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The Baptists

Tom Nettles

What makes one a Baptist?

Are the defining Baptist attributes liberty of conscience and the competency of the human soul? Or are Baptists a confessional people with their identity tied to a set of objective biblical doctrines that they have believed and clearly articulated through the centuries?

In his new book, "The Baptists,Volume One: Beginnings in Britain" (Christian Focus/Mentor), Tom Nettles argues for the latter in what he calls a "coherent-truth" model of Baptist identity. Nettles is professor of historical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Nettles begins by asserting that there currently are two basic?and profoundly different?views of what constitutes a Baptist. The first says Baptist identity is defined by liberty of conscience and the doctrine of soul-competency. Subscribers to this view?which Nettles calls "soul-liberty"?argue that Baptists are defined by individual autonomy and experience. Moderate Baptists typically define themselves in terms of the "soul-liberty" model, Nettles says.

Over against this view, Nettles posits a model?which he calls a "coherent-truth" view?for Baptist identity that is built upon two irreducible foundations. First, he says that Baptists cannot be defined apart from historic Christianity. While the soul-liberty view sees Baptists as holding to a distinctive set of beliefs that set them apart from the broader evangelical community, Nettles argues that Baptists have always held central doctrines in common with Christians of other evangelical denominations.

Second, Nettles says that Baptists historically have built their worldview upon the bedrock of objective, biblical truth. By contrast, those who would define Baptists in terms of soul-liberty seek to build a Baptist identity upon the shifting sands of subjective experience, Nettles says.

"A clear picture of Baptists must involve a more historically comprehensive framework than the soul-liberty view," Nettles writes. "Soul-liberty has no context apart from a certain view of God, sin and the nature of redemption.

 
 
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