Forget Not the Old Paths

Remembering Simplicity in Retrieval

When I was growing up, a call to not forget the old paths (Jeremiah 6:16) usually was a rallying cry to certain views associated with fundamentalism such as King James Only-ism. With the baggage that came with that phrase, I usually restrain myself from employing it due to those connotations. However, with a lot of chatter surrounding the announcement of Matthew Barrett, former professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, joining the Anglican communion, I believe it is wise to not forget the old paths. Baptists need to remember and celebrate two distinctives of our tradition—simplicity and ordinariness.

In the past decade or so, a call to retrieval in the Baptist tradition went forth. This desire to show how Baptists stand in the line of “The Great Tradition” is a noble one. Baptists are not innovators when it comes to the Trinity, Christology, and the great doctrines of the gospel. Baptist confessions of faith clearly incorporated direct language or summary statements from the great ecumenical creeds. I have benefited from the work of The London Lyceum and The Center for Baptist Renewal who aim to help Baptists understand the way we are inheritors of the Chrisitan tradition. There is a history in Baptist life of being unnecessarily sectarian and isolationist, communicating an impression that Baptists did not learn from the ancient, medieval, and Reformation churches. Such a view fails to understand the commitment to orthodoxy that the earliest Baptists possessed.

Though there is a lot to glean from this retrieval movement, I do fear that there can be a tendency to forget one of the core components of the Baptist movement. Whether it was Thomas Helwys, John Spilsbury, Roger Williams, or Benjamin Keach, the earliest Baptists championed the idea that the Bible sets forth New Testament religion as simple and ordinary. This is not to say that the depths of the gospel are not wondrous. Theological formation involves complex issues needing to be digested. Yet, our forebears like C.H. Spurgeon possessed the ability to distill the grand truths of the faith and make it understandable for the ploughman. I believe it is possible for Baptists to be consumed with theological retrieval in a way that causes us to forget that the essence of our movement was geared towards the common man.

The Baptists of old were not devoid of doctrine. They were serving a theological feast to the people. Andrew Fuller, John Broadus, and Alvah Hovey knew how to model an “intelligent piety” in their labors over the Scriptures. A renewed Baptist commitment to intelligent piety will lead to avoiding cultural pragmatism, mooshy sentimentalism, and haughty intellectualism. Walking the old paths of Baptist life will introduce men and women to heroes of the faith who were orthodox and evangelical, covenantal and congregational, confessional and biblical.

This leads me to close with this word of admonition: read the Baptists of old. I am struck by how the Baptist movement of today seems to have little awareness or familiarity with their own tradition. In 1900, B.H. Carroll preached a sermon surveying the previous one hundred years of Baptist history. He spoke with such ease regarding the Baptist figures of old. Would any prominent Baptist figure today have the ability to speak extemporaneously about men and women who helped shape the Baptist movement? While I am not advocating for people to read only Baptists, I am saying that we need to help retrieve our primary sources. When you spend all your time reading another tradition and soaking it in, it is no surprise when you begin to consider your tradition as small and defective. For me, the test of a pastor is whether he can communicate his doctrinal views to a rural church and that church can understand. Baptist pastors of old like Isaac Backus and Oliver Hart carried out ministries in such a way.

I am not ashamed to be a Baptist. I embrace the doctrines of grace which are commonly called Calvinism. To some, I carry the monicker of being a Reformed Baptist. I am thankful for that heritage and tradition. Yet, being “reformed” is not the most important part. For me, being a Baptist is the critical component of my theological identity. In being a Baptist, I am committed to seeing the reformation carried out to its fullest design. That is exactly what William Kiffin, Thomas Monck, and Nehemiah Coxe believed they were doing. Those are the old paths that I want to trod.