horizon for the BGCT I am glad they made the choice to allow at least the whisper of the voice from the 20something generation of Church leaders be heard.

I think this debate is good, even as it exemplifies many of the divisions between generations as well as the rhetoric that has driven many 20somethings away from the church.

Here are a few observations from a 26 year old Baptist pastor on his generation of Baptist servants.

1) We are not as great in number as the number of Baptist leaders of our parents generation. But we are out there. We are serving. We have a voice and it is worthy to be heard.

2) We DO want something new. If you ask many my age about “Baptist Distinctives” they will list Business meetings, endless committee meetings, pot-luck dinners, Lottie Moon, Annie Armstong, and Mary Hill Davis.

The bureaucracy of church polity, associational, and convention life does not hold great appeal. At best it is tolerated. But no good alternative has yet to emerge.

Great appeal and hope is found in our historic Baptist Distinctives. We want to recover our understanding and fervent practice of these. We want to limit meetings, staid programs, and bureaucratic organization and strip these down to those that are absolutely necessary and mobilize all the resources of time, creativity, money, etc, that is freed in this process for Kingdom Work.

3) We want to go. This isn’t just our generation, but we are much less prone to send a check to a missions agency than we are to simply go ourselves. Wherever that mission field maybe. And we may not go through a Baptist sending agency.

The danger of this is that the pendulum may swing too far away from cooperative efforts. Cooperation for us may not be the Cooperative program, but will be in the form of a grouping of churches who share a common mission for a people or a place or a specific kingdom work. Hopefully the Cooperative program can remain a part of it too.

4) The label “liberal” does not apply to most of us, but it doesn’t strike fear and loathing in our hearts either. For that matter, neither does the term, “conservative.” By Baptist standards many of us are “liberal.” Many of us are not. Almost all of us have many friends and influences who truly are “liberal” and we feel we are the better for it. For many of us, “Fundamentalism,” is a much scarier label. Let’s just really try to limit the labels.

5) We do desire to unite instead of divide, but for most of our lives we have been taught division instead of multiplication; or, even simple addition. Therefore the BGCT Annual Convention may not hold the appeal that the NBC does, because it is not seen as just another meeting, but represents a chance to unite to some degree. We would never misunderstand a session about “Sexual Exploitation” with the misdeeds of Former President Clinton.

We are looking for a way forward. For many of us the NBC holds hope for the beginnings of a better way. It will most likely not be the solution.

Many of us are waiting for the vision that galvanizes us. And not just us, but our churches and our denomination as well. We know it surrounds the Kingdom of God and enacting the ethics of the Kingdom of God as laid out in the Gospels. We think it has something to do with practicing social justice and serving our neighbor and living missionally. We hope we are moving toward it. We are actively waiting…

6) Most of us identify ourselves as Follower’s of Christ who happen to be baptist. Not as Baptists.

7) Many of us may not know the exact definition of Social Gospel or the differences between the social gospel and social justice. We know we want to serve our neighbor. And for us that includes righting wrongs. Whether our neighbor literally is the person next door or happens to be an entire people group or nation. If the world were following our Creator, there would not be the need for social justice, the problem is that all of us aren’t, so the need is there.

None of this is new or terribly enlightening. It just adds to the discussion. Thank you Ken for the article. Thank you Baptist Standard for running it. Thank you Alexis for allowing me to be part of the discussion on this blog.

Fellow young baptists, in your opinion, who are we? What are our characteristics? What are we looking for? What are we working for?

Enjoy Fantastic Preaching? Come hear this…

Associated Baptist Press published this story on the Preach-In occurring at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in January 2008. Preachers from many different Baptist congregations will be on hand to fill our hearts and minds with the message of Christ. A significant draw will be the preaching of Rev. James Forbes:

James Forbes, pastor emeritus of the Riverside Church in New York, is among those who will preach at the event. Riverside is jointly affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. It was founded in the 1920s by John Rockefeller as a monument to liberal Protestantism in New York City and has remained prominent in the nation’s theological and political affairs ever since. Forbes was the congregation’s first African-American senior pastor, and his predecessors at Riverside’s helm include Harry Emerson Fosdick and William Sloane Coffin.

The mini-homiletics conference is scheduled to take place during the breakout-session times at the groundbreaking conference, which will take place in Atlanta Jan. 30-Feb. 1. The meeting aims to bring together as many different kinds of Baptists as possible in the United States to worship together and discuss how they can cooperate across racial, denominational and ideological lines to work toward common evangelistic and social-justice goals.

Read the article to find out more about the other preachers who will be there- it is quite a diverse group of men and women! The article mentions in particular that :

The celebration of preaching will feature eight pulpiteers. They include five African-American ministers, two women, one associate pastor and one preacher of Latino heritage who currently serves as pastor of a historically Anglo congregation.Several of the preachers are senior pastors of historic African-American Baptist congregations. They include Otis Moss, pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland; Gina Stewart, pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn.; and Julius Scruggs, pastor of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala.

