by Brandon D. Smith
Catholicity is not mere squishy ecumenism, bent on minimizing the differences between varying denominations or traditions. Catholicity can also be more than congenial separation, bent on playing nice with others while over-emphasizing differences. Perhaps a better way forward is to describe catholicity in terms of contribution—how a particular denomination or tradition adds its voice of the church catholic’s choir.
As a Baptist who cares about catholicity, I often spend my time showing how Baptists fit into the Christian tradition as a way to demonstrate that Baptists can and should retrieve the theological and exegetical sensibilities of our Christian forebears from the patristic era to the Reformation. This is partly because, at least in my contexts, Baptists have an over-realized separatist spirit. We need to be reminded of the essentials of the faith shared with other denominations and traditions.
The danger, however, is forgetting to emphasize the distinct inflection of the Baptist voice, causing some to wonder (fairly) exactly what it means to be Baptist as we pursue catholicity. With that concern in mind, I’m workshopping here three ways that Baptists can sing in the catholic choir. Certainly other denominations or traditions care about the following points in similar ways, but I hope to see Baptists really lean into our particular emphases on these points.
1. The Sign of Credobaptism
I’m not overly interested here in adjudicating the biblical and historical superiority of the credobaptist position, though I’m convinced of it. Instead, let’s think for a moment about credobaptism’s particular form and function contributes to the choir.
While I ultimately disagree with paedobaptism, there is a certain beauty in the sacramental sign of children entering the covenant community. Some Baptist churches perform theologically- and eccesially-robust child dedication ceremonies that have a similar ring, though obviously performing different functions.
But when a person is baptized by immersion upon their confession of faith, that baptism is its own beautiful covenantal sign—a tangible picture of the baptism, burial, and resurrection of Christ as the person is lowered into the water and brought up again, and a sign of entrance into the covenant community of the church. Moreover, whereas the Trinitarian formula is pronounced over the subject of paedobaptism, the subject of credobaptism professes faith in the triune God of that baptismal formula. An adult convert who is baptized in a paedobaptist or “sprinkling” context can also profess; but the most obvious inflection, of course, is the mode of being immersed as a tangible picture of the burial and resurrection.
When the church hears the Trinitarian confession and sees the person buried and raised with Christ, they witness a tangible sign of the gospel. Paedobaptists have their own way of singing the gospel tune, but credobaptism adds its own voice to the song. Sometimes it feels like a “Sunday special” solo act that feels slightly off key, but we can sing with conviction and passion nonetheless.
2. Religious Freedom and the Separation of Church and State
Given Baptist history and the origins of our tradition, Baptists have a particularly thick understanding of the tenuous relationship between the church and the government. While there is no doubt that the Baptist tradition is not totally monolithic on this count (and defining what a “Baptist” is for about 100 years is tricky), there is nonetheless simply no room in the Baptist tradition for magisterialism or theonomy, and even a modified postmillennialism would have a hard time making a legitimate insertion.
Whereas many other traditions have practiced or argued for a closer relationship between church and state—oftentimes at the expense of and in persecution of Baptists—we Baptists pride ourselves on freedom. A Baptist magisterialism or christendom would be, to put it mildly, a serious novelty and departure from the Baptist tradition. Even when Baptists in history have spoken well of an idealized “Christian nation,” it is accompanied with the sobering reality that an emphasis on the freedom of church and conscience is the way we pilgrims sojourn through this earthly kingdom.
In Western cultures like America in which a creeping anti-religious stance influences the government, Baptists need not join the world’s political choir. Rather, we should offer a voice singing that Christ is the Lord of the church and the conscience, and governmental interference in either place is a threat to religious freedom for all of us. Indeed, Baptists should be leading the way among the church catholic in our relationship with the government as those whose tradition has history, experience, and theological development with respect to both religious and non-religious governmental prejudice and persecution.
3. Biblical Primacy
Let me offer a few caveats here. There is not a single denomination or tradition within the church catholic that doesn’t take the Bible seriously. The primacy of the Bible is essential to any group that wants to call itself Christian. Perhaps the best way to frame when I’m getting is to say that Baptists have always had a particular ethos when it comes to the primacy of Scripture over tradition. Whether it was always fair or not, Baptists have historically critiqued Rome and Princeton on this point.
A Baptist-turned-Presbyterian friend once told me that the most Baptist residue left on him is a dogged commitment to Scripture, so much so that his colleagues sometimes tell him (cheekily) that it really is fine to use the Westminster Confession as an authority for theological commitments. Indeed, it’s a good Baptist instinct to say, “Show me this in the Bible, sir, and then we can tell about your creeds and confessions.”
Of course, this Baptist ethos is so strong that modern Baptists have sometimes abused sola scriptura under the guise of “soul competency,” the priesthood of all believers, expositional preaching, and/or the autonomy of the local church in a way that minimizes the importance of creeds, confessions, and even sacraments/ordinances.
As a response, those of us who pursue catholicity have reacted against this anti-creedal bent. I’m in print all over the place arguing that Baptists need to recover our love for creeds and confessions. But there is a real danger when pursuing catholicity to fall into the Corinthian trap of saying “I am of Augustine or Aquinas or Calvin.” Christian labels are fine enough—I’m a Baptist after all!—but when our theology becomes dominated by quoting creeds or theologians of the past rather than Scripture, we are singing a bit out of key.
On this point, I’m more concerned about Baptists who pursue catholicity and feel the need to apologize for some Baptists’ over-realized “biblicism” than me trying to assert that any other group doesn’t care enough about the Bible. Baptists are historically creedal/confessional people, but that Baptist emphasis on biblical primacy and Scripture as the center of Christian life and worship should be sung loud and proud. Just because our tradition has, oddly enough, found a way to abuse biblical primacy, we should not apologize that Baptists are above all things a people of the Book. We should, instead, belt it out.[1]
Baptists have a voice to contribute to the church catholic’s choir. We should be proud of being Baptists! Rather than threatening the cause of catholicity by either minimizing our differences or highlighting division, we can think of how we offer our own beautiful voice to a symphony of beautiful voices, all awaiting the day we praise our God together in the new creation.
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[1] Special thanks to Jordan Steffaniak for helpful feedback that hopefully made this point clearer.