Honor to Whom Honor Is Due: A World Premier Scholar

The Apostle Paul reminded the Roman Christians, "Pay your obligations to everyone: taxes to those you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect, and honor to those you owe honor" (Romans 13:7, Christian Standard Bible). While Paul focused upon how Christians must respect government in particular, there is little doubt we must also give respect and honor to all who hold positions of authority. Some retain authority by reason of their office, while others possess authority due to their intrinsic character and their extrinsic work.

In 2016, Michael A.G. Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality and Director of The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, approached me about presenting a paper to honor a significant Baptist historian as part of the Baptist Studies Group of the Evangelical Theological Society meeting in November 2017. While he first mentioned a prominent deceased Anabaptist Historian, Dr. Haykin shifted a few months later to ask me to focus upon a recently deceased and very prominent Baptist Historian.

It was an honor to present an essay on Barrington Raymond White. White exercised an unparalleled influence among Baptist historians after his The English Separatist Tradition was published by Oxford University Press in 1971. Indeed, at the Evangelical Theological Society, I made the bold claim that White should be deemed "the world’s premier scholar during the late twentieth century in the field of English Separatist and Early Baptist history."

Many scholars approached me afterwards to affirm this judgment. They agreed that he was due this honor from his students and colleagues. Now, you can read that essay, since it was recently published in the 2018 volume of The Journal of Baptist Studies. JBS is sponsored by the California Baptist University and edited by Anthony Chute and Matthew Y. Emerson.

Allow me a few words before I provide you the link to that essay. B.R. White should be honored for his critical historical work, because he demonstrated that Baptists derived from the English Separatist movement that arose during the late sixteenth century. For once and for all, in my opinion, White put to rest the claim that the Baptists can be demonstrated to have descended from the Anabaptists.

However, White should also be honored for two further reasons. The second reason that White should be memorialized is that he demonstrated how a good historian should conduct himself or herself with regard to primary subjects and secondary claims about the primary subjects. The essay spends a good bit of time describing White's historiographical method, a method worthy of emulation.

The third and final reason to honor Barrie White is because his personal character continues to shape not only scholarship but also soul. As I stated in the essay, "His sharpness of mind in historical thought, his wry humor, and his gentle demeanor will always stick in my mind and heart as part of what it takes to be a good scholar." White, formerly Principal of Regent's Park College at Oxford University, took time with me when I was a young student in Oxford and reveled in the early English Baptists with me. This venerable man did so, not because he had an agenda to use them for some other reason, but because he appreciated these precious human beings for who they actually were.

Professor White deserves honor because he was an honorable man. His work was received well because it proceeded from his virtuous soul. His legacy is secure because his character as a Christian shaped the way he conducted the tenor of his life. Barrie White is honored because, in the end, honor is due him. Personally, I pray God will grant me at least a modicum of his character. (I hope to honor other scholars and leaders in similar ways in the future, if the Lord so wills it.) 

You may read more about Barrie White in the essay, "The Reformation and Baptist Origins: The Unrefuted Conclusion of B.R. White," which is in volume 9 of The Journal of Baptist Studies. Along with a number of other good articles, also take a moment to read the piece on Walter Rauschenbusch by a recent co-author of mine, William H. Brackney. In this journal, both Brackney and I discuss the Anabaptists and the Baptists in relation to one another, always an interesting subject, as White, his predecessors, and his successors understood.

The Anabaptists and the Truth

Between late 2017 and early 2018, Bruce Ashford worked to invite me to deliver the Page Lectures at the Binkley Chapel in Wake Forest, North Carolina, which invitation was fulfilled this last week. Dr. Ashford is Provost, Dean of the Faculty, and Professor of Theology and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The subject Dr. Ashford asked me to address concerned the Anabaptists. I was a bit surprised these sixteenth-century radical reformers were to be headlined, having concluded the Anabaptists would sadly be consigned a minor place in evangelical thought, primarily due to misinterpretations concerning their theology and their relationship to us today. However, Dr. Ashford was well aware of these difficulties yet felt the evangelical academy would be served by highlighting them anew. We eventually settled on two lecture titles. Let me first describe the lectures, then offer a personal word about Southeastern Seminary.

