Review: Baptist Why and Why Not,

J. M. Frost, Timothy and Denise George, editors,

one of the Baptist Classics series, Broadman & Holman, 1996.

Review by T. C. Pinckney                                                                   Vol. XIV, No. 8, September 2001

J. M. Frost, Jr., was the foremost Southern Baptist of his time. He graduated from Georgetown College in 1871 and served churches in Kentucky, Alabama, and Virginia before becoming the first General Secretary of the Baptist Sunday School Board. In 1900 Frost published the original edition of Baptist Why and Why Not, a collection of essays by noted Southern Baptists, including Frost.

The present volume consists of eleven selections from the original in Part I, two chapters from another volume by Frost titled The School of the Church, and in Part III nine selected writings by Frost.

Because the selections represent eleven different authors and an even larger number of different topics, it is impossible to give a concise summary of the book. Perhaps it is best to say simply that reading Baptist why and Why Not will give the modern reader a much clearer understanding of issues within and the stance of the SBC between approximately 1890 and Frost’s death in 1916. But this is of more than merely historic interest.

The battle for biblical authority in the SBC, particularly at the state and local church levels, continues. Liberals, relying on personal recollections of values and procedures in their own experience, project into the decades before 1950 and even before 1900 an exaltation of individual judgment over obedience to the Word, the autonomy of the local church over any right of the SBC or a state convention to establish doctrinal criteria (for example, on homosexuality or female senior pastors) for participation, and – at the even more extreme left – a focus on doing social good rather than evangelistic missions.

While no major theological shift springs full blown without progenitors, such unchristian beliefs and practices were certainly not characteristic of the Southern Baptist Convention originally, as is demonstrated by Baptist Why and Why Not. Let me present just two quotations from the many in the book to substantiate this. Frost writes:

“... We accept the Scriptures as an all-sufficient and infallible rule of faith and practice, and insist upon the absolute inerrancy and sole authority of the Word of God.

“We recognize at this point no room for division, either of practice or belief, or even sentiment. More and more we must come to feel as the deepest and mightiest power of our conviction that a ‘thus saith the Lord’ is the end of all controversy. With this definitely settled and fixed, all else comes into line as regards belief and practice. Church relation and membership must be determined not by family ties nor business considerations, nor social conditions, nor personal convenience, but simply and solely by the teaching of the word of God; and if conviction makes men stand apart, then better stand apart than prove false to one’s highest self.” (Pp. 17-18)

And R. M. Dudley states: “Religious liberty does not consist in the right to do as ones pleases in religious matters. ... There is no room left for the exercise of my individual preferences in the kingdom of Christ.” (pp. 22-23)

I highly recommend Baptist why and Why Not. It should be available in any LifeWay Christian Bookstore, or you can order it online from LifeWay by searching for LifeWay Christian Resources.