(ABP) — Do Baptists affirm the priesthood of the believer or the priesthood of believers?
To outsiders, that question — singular or plural — may seem as esoteric as “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” But to many people in Baptist life, it is a question that stirs deep emotion and debate.
Historians and theologians say Baptists have championed the individualism implied by “believer” — singular — but they also have affirmed the sense of responsibility suggested by “believers” —
plural.
“The priesthood of the believer — singular — is the idea each individual Christian is capable of reading and interpreting Scripture and no mediator other than Jesus Christ stands between the believer and God,” said Paul Powell, dean of Baylor's Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas. “Some people interpret this as implying each Christian individual may believe whatever he or she wants to.”
“The priesthood of the believers — plural — is the idea that our interpretation of Scripture should take into account what the church has taught through the ages, such as through creeds and statements of faith,” Powell said. “Some people interpret this as implying that if there is a conflict between what the church has taught and what we believe, we should give deference to the teachings of the church and not to our individual interpretations.”
Both perspectives reflect truth, but they both can be distorted, Powell acknowledged.
“We should not ignore the distilled wisdom of Christian teachers and statements of faith through the years,” he stressed. “On the other hand, the individual may have insights into the meaning of Scripture contrary to the church.”
Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., suggested the emphasis has gone too far toward the singular side of the equation.
“I certainly think that the 'priesthood of the believer,' is a modern distortion of the great Reformation principle,” said George, author of the essay “The Priesthood of All Believers and the Quest for Theological Integrity” in the book “People of God.” “The priesthood of all believers (plural) did not mean either 'I am my own priest' or 'we have no more priests,' but rather 'we are priests to one another' within the covenanted community of faith.
“This is clearly how the early Baptists understood this idea, as can be seen in their strong emphasis on church covenants, church discipline and confessional accountability,” George told ABP. “In other words, freedom was never seen as an absolute value, an end in itself. It was rather a sacred gift matched by corresponding imperative — responsibility.”
The issue of priesthood — singular or plural — is being debated at Baylor University and among the school's alumni factions as a result of a speech by Provost David Lyle Jeffrey last spring.
Audio and printed copies of Jeffrey's 51-minute speech, delivered during a conference at Wheaton College, are circulating among Baylor faculty and alumni. Jeffrey's opinion matters to Baylor because he is chief academic officer of the university, which is embroiled in a controversy over its Baptist identity. He and Baylor President Robert Sloan ultimately direct faculty selection and promotion, as well as classroom content.
In his address, Jeffrey expressed alarm at biblical illiteracy and substandard orthodoxy, not only in secular culture, but also in conservative Christian churches and at Baylor. Jeffrey blamed the decline on what he called “anarchic, postmodern advocacy — or radical subjectivism” — in academia, noting it “drowns all music but its own.”
Jeffrey advocated “communal freedom,” or the right of a university to set group standards, over against the individual freedom of professors. In the postmodern academic realm, “the idea of communal freedom is seen as a threat, perhaps because it suggests the possibility of reciprocal accountability,” he said.
“In their attempt to elevate the individual over community, postmodern educators … have resisted ever more strongly the privilege of counterbalance — of communal freedom to speak collectively … .”
Supporters say Jeffrey merely advocated the longstanding Protestant notion that Christians exist in community, not alone. Critics claim he traded away Baptists' birthright by diminishing their distinctive doctrine of freedom.
The issue is especially potent because Baylor is in Texas, where individualism is woven into the cultural and historical fabric of the state.
“Texas Baptists are big on individual autonomy,” noted Leon McBeth, retired professor of church history at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and author of Texas Baptists' 150-year history.
“But in the whole Baptist family, there are certain bedrock principles we have adhered to and should adhere to,” McBeth added. “If a person gets so set on some issue outside the norm of Baptist faith and practice, I don't know how he calls himself a Baptist.”
A root doctrine of the priesthood of the believer/believers is soul freedom, McBeth said. “We're free under the lordship of Jesus Christ, but we're not free outside of that lordship,” he explained.
One of the most influential books about Baptist freedoms is “The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms” by historian Walter Shurden, executive director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer University in Georgia. Shurden wrote: “Individualism is far from the total picture for Baptists. For the most part, however, Baptists never crouch in a defensive position when the charge of individualism is hurled at them. With all its inherent weaknesses, individualism is to a great degree a Baptist badge of honor.”
Yet Shurden prefers the plural version — the priesthood of all believers. “It is the older term of the Protestant Reformation, and I think the plural represents the fullest possible meaning of the idea,” he told ABP.
“I have lots of friends in Baptist life that use the term in its singular form, but I have never had the slightest idea that they are engaged in Lone Ranger spirituality or that they are minimizing the church,” he continued. “I urge them to use the plural, but I don't accuse them of being 'subjectivists' or 'radical individualists.' Most of the people that I know who use 'the priesthood of the believer' are as devoted church folk as any I know. Look for them on Sunday and they are in Sunday school and church, not at the local gathering of the Libertarians.”
Shurden said Baptists find the plural understanding of priesthood expressed in the New Testament and in early Baptist confessions of faith.
“It is not a Johnny-come-lately concept in Baptist life,” he said. “… Baptists beat [philosopher John] Locke to the idea of the importance of the individual and of individual freedom.”
For Baptists, Shurden said, believers' priesthood means several things — each individual has direct access to God, the church is not to be clergy-centered, the church is a priesthood rather than the church has a priesthood, individuals count, and access to God means responsibility to a local church.
“By individualism Baptists have never meant New Age navel-gazing or 'expressive individualism' that is indifferent to the lordship of Christ expressed in the local church,” he said. “Christians are not isolated priests practicing the Christian faith as if it were a home correspondence course in self-improvement.”
The communal aspect of the priesthood means individual Christians are accountable to a local church, not “a convention of churches, an association of churches, or any other institution other than the local church,” Shurden added.
“Does an individual Baptist have the right and responsibility to interpret Scripture for oneself? Of course! To deny that is to deny much of Baptist history. Can a Baptist believe anything he or she wants? Of course, they can! Can a Baptist believe anything they want and be a member of a Baptist church? No, of course not! The local Baptist congregation is the Baptist pope in Baptist life. The local church determines the parameters of faith and action in Baptist life.”
“Baptists have always — always — affirmed both the freedom of the individual and the freedom of the local church to control that individual,” Shurden concluded.
Several Baptist scholars emphasized that exercising the freedom of priesthood carries a price, such as alienation from fellow believers.
Without that freedom, however, Baptists might not exist today, Paul Powell noted. Baptists' forebears had the courage to contradict majority views of Reformed, Anglican and Congregational churches.
“True Baptists will take their stand and face the consequences when they are compelled by the Scriptures,” Powell said.
“The bottom line is this,” added Baptist historian Bill Leonard, dean of the Divinity School of Wake Forest University in North Carolina. “Every Baptist can exercise his/her priestliness, but that does not mean the rest of the Baptist community can't throw them out.”
“Priestly dissenters shouldn't whine when they get rejected by the community,” Leonard said. “Indeed, they should expect it.”
-30-