A Major Shift in the Southern Baptist Understanding of Confessions and Creeds

Arguably, for the Southern Baptist Convention, confessions and creeds are functionally coterminous. But how should they be perceived and used? There appears to be a shift occurring in our understanding of the purpose and utility of our acts of confession.

The official Preamble of the Baptist Faith and Message, from its first version in 1925 until 2000, said Southern Baptists approach their confessions as 1) consensual, 2) incomplete, 3) variable, 4) subordinate to Scripture, and 5) for freedom. Twentieth-century Southern Baptists, who adopted and thus authorized the confession, even prompted the last full revision committee to recall important aspects of our freedom legacy in the final days leading up to the 2000 convention meeting. The memory of Baptist origins in religious nonconformity was still alive and well at that time.

During the Conservative Resurgence of the late twentieth century, Southern Baptists thus typically understood their confession was binding upon the owned entities, but not upon the free churches who comprise the constituency of the Convention. Baptists long deemed the church alone to be responsible for its corporate confession, a confession arrived at directly under the rule of its only Lord, Jesus Christ. Southern Baptists were jealous for the sole mediation of the Lord over each church. 

However, the Convention began to be led by prominent voices to be more concerned with culture war and credal precision than with our previous priority on Christological faithfulness and missionary fervor. As a result, they have increasingly forgotten the foundational truths of their Baptist identity. In a hurried rush to achieve uniformity, a twenty-first century bylaw change required churches “closely identify” with the Baptist Faith and Message. This began pushing the SBC toward a bordering confessional model.

The questions facing the SBC now include:

1) Will the churches follow the entities? The frequency of denominational employees addressing controversial church matters and planning to approach the microphones increased visibly this year. One entity president even spoke publicly against a local church leader. A movement founded in rejection of centralized authority must take note of this extraordinary entity-led transition toward denominational centralization.

2) Will the entire confession finally constitute a strict border for the churches? This is a definite shift from previous thought and practice in the Southern Baptist Convention. Entire Baptist confessions typically have not served as enforceable border documents, except in the especially egregious case of anti-Trinitarian heresy after the events surrounding Salters’ Hall in 1719. The need to protect the basic doctrines of the Christian faith is coordinate with Baptist history. Centralizing efforts to enforce secondary and tertiary uniformity upon the local churches should certainly be questioned if not roundly resisted.

3) Will a shift toward doctrinal uniformity change the SBC’s mission, enhance its mission, or hinder its mission? I have argued elsewhere that doctrine drives mission. The move toward centralizing doctrine will doubtless transform our mission in significant ways.

4) Will the SBC use the filter of the plural-elder model of church oversight or the single-elder model of church oversight? The latter sees the senior pastor as the final dogmatic authority in the local church and allows diversity under him, while the former requires uniform offices. The single-elder model has been the dominant understanding, but the enthusiastic advocacy of multiple eldership by certain affinity groups who hold their own meetings around the convention meeting has begun to shape the conversation significantly.

5) Will the centering model taught by the traditional five freedom statements of the Preamble be increasingly replaced by the restrictive confessional assumptions typical of the Reformed churches, ultimately ending in a form perhaps of what W. W. Barnes of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary referred to as “presbygationalism”? Southern Baptists must face the fact that they are becoming more Presbyterian by the year.