Soul Competency: Getting the Baptist Story Straight

by   R. Albert Mohler, Jr.                                                                                                                                   Vol. VI, No. 5, June 1993

[Dr. Al Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, effective 1 July 1993. Previously he was editor of The Christian Index, the Georgia state Baptist paper. This article appeared as his editorial in the 13 May issue of the Index.]

The Baptist experiment in church government has never been easy to explain to outsiders – who are likely to see the Southern Baptist Convention as slightly organized chaos disguised as a denomination. But, these days, Baptists seem themselves confused concerning the most basic issues of our faith and polity.

The issue of soul competency represents one of the most confused issues thrown about in contemporary Baptist debates. Though the basic issue of soul liberty has been a part of Baptist discussion for at least 250 years, the term soul competency is usually attributed to E. Y. Mullins, the towering president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at the turn of the twentieth century.

In 1908 Mullins released his most famous work, The Axioms of Religion, billed as "a new interpretation of the Baptist faith." In this landmark book, Mullins argued that, "The sufficient statement of the historical significance of the Baptists is this: The competency of the soul in religion."

By "soul competency" Mullins meant the freedom of the human soul from external coercion, NOT its competency to deal with sin or to serve as its own religious authority. [Emphasis added.] "Of course, "Mullins wrote, "soul competency "means a competency under God, not a competency in the sense of human self-sufficiency." Mullins sought to affirm that soul competency excludes "all human interference, such as episcopacy [bishops] and infant baptism, and every form of religion by proxy."

Mullins' great fears were state-enforced religious tyranny and oppressive church hierarchies. But some modem Baptists have transformed the issue of soul competency into a banner for radical Baptist individualism – and have thus redefined Baptist identity more in keeping with American libertarianism than the Baptist heritage.

Television journalist Bill Moyers, sometimes described in the media as a "former Southern Baptist," recently addressed the issue in the course of his sermon at a pre-inaugural prayer service attended by the Clintons and Gores at Washington's First Baptist Church.

"At the core of our faith is what we call soul competency – the competence of the individual before God," said Moyers. "Created with the imprint of divinity, from the mixed clay of earth, we are endowed with the capacity to choose ... to be responsible, a grown-up before God, making my own case, accounting for my own sins, asking my own questions, and expecting in good faith that when all is said and done I'll get a fair hearing and a just verdict."

But this is precisely the competency Mullins rejected. The soul standing before God "accounting for my own sins" is a gospel nightmare. Before the throne of God our only hope is the competency of the Savior – for here the human soul is hopelessly and eternally incompetent.

That Baptists should so quickly confuse the issue of soul competency with radical individualism should not surprise us, for, as Baptist historian Winthrop Hudson warned, modem notions of individualism are all too easily transferred from the secular culture into the Baptist tradition. Hudson – no fundamentalist – charged that the "practical effect of the stress upon 'soul competence' as the cardinal doctrine of Baptists was to make every man's hat his own church."

Hudson warned that such trends "create confusion, introduce dissension, inhibit action, and prevent any intelligent statement of theological under girding of denominational life from being formulated." Thus, some Baptists see the denomination – and their local Baptist congregation – as nothing more than voluntary associations for fellowship and the support of worthy programs.

Mullins himself was concerned about misunderstandings. Just five years after the publication of The Axioms of Religion, Mullins released an even more significant work, Freedom and Authority in Religion. In this book, Mullins affirmed the reality of objective truth – and acknowledged that the Christian faith is incomprehensible without a common submission to that truth. He called for "a synthesis of the conception of freedom and authority" which would affirm both the reality of objective gospel truth and the necessity of personal faith in response to that truth.

The same E. Y. Mullins who coined the term "soul competency" also served as chairman of the committee which produced The Baptist Faith and Message confession of 1925. An unchallenged proponent of religious liberty, Mullins also understood the unique nature of the church as a voluntary association of persons bound by both the experience of salvation and submission to common doctrinal truths. As he stated in 1923, during his term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention:

"There is room for difference of opinion on many themes. There is no room for difference of opinion on the great fundamental verities [truths]."

Just recently, Baptist World Alliance general secretary Denton Lotz told a Berlin audience that "lone rangers" claiming Baptist identity were infiltrating Baptist life in the former Soviet empire, who "have a different view of the church, evangelism and doctrine that we cannot cooperate with, and in fact would warn our Baptist brothers and sisters to avoid." This is the natural outcome if we find a church under each hat. It is a sad sign of the times that Baptists can only discuss doctrine with great difficulty and awkwardness. If this is not corrected, there will soon be no church under the hat.