The Page Lectures of 2018

The Page lectures were established in 1982 to bring a theologian each fall to Southeastern Seminary to address "a subject of concern to the Christian Community." Recent lecturers have included Timothy George, Russell Moore, Craig Bartholomew, and Walter Kaiser, among others. It is quite an honor for this boy from the swamps of Louisiana to join such an august list of theologians. But it is a greater honor to address some typically misunderstood and often unsung heroes of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation.

The first of two mottos held by Balthasar Hubmaier was, in the German, "Die Warheit ist untödtlich." The final adjective of this sentence conveys diverse meanings, and translators have not agreed upon the proper rendering. More dynamically, untödtlich means, "immortal," while literally, it means, "unkillable." According to one translator, the phrase should be taken in the highest Christian sense: "The truth is unkillable." You may slaughter the Truth, and those who speak His truth, but He and His people will rise again. The truth will prevail, even through the cross of death.

Hubmaier's first motto appropriately brings together the two lectures I delivered at Southeastern Seminary in chapel on October 2 and 4. Before his death and resurrection, Jesus called his followers to follow Him by taking up their crosses according to his leadership (Mark 8). After his death and resurrection, Jesus called his followers to carry out his great missionary mandate (Matthew 28). For the Evangelical Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, both the Great Commission and the Cross were very important and were integrally intertwined in theology and in practice. 

The Anabaptists believed that Jesus called all his followers to be witnesses. They also believed that preaching the gospel inevitably put one at risk of suffering and death for the sake of Christ's name. The correlation between cross and commission is profound. Thousands of Anabaptists found this correlation proven an existential reality as they were tortured, drowned, and burned at the stake for the heresy of believing what many evangelicals and Baptists take for granted as established truth.

You can watch or listen to the lectures online due to the courtesy of Southeastern Seminary. You may also see a helpful panel discussion on the Anabaptists and an interview with a Southeastern librarian about pursuing excellence as a Christian scholar. The links are below. The two lecture essays, "The Anabaptists and the Great Commission" and "The Anabaptists and the Cross," will be published either in a collection of essays on missions or with a journal. (There have been different requests to publish them in two venues.)

• The Anabaptists and the Great Commission: audio, video, excerpts
• The Anabaptists and the Cross: audio, video
• Panel Discussion on the Anabaptists: (forthcoming)
• Pursuing Excellence as a Christian Scholar: video (forthcoming)

A Personal Word about Southeastern Seminary

Finally, a personal word: While it is always an honor to be invited to deliver an endowed lecture series at a major seminary or university, this invitation conveyed a special privilege. My wife, Karen Searcy Yarnell, graduated with her Master of Divinity from Southeastern Seminary immediately before we moved to England. Always supportive of her husband's ministry yet perceiving her own call to ministry, Karen convened her seminary studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, continued her coursework at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and concluded them with Southeastern Seminary. Among Karen's professors was Dr. Daniel Akin, who taught her systematic theology at Southeastern. Dr. Akin subsequently served as the Dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, with Dr. R. Albert Mohler, then returned in 2003 to take up the presidency of Southeastern Seminary. 

It was thus a blessing to visit my wife's Alma Mater and again gaze upon the lush greens of North Carolina, where I once served a local Southern Baptist church as their pastor. It was also good to renew fellowship with colleagues at a sister institution. I have been blessed to deliver formal lectures at five of our Southern Baptist seminaries, and the best part has always been the fellowship with my brothers and sisters at these great schools. Alongside personal time with Dr. Ashford and with Dr. Kenneth Keathley, Director of the Bush Center for Faith and Culture and a long-time friend, as well as Vice President Keith Whitfield, who has generously invited me to work with him on several projects, there were special interactions with Vice President Walter Strickland and with Professors Stephen Eccher, John Hammett, and Ronjour Locke. These are quality men who I believe can lead us into the future. It was also a blessing to communicate personally with a number of PhD and Masters students as well as superb staff. 

