What Is a Baptist?

Each June, the Southern Baptist Convention holds its annual meeting. While I had the mixed fortune of missing this year’s gathering, reading all the news articles and blogs before, during, and after—from various sources and points of view—made me think again about what it means to be a Baptist.

There’s an old joke that says when three Baptists gather together, you will have four points of view. But that’s not really accurate. It is much worse than that! There are many, many groups of Baptists. Just to name a few, there are Southern Baptists, American Baptists, Independent Baptists, National Baptists, Cooperative Baptists, Primitive Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Free Will Baptists, Landmark Baptists, Seventh Day Baptists, Reformed Baptists (and probably some Deformed Baptists) , Foot Washing Baptists —well, you get the picture. And the churches (and the individuals in those churches) in each of these groups may (and probably do) have some variations of thought and belief.

In fact, on a Baptist church’s website I was perusing recently, there was a link that was something like, “What Kind of Baptists We Are.” How appropriate! Some claim on their websites to be “faithful and free Baptists.” (Although I haven’t come across it yet, I am sure there must be a church out there that advertises itself as “faithless and in bondage Baptists”!)

It makes you wonder what people “out there” think when they see the word “Baptist.” What caricature comes to their minds, and where did that caricature come from?

It makes you wonder what good a label is if it doesn’t communicate a certain idea clearly.

We could explore that trail of thought down a couple of different forks; it would probably be good to do so. But that will be for another time.

Instead, I want to say a few words about my own understanding of what it means to be Baptist by sharing what I consider some of the distinctive characteristics. Now, this will be "off the top of my head" stuff rather than textbook, so I am sure I could "clean it up" a little and say it better if I wanted to take more time.

1. Baptists believe the Bible is the word of God. Instead of using any “shibboleths” (see Judges 12.1-6 if you need some explanation of that metaphor) by using fancy words to further explain, I will leave it that simply.
2. Baptists believe that having right standing with God through the forgiveness of our sins comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone. We can't work our way to a right relationship with God and heaven. However, true faith always blossoms forth in a changed life that seeks to live according to God's plan.
   
3. Baptists highlight the priesthood of the believer, a biblical concept that says we all have equal access to God without the need for anyone other than Jesus to go to God on our behalf. At its highest level, it means every believer can act as a “priest” to others, pointing people to Jesus.
4. The idea of “soul competency” derives from the last, saying that each soul has the competence to come before God without the need of a priest of a church. This idea rightly says that faith cannot be forced or coerced but must be freely entered into by each person. Unfortunately, many people reduce this idea to, “As a Baptist I can believe anything I want to believe.” While soul competency does lead to the idea of freedom of interpretation, there is a balance. This distinctive must, in my mind, submit to the first. And sometimes the Bible is so clear that it is impossible to hide defective interpretation behind this idea.
5. Each congregation is free to govern itself under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Every church has some kind of human government. Some have hierarchical government. Examples are Catholic and United Methodist, where the pope or bishops make pronouncements that are handed down to each church. Some churches have elder rule, where a group of persons discern God’s will for the entire group. Because of the idea of every believer competent to discern God’s will, Baptists have for the most part been congregational, that is, each church directs its own affairs, often with the entire church discussing and coming to agreement, most often by vote. (If agreement wasn’t reached and the subject was of great importance in the minds of the members, there can often be a new church started!) The main thing is that each Baptist church is independent under God and cooperates with other churches voluntarily. No outside body tells a Baptist church what to do. Individual Baptist churches may be pastor-led, deacon-led, committee or team-led, elder-led, or congregational-led (each church decides that!), but they make that decision on their own. They own and build their own buildings. Groups of Baptists may gather for missions, for discussion, for fellowship, etc., but they do so voluntarily. A group of churches may choose not to associate with another church for whatever reason, but it does not affect what Baptists call “the autonomy” of the local church. (Now you know why there are so many different kinds of Baptists!)
6. Baptism is a symbol—an important symbol—of the Christian faith (rather than a means of grace). This “ordinance”—the word given to baptism and the Lord’s Supper by Baptists—is a command given by Jesus. The most correct understanding of baptism is that it is for believers (and not infants, for instance) and is by immersion. Several other Christian groups have a similar concept of baptism. Baptism is a wonderful symbol that communicates on three levels. Only baptism of believers by immersion encompasses all three. First, baptism symbolizes the washing away of sin. Second, baptism tells the story of Jesus—specifically his death, burial and resurrection. When one is placed under the water, it is symbolic of burial. When a person is brought out of the water, it proclaims the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! Third, baptism tells the story of the new believer: the Scripture says, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6.4). When one is baptized, he or she is proclaiming, “The old me—who did not follow Jesus—is dead. There is a new me! I have been raised with Christ and am now following Him!” Again, the Bible says it best (in 2 Corinthians 5.17): “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” It’s kind of hard to see how any other group could understand baptism differently when they read the words of the Bible. I could have shared more on this, but that is all I want to do at this time.
7. Baptists believe in a free church in a free state. We realized early on that if there was an established church in the U.S., it wouldn't be Baptist! Baptists insisted early on for freedom of religion, and like-minded people joined together to insure that freedom in our Bill of Rights.
   

Baptists also have been characterized by their moral standards. As one example, most Baptists, at least in the U.S., have championed abstaining from alcoholic beverages over the years, many going so far as placing that in their church covenant. This stand goes actually beyond the mandate of Scripture, which labels drunkenness as sin and counsels any consumption of alcohol in moderation. Of course, it is easy to see, with all the heartaches caused by drunkenness and alcoholism over the years, why Baptists felt it an evil to be completely avoided. While I myself have always been a teetotaler and encourage others to see the advantage of such a decision, I think we should be careful in making absolute mandates when the Bible does not. Again, we could write several pages about this subject—and probably will at some point.

One more thing to place Baptists in context: Baptists are one expression of the Christian faith--not the only expression. (Though there are some Baptists who would disagree!) To help the novice a little more, what is termed "Christianity" has today three primary expressions--Catholic (from the roots of the "western" church), Orthodox (from the roots of the "eastern" church), and Protestant (churches that "protested" against practices of the Catholic church centuries ago, and most Catholics today would likely agree that those practices were indeed wrong). The movement of Protestantism had many expressions over the years and centuries--Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Methodists, to name a few. Most people, including me, would count Baptists among that number. Some do not like to label Baptists as Protestants but as a separate movement altogether, because early baptistic people were persecuted by Protestants, so I guess they certainly have a point there. However, Baptists are certainly closely related to Protestants and are generally classified by most (again, me included) as evangelicals, a subset of Protestantism who see the need for each person to have a spiritual rebirth that happens when a persons places his or her faith in Jesus Christ.

Wow! This sounds a lot more complicated than it really is!

Well, I figure you are past bored—if you indeed got this far, so I’ll stop for today. Let me end by saying that I am indeed a Baptist—at least the way I understand it! But the most important quality, the one that makes it more simple than it may sound, is number one—the Bible is the word of God. All other distinctives—like the last one we talked about—must be judged by the first. And we should be willing to change any of the others if we come to understand they are not in keeping with the Bible. I hope all churches everywhere would take that stand. (Then maybe we would all be Baptists!);>)