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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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