Jackson Waters has delivered a stimulating address called “The Baptist Future?” at Union University, wherein he calls for an elite leadership class of Southern Baptists to unite American evangelicalism. To put it another way, he has issued a call to arms down there in Tennessee that Baptists should step out of the shadows and lead American Christianity. Jackson’s piece warmed my formerly Baptist heart with a bit of nostalgia, particularly because it reminded me of the Baptist way of rallying the troops to an endeavor that is both novel and grand. The best I can tell is that Jackson is not a Baptist and may be more of an Anglican. Nevertheless, he certainly channeled the Baptist spirit in his address.

I recall sitting at a Southern Baptist Convention years ago when I was still wet behind the ears and listening to the fiery, red-faced, hot-preaching Johnny Hunt holler in front of a crowd of several thousand, “I’m tired of business as usual!” The room filled with “Preach it, Johnny!” I didn’t know what the usual business was, but I too, watching that Georgia preacher spit, was tired of it. Admittedly, Jackson’s piece, while channeling that Baptist spirit, took things to a peculiar place. I say this because while he had something of the same confident, system-changing, forward-looking pathos as Southern Baptist preachers I knew so well, those men never would have said, “I’m tired of business as usual! It is time for liturgical feasting!” Southern Baptists don’t do liturgical feasting; they do covered dish luncheons—the best around, mind you.

In short, I am suspicious that the proposal does not only want the Southern Baptists to continue to influence culture (as they most certainly have), robustly engage in pragmatic politics (as they most certainly have), and have certain men rise up to be elites (as they most certainly have). All of that is in the Baptist future and we should thank God for it. But I wonder if Jackson wants Southern Baptists to leave off their presentism, utilitarianism, individualism, voluntarism, and separatism, in order to be a united elite force that will take the longevity approach as an organic head of American Christianity, ushering in the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. That intimate association between the theos and the polis, the heavenly and earthly, the covenantal and the individual, the sacred and the secular, is simply not what Baptists do. They do missions, evangelism, altar calls, and democracy at a level that would make Tocqueville blush with 10,000+ person Robert’s Rules of Order business meetings at the Southern Baptist Convention.

A Few Questions

Given the unique position taken in the address, here are a few questions that have come to mind:

First, in what sense have Baptists been outsiders or in the shadows? A couple of Jackson’s headings are insightful:

“Southern Baptists have long been ‘outsiders’ in the American religious and cultural hierarchy.”

“It’s Time for Baptists to Step Out of Rome’s Shadow and Lead American Christianity.”

Baptists do tend to think of themselves as outsiders to the cultural and religious hierarchy, and this is fitting given their own history and doctrines. Baptists are orthodox, in the sense that they hold to the truths laid down in the Apostles’ Creed. But when it comes to ecclesiology there is a good deal of separatism in their DNA. Baptist origins are a bit tricky, with an Anabaptist stream that was far more radical and an English Baptist stream that was far more orthodox. Even so, the Calvinistic English Baptists of 17th century England grew out of English Puritanism as it expressed itsef outside of the Church of England. There is, therefore, an ecclesiastical separatism that frames their identity.

They also strongly advocate for the separation of church and state. Granted, some Baptists will insist on influencing the state, and Baptists have been significantly engaged in influencing politics. But, they do so with a deep awareness that the church is a heavenly kingdom not to be too cozy with the earthly kingdoms of this world. They aim to clean up politics in a similar way as they attempt to clean up the visible church—as outsiders. Whether they have successfully stayed outside of either is another question, one that I answer in the negative.

Whatever the Baptist self-conception might be, I’m not sure you can say Baptists have been and are really outsiders to the cultural hierarchy. They may not be as wealthy on average and likely do not put as much emphasis on higher education. But America is a pretty Baptist place. As Jackson himself said, “You could almost say ruggedness is the American ethos. And if it’s the American ethos, then it’s the Baptist’s DNA.”

Baptists are the majority Protestant denomination in Congress. If you include all of the non-denominational and Pentecostal types, who are essentially Baptists, then their numbers across the nation really stands out. When it comes to political influence, I recall the Vice President of the United States attending the Southern Baptist Convention when I was there to speak to the assembly that represented nearly 47,000 churches in the United States. If you are elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, it is expected that you will be in the White House. Russell Moore, the former president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, had his meetings with Barack Obama, unfortunately.

Baptists are also training the most seminarians and they have the most church members, claiming nearly thirteen million. When I was a Southern Baptist, it was common to say that we had thirteen million members and the FBI couldn’t find half of them. But seven million still casts quite a shadow over what is going on in the mainline. Numbers themselves do not make a cultural elite, but they do get you access to the White House as that conservative voting block.

To answer my first question directly, Baptists have not been in the shadows or outsiders when it comes to influencing the American church, culture, or politics. But they are self-consciously outsiders ontologically. As the origin of the Baptists is found in Puritans who sought a pure church outside of the visible church in England, they did, in a sense, live in her shadow. That identity remains among Baptists today as expressed in their sacramental and ecclesial practice. To ask them to leave that shadow is to ask them to stop being Baptist. If the Baptist identity is found in being outsiders, preaching hot gospel down by the Jordan River, then to ask them to come serve as the foreman within the walls of Jerusalem is to ask them to stop being Baptists. As Jackson notes, “a growing hesitation about what it means to be a Baptist is leading more and more Baptists to jump ship in search of firmer ground.” And I’m suspicious that the firmer ground commended to Baptists in the address is itself not on the Baptist ship.

