Freedom-Two Baptist Views (Part 1)

"Re-Envisioning Baptist Identity: A Manifesto for Baptist Communities in North America" (1997) represents an example of one particular political, epistemic, and sacramental position of Baptists. Written by a group of six Baptist theologians, and acknowledged by several more sympathetic academics, "Re-Envisioning Baptist Identity" was much talked about in Southern Baptist circles for a few years only to fade from interest, though it is still sometimes cited as a position worth rejecting or accepting. It, nonetheless, strikes me as still a worthy statement of a growing sensibility. A "manifesto" makes something manifest; thus, it is both polemic and revolution, both prophesy and self-argument, and as such, it tends to take positions that are strident in tone:

1. "We affirm Bible Study in reading communities rather than relying on private interpretation or supposed 'scientific' objectivity."
2. "We affirm following Jesus as a call to shared discipleship rather than invoking a theory of soul competency."
3. "We affirm a free common life in Christ in gathered, reforming communities rather than withdrawn, self-chosen, or authoritarian ones."
4. "We affirm baptism, preaching, and the Lord's table as powerful signs that seal God's faithfulness in Christ and express our response of awed gratitude rather than as mechanical rituals or mere symbols."
5. "We affirm freedom and renounce coercion as a distinct people under God rather than relying on political theories, powers, or authorities."
   

The writers of "Re-Envisioning Baptist Identity" clearly position themselves against some things, in particular non-communitarian hermeneutics, soul competency (as understood as radical individualism), authoritarian polities, non-sacramentalist views of Baptist worship, and a too cozy mixture of faith and nationalism.

Notice the authors' definition of freedom:

Human freedom is granted as a gift out of God's own triune, loving freedom. Faith is not to be coerced by narrow interpretations that allow no room for ecumenical dialogue nor by authoritarian structures and mandates but neither is a libertarian notion of personal autonomy or social self-determination a true vision of freedom and faith.

Such a definition is not that of Western modernism. The authors propose a way of being free that is bound by a certain kind of pursuit in community, one that begins in the very nature of the ontological Trinity. Freedom is not the individualized pursuit of personal truth, but it is an environment that makes exploratory study and debate possible. This certainly has profound implications for the methods and purposes of collegiate study. Freedom here is to be set free by operating according to the habituation of the art, the exercise of the sport, the order of worship. Freedom is not here understood as that of infinite alterity, the pursuit of endless change for personal happiness and fulfillment, but instead freedom is the joy of living up to one's cherished responsibilities, of finding true happiness in investing in others, which is only possible because of God's enabling gift of grace. The same could be said of a stress on reading communities, on shared discipleship, on sacramental worship, and on a distancing from the nation-state.