Southern Baptists should be very happy with the school they are supporting in Wake Forest. This is an institution with deep commitments to orthodox theology, to worldwide missions, and to cultural engagement. In many ways, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is leading the Southern Baptist Convention toward an ever brighter future. The campus atmosphere is personally welcoming, ethnically vibrant, and missionally dynamic. Okay, we will stop there, since I really would like students to come to Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth! Suffice it to say that I am so happy we are able to partner with such a faculty and such a student body. President Akin and Provost Ashford have together built a fantastic seminary community.

Theological Inferences: Be Careful When Reaching Beyond the Bible

     When Scripture makes a theological claim, it is incumbent upon Christians to affirm that claim. However, the theological task is never a matter of merely repeating Scripture (though we should be doing that more than we do!) The task of theology includes speaking to people today about the coherence of the truth claims made in Scripture. Part of the difficulty in the theological task is that different theologians choose to speak in different ways about the coherence of biblical theology. These competing ways of speaking theology arise due to the nature of one of the necessary, though problematic tools that we employ: theological inferences.
     Let us begin with a relevant example. For instance, when Scripture speaks about human responsibility and God holding people accountable for their attitudes and actions, most theologians automatically posit a doctrine of "free will." Scripture itself speaks of the human constituency in terms of "spirit," "soul," "conscience," etc., but "free will" does not appear to be an explicit biblical category for humanity. "Free will" is thus a theological inference that derives from the theological task. Such theological inferences may be useful as ways to clarify and categorize our thoughts about God and His creation, but they should be carefully used. A theological inference may be true, and may be in some way based on Scripture, but it still remains a human theological inference rather than a theological claim explicitly affirmed in Scripture.
     "Free will," which is, in my opinion, a legitimate theological inference, very often becomes part of the theological framework that theologians attempt to construct. Personally, I have tended to shy away from using it too much, though I freely affirm my fellow theologians in their use of the term. Why do I personally shy away from its heavy use? Well, because once you have one theological inference, you then must relate it to other theological claims and inferences. Why do I then affirm its use? Well, because we must engage in theology if we are to be faithful to the Word and the task of preaching, and there is little doubt that the term is helpful to many preachers.
     Let us dwell upon the first point--the personal reticence to use some theological inferences too heavily--a little more. Again, we appeal to the example of "free will," though there are many such inferences in theology. Once a theologian has posited "free will," he may feel compelled to step beyond that and use the concept in more substantial ways. This is especially true in Western theology. Standing at the headwaters of Latin theology, Augustine of Hippo posited this human constituency of "free will." He then felt compelled to propose how human "free will" should be related to divine sovereignty, which is an explicit theological claim in Scripture. He also felt compelled to relate human "free will" with the problem of the Fall of humanity into sin with Adam. Augustine then went on to make his answers foundational for his doctrines of infant baptism, the relation of nature and grace, etc.
     Inevitably, then, in order to maintain theological coherence, other questions are raised. For instance, how do you relate human "free will" with divine sovereignty and with the Fall of humanity? Well, some theologians see the human "free will" as determined by God from eternity, while others say it was corrupted in the Fall and therefore is no longer "free" per se, while yet others see it as created by God and as being involved in Adam's fall but that human beings retain their freedom even through the Fall. Of course, then these diverse theologians begin to argue and classify each other's ideas and each other with categories. Historically, in the Dark Ages names started being thrown about, such as "Augustinian," "Pelagian," "Semi-Augustinian," "Semi-Pelagian," and later, carrying on the medieval fascination with scholastic systems, "Calvinist," "Arminian," "Modified Calvinist," "Moderate Arminian," etc. Of course, there were also the terms "error" and "heresy" too often loosely scattered.