My second question is: what would it mean for Baptists to serve as a head to unite American evangelicalism? Jackson writes, “It’s time to unite the body of American evangelicalism, thriving in the South, with the head of a confident, culturally engaged Baptist elite” (emphasis mine).

The problem is that Baptists are definitively and historically not a visibly or civically united people through headship. When Baptist churches started out of the English Puritans who had seperated from the Church of England, they did not form a United Baptist Church. They formed independent, particular Baptist churches. Granted, your run-of-the-mill Baptist in the pew loves the saints through and through and will, in many cases, be all for the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. But it sounds like the recommended future is a visible and civic unity, a tangible unity, a “unity of the body,” not merely a spiritual or heavenly unity. What is more, the call is for that visible unity through a head, some form of organic, formal, covenantal, or ecclesiastical representation. But that is not the Southern Baptist way.

I recall Southern Baptist leaders and friends announcing from large platforms that the Southern Baptist Convention was not a denomination but a convention of independent churches. The Southern Baptist Convention, so it has been said, does not even exist save for two days a year. This impulse is deeply rooted in the Baptist tradition, dating back to the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith published in 1689. That Baptist confession essentially copied the Westminster Confession, making intentional edits here and there. One of those edits was the removal of the reference to the visible church, and the replacement of the visible church with visible saints. Those visible saints join in local assemblies by voluntary association and appoint their leaders by the common suffrage of the voluntary and particular assembly. Given this replacement of one “visible church, which is also catholic or universal” (WCF 25.2) with “visible saints” who make up “particular congregations” (2LBCF 26.2), Baptists are not inclined to cultivate a visible, objective, or formal unity through elite headship.

The non-representative nature of Baptist identity is thoroughly ingrained and historically rooted. Paedobaptism rests upon covenant and representative headship. But the Baptist position, while very much affirming that the husband is head of his wife, Christ is the head of the church, and civil leadership is worthy of honor, has jettisoned the covenantal nature of headship for individualism and voluntarism. It is not without reason that the Southern Baptists call the voting members of their particular churches that attend the annual convention “messengers” rather than “delegates.” Delegates imply representation. A delegate is a representative head. But the SBC messenger is an individual sent to carry a message to a group of individual churches that have agreed to meet together two days out of the year. Thus, the Baptists simply do not have the ingredients to bake the pie Jackson asks them to bake. Baptists have and can influence American evangelicalism and by all means unite Christians around certain truths and goals. But I get the sense that the recommendation is asking for more.

Third question: What is the nature of the victory that the Baptists have won? Jackson writes, “the Southern Baptists are facing a crisis. They have been the cultural critics for centuries, and they have won. They chased the liturgical mailman until they caught him. They proved their point: individual choice matters and makes for a purer church. Now what? They’ve played a highly significant role in shaping Southern culture and life, and now it seems they’re afraid of their own identity.”

The Southern Baptist statesmen I know would say, “You are right about the influence we have had. But we have had that influence in the South due to our identity as separatist, gospel-preaching, particular and regenerate church folk who do not blur the lines between church and state, and do not try to unite American Christianity under a common head. You say we are afraid of our identity. But it is our identity that made us influential. Why do you want us to change it?”

The Baptist spirit is pioneering and fiery and will happily fulfill the call to “run towards the action.” That is just what the Baptists are good at and have been doing. But there is an indication that something is missing: “Being the main show instead of the detractor requires pivoting. What got you here won’t get you there.” I agree that something is missing. But I am not sure that Baptists can go where they are asked to go without shedding their Baptist identity.

The win is that Baptists have kept up the Billy Graham tradition of preaching the gospel, the authority and infallibility of the Holy Scriptures, and that beloved doctrine of justification by faith alone. Their faithfulness has resulted in a Bible Belt culture where the good ole boys in the SEC protect the American flag from the woke mobs, and Blake Shelton can sing about being “baptized in holy water and shine with the dogs runnin’.”

But, and I say this with respect and gratitude to my Baptist friends, the Baptist victory has not been in preserving a pure church through emphasizing individual choice. Conservative Southern Baptists are constantly troubled by how impure things are in Southern Baptist churches. You have plenty of great folks in Baptist churches, but you also have Arminianism, church-growth gurus, women preachers, intersectionality being used as an analytical tool (Resolution 9 from a few years back), and a leadership class that can’t say half of the things Paul said when the New York Times cameras are present.

It is quite right that the Baptists have been a “reform movement of formerly liturgical and dead Christians like Episcopalians and Roman Catholics.” It is also true that “in most of the U.S., there’s no longer a liturgical church to free people from, especially not in the South.” But in order for the Baptists to fulfill the given call, they would have to forsake the deeply held historical and doctrinal distinctives that make them what they are. Baptist leaders might chuckle and appreciate the compliment that they are “the de facto ‘state church’ of the South and the United States.” However, they will not honestly accept that title because it runs contrary to their fundamental beliefs.

There are many walls to be repaired in the New Jerusalem. And the Baptists are a tribe that does a hearty job of repairing their portion in their own way. As Jackson says, “The Southern Baptists aren’t here to look pretty; they’re here to get things done. That’s why they don’t have bishops. They’re the Toyota Tacoma of American Protestantism . . . they’re the best-selling products on the market; they just don’t break down.” I, of course, would welcome Baptists coming to a covenantal position that would include giving the sign of the new covenant to their children. But the Baptist future, taken on the whole, will and must be Baptist. American Protestantism should be grateful for the Baptists, who have much to teach American Protestantism. But the Baptists won’t do that by changing the engine on that Tacoma. They will do so by revving it.

Jared is the Undergraduate Dean and a Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College. He is also an Associate Pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.