Baptist Unity

A comment over at the Texas Baptists blog on the next generation by a young pastor made mention of the fact that our generation has learned more about division than multiplication. And he’s right. But Baptists (who are Christians) should be about the business of multiplying the Kingdom not dividing it. Mitch Randall has a post about that as well:

We Baptists must face facts; Baptist life has shifted immensely in the last fifty years. From the deep divisions within Baptist denominations to the apathy that exists among a younger generation, Baptists find themselves at a crossroads into their future. The decisions our conventions, institutions, and agencies make now will have a lasting effect for may generations to come. Thus, in a reality where everyone seems to be downsizing, it is time for this generation to cast a vision so large that it will take Baptists to a place they have not seen in recent memory…a unified mission.

His take on steps into that unified mission includes starting by attending the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant in Atlanta, Georgia, January 30-February 1, 2008.

In case you haven’t heard, the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant is a huge, historically significant gathering of Baptists from all over North America. These Baptists do not belong to only one faith stream- but many. All are part of the North American Baptist Fellowship, which is a part of the Baptist World Alliance. Over 20,000 Baptists are expected at this event. The theme of the event is Unity in Christ, based on the call of Jesus to pursue both evangelism and ministry in Luke 4:18-19:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

The Celebration will involve five plenary sessions and 4 workshops on 16 different key topics, ranging from prophetic preaching and evangelism to religious liberty and faith in public policy to peacemaking and racial reconciliation to poverty and the AIDS pandemic. Plenary speakers include Marian Wright Edelman, Julie Pennington-Russell, Tony Campolo, Bill Moyers, Jimmy Carter, Senator Lindsey Graham, William Shaw… The Baptist denominations involved include American Baptists, Cooperative Baptists, National Baptists, Progressive Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, National Missionary Baptists, and more.

The Celebration is an opportunity for Baptists from a variety of different backgrounds to come together and fellowship with each other, hoping to learn a little bit more about our different faith and missions practices all under the context of Baptist understanding. The focus on working together on practical ways to achieve social justice and racial reconciliation appears to many young people to be something new that Baptists are doing.

Because many young adults are interested in creating a new voice for the future that is joined in faith affirmation across racial and social lines, the Texas Baptist Young Professional Network is taking a group of young adults to the Celebration. And we are encouraging many more to go on their own. Is this something that interests you? Do you want to know what other Baptists (of all ages) are thinking and dreaming about? If so, we still have space for you to go. Here is some more information:

If you want to travel via charter bus (for free) from Texas to Atlanta, we have space. Young adults from around Texas will travel together and share ideas about being Baptist, and reflect what they’ve experienced after the Celebration. We’ve also got some reasonably priced hotel rooms but we’ve got to act on the reservations in the next two weeks, so contact Alexis Cooper for more information.

The first night of the Celebration, TBYPN will host a networking and fellowship event for all young adults at the Celebration- connecting young Texas Baptists to global ideas and fellow young Baptists from around the country. It will be $10 but it will be worth it to go. Every young Baptist (under 40) at the Celebration is invited to attend this event.

If you can’t go, know that we in Texas plan to continue conversing about the same ideas that are discussed at the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant. The Celebration is only the kick-off, a next step, to start focusing on Baptist unity. It is about time!

Soul Freedom: A Core Baptist Distinctive

Another TBYPN member, Aaron Weaver, had an article published in the November-December issue of the Report from the Capital, a publication of the Baptist Joint Committee. In his article he talks about being Baptist, his decision to attend the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, and the foundations of soul freedom which allow each of us to make these decisions as Baptists. Here is a teaser:

Just 100 years ago, Baptist minister Walter Rauschenbusch, the father of the Social Gospel Movement, penned a series of five brief articles titled “Why I Am A Baptist.” Rauschenbusch wrote: “We may be Baptists by birth, but we must become Baptists by conviction. …I began by being a Baptist because my father was, but today I am a Baptist, because, with my convictions I could not well be anything else.”

Like Rauschenbusch, I too am the son of a Baptist minister. And like Rauschenbusch, I was also “born” a Baptist. But even after experiencing the coercion and forced conformity of fundamentalism firsthand,I remain a Baptist because of my convictions. At the heart of those convictions is what prominent early 20th century Baptists, E.Y. Mullins and G.W. Truett, referred to as “soul competency,” and James Dunn dubbed “soul freedom.” Walter Shurden has stated that soul freedom is the “stackpole around which Baptist convictions develop.” In the words of Rauschenbusch himself, “The Christian faith, as Baptists hold it, sets spiritual experience boldly to the front as the one great thing in religion.” Indeed, if there is one tie that binds us Baptists together, it is our belief that each person has the freedom, ability, and responsibility to respond to God directly without a human mediator. No priest. No bishop. No magisterium. And definitely no spiritual masters.

Read the rest.

Aaron gets to the heart of one of Baptists’ most important distinctives: Soul Freedom. Also defined as soul competency, the priesthood of all believers.  Walter Shurden defines soul freedom as “the inalienable right and responsibility of every person to deal with God without the imposition of creed, the interference of clergy, or the intervention of civil government.”