what's baptist about baptists?

At one point I thought about calling this post 'there's more to baptists than baptism.' Brodie and Stuart have been blogging about baptist identity. Brodie wonders whether we have a reductionist baptist identity which says the only thing that makes baptists distinctive is baptism or the only thing that baptists, especially with regard to church membership, are interested in is believer's baptism.  John Colwell says in Promise and Presence that surprisingly most baptist churches do not insist on any form of baptism at all, operating an entirely 'open membership', where profession of faith is all that is required. This I think reflects that in many baptist churches, the membership is not made up of those who are recognisably baptist in any way. A recovery of baptist identity I think is needed, not because I want to encourage denominationalism, but more particularly that I think baptist distinctives to helping us be church in post-christendom. An appreciation of how baptists first emerged in the 17th century and continued to emerge over the last few hundred years would encourage us to take more seriously the word 'baptist'. We don't value theology and doctrine because we don't have a sense of where we've come from, as baptists, as the catholic church, as christians. Interestingly, my church Bunyan is doing a sermon series in the summer entitled 'what's baptist about bunyan baptist' which is precisely looking at baptist distinctives.
 

Comments

[Stuart]

Hi Andy good to read your blog. There is so much I resonate with here. I hope that the series can be kept interesting. I remember sermons on Baptist Principles the recordings of which would have been a cure for insomnia even after a pot of strong black coffee! This is the tragedy, because like you I think that there is so much here that is relevant and radical and possible. In the course I am putting together for the College I have actually shifted to discussing baptist practices and biography rather than 'principles' (heavily influenced here by McClendon) because it is in the practical outworking of stuff not in the theorising that it takes life and gains edge. About to read Cowell in next week or so. Regards

[brodie]

Andy - thanks for your thoughts on this. Like you I'm not interested in baptist identity out of some kind/form of denomdenominationalism. Indeed the main influences in pushing me towards a baptist identity are not themselves Baptists! (I'm thinking of Hauerwas (a methodist) Yoder & Kraybill (Menonnites)and at a streach Volf (now what box do we put him in?)).

I'd like to read some of the 17th cent anabaptists - as a well read guy, what would you recommend I read?

[andy goodliff]

no idea mate on 17th century stuff! i'll let you know when i have to do baptist history and principles. volf is certainly free church and hauerwas is apparently now an anglican.

[sean]

Hi Brodie

Best introduction to anabaptist sources and thought is Walter Klaassen (ed.), Anabaptism in Outline: Selected Primary Sources (Scotdale: Herald Press, 1981).

[fernando]

Without doubt Baptist were post-Christendom before Post-Christendom was either coined as a phrase or used a clever way to market books to a new generation of Christian thinkers.

When I think about "deep distinctives" it pretty quickly turns to tha nature of the gathered church, defined within a separation of church and state in opposition to the parish state church model.

Anyway, I look forward to further discussions on this - hopefully they will spur me to finish my own half-cooked blogseries on Baptist Identity.

[andy goodliff]

Fernando I do hope you get around to finishing your baptist identity series.