“All we do is just believe the Bible,” Marcus Jerkins said, recalling a familiar claim from his childhood church. “And I came to find out that is a Baptist way of thinking. We just believe the Bible.”
That simple phrase — at once devotional, historical and deeply contested — framed the closing plenary of the 2026 Joint Annual Conference of the Baptist History and Heritage Society, the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion and the Association of Ministry Guidance Professionals. The May 20 session at Smoke Rise Baptist Church in Stone Mountain, Ga., brought Baptist scholars into conversation with Baylor University professors Doug Weaver and Mikeal C. Parsons, authors of The Bible in the Baptist Tradition.
The session explored how Baptists have read, interpreted and argued over Scripture across four centuries. Weaver and Parson’s new book traces the Bible’s role as a source of authority in Baptist life, examining freedom of conscience, believer’s baptism, local church independence, personal and communal experience, the work of the Spirit, modern biblical scholarship, and debates involving race, gender and sexuality.
The session explored how Baptists have read, interpreted and argued over Scripture across four centuries.
Rather than offering a narrow review of the book, panelists used it as a springboard for a larger conversation about Baptist identity, memory and interpretation.
Elizabeth “Ebby” Arnold, scholar-in-residence for The Candler Foundry at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, said the book “highlights the diversity within Baptist life” and helps readers see why Baptists often define themselves by explaining what kind of Baptist they are not.
Arnold said one of the book’s strengths is that it shows how Baptist thought developed over time, not merely what Baptists concluded. The book, she said, addresses “the how, not just the what,” helping contemporary Baptists become more thoughtful about how they continue the tradition.
“In that sense, this book may have that historiographical element of shaping the future in addition to narrating the past,” Arnold said.
Kim Bodenhamer, a biblical scholar and senior academic writing consultant at Baylor University, said the scope of the project itself was remarkable: “A topic like Baptists and dancing or Baptists and saints and icons might be easier to condense, but they took on Baptist and the Bible.”
Bodenhamer emphasized the book’s usefulness beyond the academy. Its opening chapter, she said, offers a “helpful and accessible entry point” for students, seminarians and congregations seeking to understand Baptist identity.
“There’s not just the one Baptist, not just in an academic setting, but in our churches,” she added.
Her reflections also turned toward the future of Baptist engagement with Scripture, including new technologies that are changing how people read and ask questions of texts. “This book has prompted me to think about how we narrate our past,” Bodenhamer said, before asking, “Where are we headed?”
She noted that “AI will fundamentally change how younger generations interact with texts even and maybe especially the Bible.”
Marcus Jerkins, senior pastor of New Pilgrim Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., said the book broadened his understanding of Baptist identity and its many expressions. “The overall scope of this work is quite remarkable,” he said, calling it “fundamental for the advancement of our understanding of Baptist identity.”
Jerkins gave particular attention to the book’s treatment of race, memory and biblical interpretation, praising its willingness to place difficult Baptist uses of Scripture within the larger story of Baptist identity.
“One of the failures of the current moment is amnesia.”
“One of the failures of the current moment is amnesia,” Jerkins said.
Sandy Martin, professor of religion at the University of Georgia, extended that discussion by emphasizing the role Scripture has played in African American religious life. Martin described how Black Christians drew on the Bible to refute racist interpretations, scientific racism and claims that denied Black dignity, history and civilization. His comments underscored the Bible’s role not only as an object of debate, but also as a resource for resistance, community and faith.
In their responses, Weaver and Parsons returned to the book’s central claim: Baptists have consistently appealed to biblical authority, but they have not always agreed on interpretation. Parsons summarized Baptist interpretation as “rich, complicated, conflicting and conflicted.”
Weaver said Baptist diversity is rooted in a particular understanding of faith. “The heart of Baptist identity for me is personal experience,” he said. “It’s the experience of personal voluntary faith.”
Parsons said the authors had hoped even the book’s title would reflect Baptist variety. “There is no one Baptist tradition,” he said, but “multiple expressions of the Baptist point of view.”