Dead Sea Scrolls
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 53, No. 1 – Fall 2010
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
Edited by Michael E. Williams Sr. and Walter B. Shurden. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008. 332 pages. Hardcover, $45.00.
It has become exceedingly discouraging to open a volume on Baptist history only to discover that a number of its contributors have decided to use the occasion to air their grievances against the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. Unfortunately, that is precisely what has happened in the Mercer publication, Turning Points in Baptist History. Using charged words such as “capitulated,” “regressive,” “fundamentalists,” and “devolution” with respect to the SBC, some contributors have blurred historiography with sermonizing. The fact that the editors promise an even-handed approach makes the final product that much more disconcerting . In this context, their decision not to include any chapters by current SBC seminary professors should not be surprising.
Billed as a festschrift to longtime Southwestern history professor Leon McBeth, Turning Points is designed to be an introduction to key moments in Western Baptist history, light on footnotes and technical jargon while heavy on historical accuracy—an unbiased presentation of the data that laypeople and students can use to draw their own conclusions. (Some of the articles seem to have missed the guidelines on footnotes and jargon.)
There are a few useful and well-written articles, most of them covering the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (including helpful overviews of the believers’ church, free conscience, and believers’ baptism). Other valuable chapters include those on early Baptist missions and Baptist racial tensions. More agenda-driven chapters include those on women in ministry, the Baptist World Alliance, and creedalism.
The chapter devoted to racial inclusion illustrates both the positives and negatives of the volume as a whole. It contains a meaningful survey of the Civil Rights movement—short, to the point, and very readable. Then it moralizes on certain Baptist responses to it: positively on the American Baptist Churches, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and the Baptist General Convention of Texas; negatively on the Southern Baptist Convention. It suppresses the view that Americans around the country share the blame for the travesty of racism, and the data that is presented is stretched to exaggerate both the positive and negatives conclusions drawn.
Ultimately, the volume suffers from a primary confusion. The word “Baptist” gets thrown around much like the word “evangelical” in other contexts. There is a very important difference between characteristics that distinguish “Baptists” from other Christian traditions, characteristics that distinguish specific Baptist subgroups, and characteristics that individuals who refer to themselves as “Baptist” would like to see apply to all Baptists. For example, believers’ baptism belongs in the first category, views on a specific theological system such as Calvinism in the second, and views on the ordination of women in the third. Unfortunately, the volume does not clarify those distinctions, significantly limiting its effectiveness. It presents itself as an enlightened Baptist ideal, something all Baptists should embrace. Many Baptists will disagree.
