VAN BUREN, Ark. (ABP) — Arkansas Baptist State Convention leaders narrowly rejected an attempt Nov. 7 to remove a peculiar constitutional provision on communion and baptism that historians say is rooted in a 19th-century Baptist controversy.
Messengers to the body's annual meeting, held at First Baptist Church in Van Buren, Ark., voted 383-225 to remove the provision. However, the motion required a two-thirds majority, and it fell a few percentage points short.
The proposal would have deleted a passage that has been in the state convention's governing documents for decades. The phrase, following a section noting that the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Faith and Message also serves as the ABSC doctrinal statement, says, “The Baptist Faith and Message shall not be interpreted as to permit open communion and/or alien immersion.”
“Open communion” refers to the practice of offering the elements of the Lord's Supper to any worshiper who is a baptized Christian, regardless of church membership or denominational background. “Alien immersion” refers to Southern Baptist churches accepting transfers of membership from churches of other traditions that also practice believer's baptism by immersion.
Both terms date to the 19th century, and opposition to both practices is among the hallmarks of a Baptist movement commonly referred to as Landmarkism.
“Baptism is not a matter of heritage, history or denomination,” said Greg Addison, chairman of the ABSC committee that recommended removing the provision, according to the Arkansas Baptist News. “Baptism is best and only defined by Scripture.”
Addison, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cabot, Ark., urged reliance on the Baptist Faith and Message section and Bible passages on baptism without further interpretation. He also said the committee “affirmed that we would never step away from any process that would remove or weaken our dependence on the Baptist Faith and Message.”
Addison also argued that the passage conflicts with another in the ABSC constitution that prohibits the convention from interfering with the autonomy of local churches.
But Van Harness, pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Greers Ferry, Ark., argued against removing the phrase. He said open communion is not nearly as much a threat to the doctrinal standards of Arkansas Baptist churches as is alien immersion.
“We all agree that a valid baptism is a prerequisite for church membership,” Harness said. “When we receive someone into our church, we want to be sure they have had a valid baptism …. Only congregations that teach a correct doctrine of salvation and have a correct practice of baptism can authorize and administer a valid baptism.”
Despite the prohibitions, many Arkansas Baptist churches have long practiced open communion and accepted new members from non-Southern Baptist backgrounds without re-baptizing them. Pastor Randy Hyde of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark., said his 95-year-old congregation “has never practiced closed communion, as far as I know.” He also said Pulaski Heights accepts as members those who have received believers' baptism in other traditions.
Hyde said every time he presides at a communion service, he extends an invitation to partake for all Christians present, noting that the table of wine and bread “belongs to God” and not to the church.
“I think that's theologically and biblically correct, and I think the Arkansas Baptist State Convention is representative of a culture that, from my perspective — at least in light of this issue — does not reflect what Scripture conveys.”
Baptist historian Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School, said the Arkansas provision stems from the state's history as a center of Landmarkism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Landmarkism split many Southern Baptist congregations during that period, particularly in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. While some Landmarkists went on to form their own denominations — two are still headquartered in Arkansas — others stayed in Southern Baptist churches.
The Landmarkist provisions come from an era in the South when Southern Baptists exerted much more cultural hegemony than they do today, Leonard said.
“When you had Southern Baptists as the sort of dominant, publicly privileged denomination, then many of these churches could afford to draw these lines, because people were going to join them anyway,” he said.
But today, Leonard continued, many young people and newer congregations have little or no denominational loyalty and have “no comprehension” of concepts like closed communion or alien immersion.
“There's a kind of generic Christianity where these distinctions are difficult to make …. But you still have a core of people for whom these are important traditions,” he said.