This tidbit (found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptists) makes me sad: "Baptists are a group of Christian denominations, churches, and individuals who subscribe to a theology of believer's baptism... ...and the autonomy of the local church. They are generally characterized by the practice of immersion... ...and a disavowal of authoritative creeds."
I can understand why they would want to separate themselves from "the world", but why do they find it so important to distance themselves from fellow believers?
I am a member of a Presbyterian church. I didn't plan it that way, it just happened to be the church that my wife and I really liked when we were searching. One of the many cool things about the Presbyterian church is the way it is interconnected throughout the city, country, and around the world, not only by name, but by a real organization that has a legitimate "governance" linking us together. I dig the way that tends towards that unity that Jesus prayed his followers would have.
Furthermore, our particular local congregation (and others) often partners with other churches outside our denomination completely, such as the A.M.E Zion church across town. More unity. But wait, there's even more!
We often use creeds in our liturgy. Our pastor likes to point out that when we are reciting these creeds it is entirely possible that thousands of other believers around the world are reciting the same creed at the same time, in unity with us. Furthermore, by reciting these creeds which are hundreds of years old, we are standing together in unity with believers of all denominations through the centuries, and even into the future! How cool is that?!?
Now, why would you want to disavow that?
You mention two different baptist doctrines. The first is the Autonomy of the local church. While, to my knowledge, there are no direct scriptural statements that say "you must be autonomous," or "you should not be governed by any higher institution than you local body" in so many words, there is a good argument from silence. There may be arguments not from silence too, but I am not by any means an expert on this. The point is that there is no Scriptural example, nor are there any listed qualifications, nor is there any stated mission or objectives for such a inter-church organization or structure. Commands are simply given to local assemblies lead by the Holy Spirit through Scripture.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing you mentioned was the doctrine of ecclesiastical separation, which is not a baptist thing, but a fundamentalist thing (the fundamentalism movement actually had more Presbyterians and Methodists in the beginning than Baptists). It did not dawn on me until just this second, that a possible reason it is primarily a baptist thing today is that (in my opinion) the Baptist distinctive of autonomy protected it from top-down corruption (not to be mean).
The idea is this: God is holy and we are called to be holy. We should separate ourselves from anything that does not align with His revealed Word. False doctrine doesn't glorify God. At there very least we will not align ourselves with an unbelieving church, or one that preaches a false or muddied Gospel.
"Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?" -2 Cor 14-16
This does not mean that a Baptist and a Presbyterian should not go for coffee together, or talk theology together, but one should not form alliances with the other to promote what he believes to be errant doctrine. The specifics of where the lines of separation are vary (the point of the article you commented on). This is something Im still learning, and I hope to come to a position that is biblical, and not just what the people around me believe.
Regarding creeds, I am not aware that baptists are generally against them... I guess if it was on wikipedia it must be true though ;) To my knowledge they were popular for before Bibles were readily available to the common people, and could be memorized. I don't see too big of a need for them today, but I don't think there is anything extrinsically antibaptist about them.
I hope that clarified slightly the reasoning behind some of the baptist ideas you brought up (though I don't claim to speak for all baptists).
*intrinsically
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