What exactly is a Baptist? What must one believe if he is to consider himself a Baptist? What makes the ordinary Baptist different from the ordinary Methodist, Presbyterian or Episcoplian? Parts 1 and 2 argued Baptists swim in the same stream of Christian orthodoxy flowing from the Protestant Reformation. There is no “Baptist” version, for example, of the nature of God, sinfulness of men, deity of Christ, his substitutionary atonement, bodily […]
Part 1 suggested Baptist distinctives are vitally important but relatively few. Baptists share the essential convictions of historic Christian orthodoxy. Given a variety of confessions on a particular issue, one would be hard-pressed to sniff out the Baptist from among them. For example, take the following selections from three historic confessions of faith on the authority of Scripture: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not […]
A good friend was recently exploring school options for his daughter. He was drawn to a school which “embrace[s] and adopt[s] the essential truths of orthodox Christianity as articulated in the system of doctrine expressed in the creeds of the Protestant Reformation, including the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Heidelberg Catechism.” He then asked if this contradicted anything he believed “as a Baptist.” The […]