A recent doctrinal statement has been released wherein Southern Baptists are implored to reject Calvinism as a theological benchmark and to embrace a series of doctrinal affirmations and denials that presumably affirm a kind of baptistic Arminianism. And indeed a number of prominent and respectable Baptist ministers and theologians have signed their name in approval. The document may be read here.
I have only briefly looked over this document, but I plan on
reading it much more carefully in the near future. I will blog on this more
fully at a later time. Nonetheless, I have a couple of preliminary
observations:
“. . .we are asserting that the vast majority of Southern
Baptists are not Calvinists. . . We believe it is time to move beyond Calvinism
as a reference point for Baptist soteriology.”
Though I generally agree that Calvinism as a baptistic
nomenclature is less than helpful (for reasons of ecclesiology and missiology
rather than soteriology), I am troubled when the writer asserts that the majority
of Baptists are not Calvinists. He may be right about this (in a robust 5 point
sense); yet, I find myself asking: how does the writer know? In other words, he
did not publish his research.
Also, something else disturbing to me is that the doctrinal
affirmations and denials lack nuance. For example, when speaking of election, double
predestination is assumed, and there is a failure to acknowledge moderate Calvinism
which opts for preterition as an alternative—something that is historically
quite common among Calvinists (Andrew Fuller for instance). The result of this
lack of nuance is that though I realize my theological views are often different
from the writer of this document, I am nonetheless affirming and denying right
along with the document (with some obvious exceptions of course). And, the
writer, as a result, is in danger, at times, of making a caricature of this so
called “New Calvinism.” If we can agree (and I’m preaching to both sides now) that
many of our theological conclusions are the same, then, perhaps, we can co-exist
with a greater degree of unity. More on this later…