     Mind you, and here we are being overly charitable, these Christians at their best are each attempting to be responsible theologians and arrive at some conclusion to the matter in order to maintain the coherence of their theology. But also mind this, most departed from direct biblical claims and began to build theological inferences upon both the theological inferences of men and the theological claims of the Bible. This way of doing theology is also tied up heavily with Roman claims for the infallibility of councils and popes. This stacking of inference upon inference and claim upon yet more inferences and claims results in what we call systematic theology. (Yes, I do this type of thing for a living. And, yes, it is something that all Christians should necessarily do, for it is part of submitting our minds to God.)
     However, in spite of the necessity of systematic theology with its structure of inferences and claims, it would be beneficial if we remembered that the human theological inference and the biblical theological claim are not of the same status. When God's Word speaks, it is incumbent upon every Christian theologian to say, "Amen!" When a preacher speaks about God's Word, and the listener's heart is prompted by the Spirit to affirm that that too is God's Word, then say, "Amen!" However, not everything that a preacher says about God's Word may itself be God's Word. (Jesus warned us about this, and those noble Bereans in Acts 17 understood this well, for they judged Paul's preaching by the Word.)
     Part of what this theologian or that preacher says may be an inference, an inference to which my own heart has not been prompted by the Spirit to say, "Amen!" Why would I not say, "Amen!"? The possibilities are (1) that the Holy Spirit has not illuminated that biblical truth to me; (2) that I am in rebellion against God's Word and Spirit; or (3) that the theological inference is itself a human inference that God's Word really doesn't teach. How then do we arrive at the truth of the matter?
     In such cases, humility and community must, among others, step in and have their say. Humility with a theological inference means that I must recognize that my theological inference, such as "free will" or "effectual calling" or "prevenient grace," may have a tenuous biblical basis. Indeed, the latter two inferences strike me as being more difficult to establish than the inference of "free will." This means that there is actually a hierarchy of inferences: on one end are such doctrines as the Trinity and inerrancy, which are soundly based in the scriptural witness, and on the other end are such doctrines as effectual calling and prevenient grace, which are based upon a system of inferences and claims. As one of my fellow faculty said this morning, some theological inferences are legitimate as walls, but not as "load-bearing" walls. This is a very good point!
     Humility demands that I be careful with my theological inferences so as not to assert that they themselves are direct theological claims from Scripture. Humility demands that I be careful not to place undue weight on human inferences. Humility demands that I always hold my system, especially those sections heavily dependent upon inferences, in some degree of suspicion. I may believe in this way of reading Scripture, because I am convinced that it is constructed from the theological claims of Scripture and from legitimate theological inferences from Scripture. However, my theological system is still my response to Scripture, my human construction.
     Community also has a role as we discern the truths of Scripture. This is what Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 14 and what in the Radical Reformation is called the "law of sitting" (German Sitzerrecht, Latin lex sedentium.)  Let the preachers speak in an orderly way and let the others sit and judge. The Anabaptists were so willing to go into formal disputations with Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman theologians, because they believed truth was arrived at together, that the text would lead Christians together into the truth. Sadly, they were often wrongly accused as heretics and then horribly tortured. Thousands of them were burnt at the stake, drowned for being baptistic, and driven mercilessly from their homes by Catholics and Reformers alike. Christian history presents some horrible lessons for us, today, in these matters.
     In spite of the difficulties of theological construction and discussion, I still believe that we can arrive at theological truth through theological inferences as we listen to Scripture together, but only if we will orderly and patiently hear one another. This entails a willingness to return to Scripture in order to establish each and every claim and inference, alongside the freedom to reject inferences not firmly based in Scripture. This is where we are as Southern Baptists right now. I have longed to see us converse about theology and do this well. I pray we will. I am committing myself to listening patiently to others, even as I remember that theological inferences must be handled carefully, for with them we are reaching beyond the Bible. And reaching too far beyond the Bible is always a dangerous move.