“What makes a Baptist Church…Baptist?” These beliefs have historically identified baptists and distinguished them from other denominations:
- Bible as the only rule for faith and practice
- Regenerate and immersed church membership
- Autonomy of the local church
- Priesthood of the believer
- Soul liberty
- Immersion and the Lord’s supper are the only two ordinances
- Separation, both ecclesiastical and ethical
In 1 Peter 1:15 the apostle writes, “as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” This principle is grounded in the OT book of Leviticus (you know, where so many people get stuck trying to keep their New Year’s resolution to read through the Bible), where the Lord declares, “I am Yahweh your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44).
What does it mean to be holy? When God told Israel to consecrate themselves and be holy, he was speaking about a kind of special dedication, to be removed from common use. They were to remain distinct from the surrounding nations by means of different kinds of dress, food, calendar, religious practices, morality and ethics, etc. In other words, they were to make a separation between themselves and their neighbors, so that they would be specially dedicated to the worship and service of God who had redeemed them from Egypt.
In the same way, the NT writers call every Christian to a life of special dedication to God by obedience to Jesus Christ. When Peter talks about being holy, then, he describes it as a refusal to conform “to the former lusts” but to be like “obedient children”. This does not require standards similar to those of OT Israel where we create lists of acceptable clothing, food, entertainment, etc. But it does mean that we must take seriously the call to be set apart from our former way of life as unbelievers.
The apostle John says something similar when he writes: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:15). While sincere Christians may at times disagree about what exactly constitutes the things of the world, we will all strive to obey this command. I’m not suggesting that this is unique to Baptists. If we are distinct at all in the pursuit of holiness, it is because of our commitment to the Bible as the authority in all matters of faith, over against churches that refer to tradition alongside Scripture as their standard.
If we take a step back and see this principle in light of the entire church rather than the individual Christian, we find that the congregation is also called to be set apart for Christ and marked by holiness. For example, in Ephesians 5:26-27 the apostle Paul teaches that Christ gave himself for the church “that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” This requires that churches, like individual Christians, separate themselves from moral and doctrinal impurity of every kind.
One of the implications of this is the practice of church discipline as described in passages such as Matthew 18:15-20 in cases of personal offense and 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 in cases of public scandal. In 2 John 9-11 the apostle states that anyone who gets the doctrine of Christ wrong is to be excluded from church fellowship and support. So the church ought to take instances of doctrinal deviation as seriously as we would (or should) moral scandal.
If the church is to be Christ’s holy bride, having been cleansed “with the washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5:26), then we must take seriously our responsibility to separate ourselves not just individually but as an institution from apostasy. This requires that we not only expel unrepentant sinners and heretics from among our members, but also refuse to cooperate with individuals or institutions who deny the truth. This, too, is not a distinctive of Baptists. Other traditions seek to maintain boundaries of right doctrine and practice, refusing to participate with other churches or organizations whose beliefs are unacceptable. The primary difference is that Baptist churches make these decisions locally, since we believe that each congregation has the right and responsibility to govern itself under the headship of Christ.
Civil authorities have the right to compel obedience to a set of laws, and to enforce penalties for refusing to submit to those laws, but they have no power to make you believe in the moral rightness of those laws.
Another aspect of separation among Baptists that is often misunderstood is the separation of church and state. Baptists have been some of the most ardent supporters of this kind of separation, not out of fear of religious influence in the public sphere, but from our understanding of the priesthood of the believer and soul liberty.
Consider this: when Paul says in Romans 14 that every person needs to be “fully convinced in his own mind,” because everything we do is unto the Lord, he means that issues of religious observance are matters of personal conviction. Is it legitimate for a government to hold sway over the personal convictions of individuals? Can anyone be compelled to believe anything?
Civil authorities have the right to compel obedience to a set of laws, and to enforce penalties for refusing to submit to those laws, but they have no power to make you believe in the moral rightness of those laws. And while this may seem to be a very plain and obvious conclusion, virtually every Christian tradition embraced some kind of church-state partnership from shortly after the conversion of Constantine in 312 A.D. to the rise of the United States and our Bill of Rights. Even today, members of those churches may recognize that voluntary faith is a good, but their creeds and confessions still legitimize the idea of a state church (so long as it’s their flavor of church in league with the state).
Baptists stand against compulsory church attendance and taxation for the support of a state church. They rightly recognize that having a state-sponsored church means that anyone with a theological disagreement is forced to contend with the civil authority as well. And this has always resulted in the violent oppression of dissenters. From the Baptist perspective, the separation of church and state allows for men to believe according to their own convictions, and this is consistent with the teaching of Scripture.