From time to time, people move from one Christian tradition to another. This is not a new thing, although sometimes it can be painful and unpleasant as one pulls up anchor, says goodbye to friends and loved ones, and heads for another shore. These things happen. And the best that we can do after all the conversations are done and attempts to persuade are over is wish each other well with as much grace as possible. That is why it is usually not necessary to comment publicly on such departures.
But Southern Baptists have just witnessed a departure that unfortunately may require some comment. Dr. Matthew Barrett, well-known SBC seminary professor and prolific author, has just published an essay explaining why he is leaving the SBC for Anglicanism. In his essay, he levels more than one broadside against the SBC and unfortunately bears false witness in the process (Exod. 20:16).
I won’t rehearse the whole essay here, but here’s the gist of it. Dr. Barrett says he is leaving the SBC not only because of the attraction of Anglicanism but also because the SBC has “officially rejected” the Nicene Creed, does not have the polity to sustain orthodoxy, covers up sin to protect its “image,” and perpetrates “spiritual abuse” upon its parishioners. These are serious charges made in public and for that reason deserve a public response. I’m sure I won’t be the only one to do so. But let me take them each in turn.
(1) Barrett claims that the Southern Baptist Convention has “officially rejected” the Nicene Creed. This mischaracterizes what happened in a recent failed-effort to add the Nicene Creed to the Baptist Faith and Message. At the time, I publicly opposed the proposal, but not because I oppose the Nicene Creed. Rather, it was because the procedural precedent was bad and because I think that if we are going to do this we ought to affirm all three ecumenical creeds. So I opposed the measure but did not oppose the Nicene Creed itself. Indeed, my own Southern Baptist church joyfully confesses every week the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds. Characterizing opponents of that particular proposal as “officially rejecting” the Creed is a slander against faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. It also overlooks the fact that the SBC adopted a resolution just last month reaffirming its long held commitment to Nicene orthodoxy.
(2) Dr. Barrett also claims that the SBC doesn’t have the polity to sustain Nicene orthodoxy. He says our congregational model inflicts “spiritual abuse” on parishioners. This is not the place to rehash long standing differences between Episcopal and Baptist polities. I am a convictional Baptist and believe congregationalism is the teaching of Scripture, and I will go to the mat to defend it. But I would ask Dr. Barrett if his new chosen polity has preserved orthodoxy in the LGBTQ-affirming church of England? Or in the LGBTQ-affirming Episcopal Church USA? Any polity can be corrupted by sin, including a congregational polity. But I am far happier with the results of the SBC’s congregational polity than with what I’ve seen in Episcopal polity in the West. Ultimately, these questions have to be settled at the level of exegesis and theology, not at the level of tendentious claims about the incorruptibility of episcopacy. The Bible is our authority, not pragmatic observations about what polity seems to work best.
(3) Dr. Barrett claims that the SBC covers up sin to protect its “image.” This accusation is both serious and vague. It’s not even clear what he is referring to. Who is covering up sin? When did it happen? Is he aware of some ongoing cover-up? A serious charge like the one he made should be sustained by real evidence, not by slapdash accusations on a blog.
Dr. Barrett has one final broadside against the SBC near the end of his essay:
I have much peace now that I’m out of the SBC. I experienced an angry fundamentalism in the SBC, one based out of a deep-seated fear. Believing in classical theology and publishing in classical theology brought on no little harassment. I finally realized it was not possible to do true academic work in classical theology within the SBC without fear of constant inquisition. I kept telling myself otherwise, but at last I came to see the obvious: I care most about what is being taught; they care most about who is doing the teaching. The latter is toxic for scholarship when coupled with that second-degree separation mentality. It violates the academic’s duty to engage people of different ideas. When you have to separate from everyone who does not first become “like us,” you might as well dig a grave for the intellectual life.
Perhaps what he experienced was not really an “angry fundamentalism” but the natural response of any confessional denomination to a person who appears to be wandering away from our confessional boundaries. No one in the SBC will be “harassed” for holding to the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3)—including Nicene orthodoxy. But where he will feel pushback is when he starts wandering away from Baptist confessional commitments. To put it bluntly, no Anglican is going to feel comfortable teaching in our seminaries. We aren’t Anglican, and we never will be.
Jonathan Master recently reviewed Dr. Barrett’s edited volume on On Classical Trinitarianism. That volume included a contribution by a feminist Anglican priestess who elsewhere contends that we should address God as Mother because it “helps to work against the ‘phallacy’ that God is male.” Apparently, Dr. Barrett’s retrieval project has room for an unorthodox Anglican priestess, but it doesn’t have room for Southern Baptists. Many of us who have been watching this unfold see this as a substantive problem, and it’s not “secondary separation” to say so. It’s simply being vigilant about the truth.
I wish that Dr. Barrett had left without issuing these scurrilous broadsides. A peaceful exit is better than a contentious one. But he didn’t do that, and his charges deserve to be answered. Perhaps he will reconsider and retract. Until then, he should expect for Southern Baptist pastors and seminary professors to be at their posts and defending the biblical faith and practice of our churches. We aren’t going away, even if he does.
