Point-of-View

After attending the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Charlotte, N.C., this past June, I wrote an editorial column for Baptist Press reflecting on my experience there as a Christian journalist.

I wrote about the CBF’s unwillingness to define itself and a number of inappropriate comments from CBF speakers. I claimed that the CBF should distance itself from some of the religious opinions expressed at the assembly that were obviously not consistent with Scripture.

The CBF felt the "damage" my BP colleague and I had done in honestly reporting what happened there required a response. On July 22, the Fellowship issued an official statement defending its right to invite the speakers it wished. It claimed that I, as a journalist, failed to understand the Baptist concept of the "priesthood of the believer," which guarantees the Fellowship’s speakers the right to believe and preach unchallenged whatever they wish.

The CBF was right. I do not understand the doctrine of "the priesthood of the believer" because such language is foreign to Scripture.

I am not suggesting that each Christian is not a priest. I am, however, saying concretely and with great conviction that far too many Christians have confused freedom of thought or "liberty of conscience," as Roger Williams put it, with the scriptural notion of being one priest among a kingdom of priests.

Individualism is both the bane and blessing of Christianity in America. The belief that the individual stands before God alone and has the right to practice his or her own faith is centuries old. We owe this liberty of conscience in America to our Baptist forefathers such as Williams, Isaac Backus and John Leland.

But even though such men believed in freedom of thought, they also felt responsible for upholding classical Christian doctrine. It was their duty as priests. For example, while Williams affirmed the right for George Fox to sow his Quaker teachings, he challenged his theological errors in a work titled, George Fox Digged Out of His Burrowes.

Likewise, I agree that the members of the CBF have every right to pursue their own beliefs or unity based on nothing other than their unwillingness to rule any corruption of doctrine out of bounds. But it is not Christian nor Baptist to accept all expressions of theological opinion as equally valid, especially when those individual expressions violate the great doctrines of the faith once delivered to the saints.

When the Apostle Peter wrote of believers being a "royal priesthood" and "a holy nation," he also wrote of the communal nature of the priesthood. Priests were to declare the praises of God and offer spiritual sacrifices to Him as a people who had been brought together by Christ.

The Apostle Paul wrote often about being in Christ and in the church. So simply put, individuality to a very great degree was lost in Christ and the church. The term ecclesia, or assembly, was used prior to the New Testament to refer to a gathering of citizens or an assembly for the purposes of government, but slaves and non-citizens were excluded. In the New Testament the term was used for the gathering of believers.

Christ has made us citizens of His Kingdom, and it is in his Kingdom that we share an identity. We are no longer slaves, no longer non-citizens. In a very real sense, the church was the first to develop the concept of E pluribus unum [out of many one], not the United States of America.

It is time for each and every Baptist to revisit their understanding of the priesthood of every Christian. We should celebrate the right of each individual to practice his or her faith as they see fit, but we must compare individual interpretations of the Scripture with those of the nation of priests or the body of Christ – the church.

I do not believe that our High Priest, as the author of Hebrews referred to Christ, will have it any other way. Our High Priest, the Head of the body, has handed down His words to be carried on by the faithful in the church. Foundational doctrines are non-negotiable. Neither are they subject to the whims of human conscience.

Baptists must decide whether or not extreme individualism will continue to infect the church and potentially produce those who obey their own consciences instead of the word of God.

Gregory Tomlin is director of communications at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He holds a Ph.D. in church history and theology.