Historic Baptist Position

What Is It?

by     David Johnson                                                                                                                                      Vol. I, No. 5, October 1988

The article proclaimed: "The Alliance is for those who have no intention to give up the Southern Baptist Convention, but are determined to stand for historic Baptist principles, freedoms and traditions." It is with this kind of rhetoric that the liberal moderates, or moderate liberal wing within the Convention is protesting the direction in which the Convention is now moving. Although we hear the claim of standing for historic principles, there is little evidence to support that claim.

What is the historic Baptist position? As an Englishman who became a Southern Baptist by choice almost ten years ago, I find myself asking that question and comparing the situation here in the United States with the one that now exists in England. Most Baptists revere Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who lived from 1834 to 1892. Having pastored a church in Essex, England, just two miles north of Spurgeon's birth place, Kelvedon, and just eight miles south of the place of his conversion, Colchester, I became extremely familiar with the reverence given to this great man of God by Southern Baptists, either living in, or visiting the area. I was there for seven years and was involved in ministry on an American Air Base. From 1887 to 1889 Spurgeon was involved in the "Down-Grade Controversy" which arose out of his concern at the movement away from biblical truth within the Baptist Union of Great Britain, not unlike the situation that exists within the Southern Baptist Convention today.

Was Spurgeon right? The conditions that exist in Britain today indicate that he was. The nation that was known as the "Father of Modern Missions" can now be looked upon as a mission field itself. Less than three percent of the British population have any church affiliation, and this figure includes such groups as Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons. Less than one percent of the British population have experienced the "New Birth " that brings a person into a right relationship with God.

What of others from this side of the Atlantic who hold a revered position in Baptist life. There is a move today to downgrade the importance of baptism by immersion, another battle fought by Spurgeon, and yet it was the biblical truth of this practice that brought both Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice into Baptist life as missionaries.

In 1812 having landed in India as Congregational missionaries, Adoniram Judson in particular had wrestled with the Scriptures and the questions of baptism by immersion during his long journey and said: "...he felt it his duty to examine closely a subject on which he felt so many doubts", and "...determined to read carefully and prayerfully and to hold fast, or embrace the J truth, however mortifying, however great the sacrifice."

Adoniram Judson and his wife Nancy were baptized by immersion on September 6th, 1812. Luther Rice having gone through similar travail of soul was not long in following and on Sunday, November 1st, 1812, was also baptized.

Not a great step for us, but for them it meant almost exile in a strange land. Sent out and funded by Congregationalists, they had literally cut themselves off by this act of baptism. All they could do was hope and trust that the Baptists of America would adopt and support them, and this they did. The point is, however, that they were prepared to put themselves in such a position to uphold a biblical conviction.

When we talk about historic principles, we are using abstract terms, but as Baptists, historically speaking, we have been, and God willing, will always be "People of the Book". We should lay aside personal feelings and preferences and in the words of Adoniram Judson: "...hold fast, or embrace the truth, however mortifying, however great the sacrifice."