Dr. Matthew Barrett’s departure from the Southern Baptist Convention has taken a small corner of internet theology by storm. But more than what he’s departing from, the turmoil has been caused by what he’s departing to — Anglicanism. Critics of classical theology within Baptist circles have already begun turning this into an I told you so moment. Such critics view Anglicism as little more than Roman Catholicism without a Pope, and accordingly view Dr. Barrett’s shift as an inevitable stroke of the paddle across the Tiber river. The retrieval movement as a whole, they would say, is just a paddle behind him.
We, of course, beg to differ. Aside from the fact that the Reformed branch of Anglicanism is about as solidly in the Protestant camp as the PCA, sharpshooting one-off conversions is a game that anyone on any side of any debate can play. Even if Dr. Barrett had made the much more unfortunate (and deadly) move to Rome, this would have no bearing on the retrieval movement as a whole unless it could be demonstrated that our principles themselves demand such a move. The reality is that, far from driving us to Rome, the principles of our retrieval movement is nothing less than a return to the original understanding of Sola Scriptura which drove our Protestant forefathers away from Rome (as has been proved many times and in many places by this point).
Also, while we disagree with the move to Anglicanism, some of Dr. Barrett’s rationale for leaving the SBC is to be commended. Most particularly, his decision to leave the SBC on account of its denial to include the Nicene Creed in the Baptist Faith and Message is more than just understandable. I would not hesitate to call the Nicene Creed the most important creed for any church or denomination to affirm. To be sure, the affirmation of Nicaea by modern apostate churches shows us that it’s not enough by itself, but its teachings represent the very pillar that all essential truths of orthodoxy stand on. As vital as the Reformations Solas are, they’re meaningless without the Triune God proclaimed by Nicaea who stands behind the Solas. You cannot have the gospel without the Christ of the gospel, and any Christ besides the eternally begotten Son of the Father — very God of very God — is no Christ at all. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father (1 John 2:23).
Nevertheless, while I do not criticize Barrett for leaving the SBC, abandoning credobaptism is another matter. In explaining the change of his position, he makes a strong charge against what he calls “the Baptist heremeneutic.” In a post on his substack, he says that the turning point for him was realizing that “the Baptist hermeneutic is truly individualistic—it’s modern to the bone.”
Notice the chain of thought: In his eyes, Baptist heremeneutics equals Individualism, which in turn equals Modernism. Modernism, of course, equals bad. But is the Baptist hermeneutic truly modern? And are the premises of this argument even valid to begin with? This post will be dedicated to answering both these questions in the negative.
What Does it Mean to Have an “Individualistic” Hermeneutic?
Ironically, by arguing that the Baptist hermeneutic is “Individualistic,” Dr. Barrett employs a thoroughly modernistic type of argument himself. When reading the old dead guys like Turretin or Beza, you won’t find them critiquing credobaptists on the basis of being too “Individualistic,” neither by using that express term or some other equivalent. The Individualism-Collectivism dichotomy is itself a product of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and has its genesis in the political/sociological discussions of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx, which was then formalized in the 20th Century by scholars such as Harry Triandis, particularly in the realm of psychology and anthropology. The divide between individualist and collectivist societies is construed as a divide between cultures which value things such as personal achievement, liberties, and autonomy versus those which value interdependence, social harmony, and responsibility.
In my own opinion, it’s one of the most unhelpful and overblown dichotomies that has been needlessly thrust on contemporary discussions of all kinds. Of course, it’s true to say that there are some cultures and movements that value personal liberties more than others, and it’s also true to say that there are forces in the Western world that are abnormally hostile to certain types of traditional group identities and interests (at least if you belong to certain groups), but the difference between individualist and collectivist cultures is a matter of emphasis, not the human nature that underlies each of them. The ability to distinguish self from group is fundamental to man as man. Basic social interactions are impossible without it. It’s simply untrue to pretend (as many seem to do) that everybody before a certain time only thought of themselves in terms of their groups whereas everybody after that time has thought of themselves as disjointed atoms. The common ability of ancients and moderns to distinguish personal and singular pronouns is enough to disprove this.
Further, the emphasis on the individual vs. the collective differs not only between time periods, but between societies of the same time period as well as between individuals and movements within a society. In the ancient world, we can point to the “individualism” of Socrates, for example, who reportedly declared himself to be a “citizen of the world” (cosmopolitan) when asked which country he belonged to. While greatly affectionate to Athens, he viewed himself as under a divine calling to cross-examine everyone and everything, and was more willing to disobey Athens than his personal call, which involved persuading men everywhere about the importance of caring for their own souls more than their persons, properties, and other such earthly affairs. His detractors, of course, claimed his activities were harmful to the public good (see his Apology). Claiming to follow in Socrates’ footsteps, the Stoics practiced a high degree of “individualism” by not only claiming the title of “cosmopolitan” for themselves, but by positively encouraging indifference to the fate of anything around them — whether of their nation, their family, or even their own bodies. They were taught to be indifferent to the fate of any collective they belonged to as long as they preserved their highest good, which they viewed to be the tranquility of their own (individual) souls and a resignation to providence. While acknowledging the duties that providence had assigned them to their families and state, the only collective they acknowledged as truly their own were other like-minded individuals. Hence, Epictetus gave the following advice for the discernment of true friends:
Ask not the usual questions, Were they born of the same parents, reared together, and under the same tutor; but ask this only, in what they place their real interest — whether in outward things or in the Will. If in outward things, call them not friends, any more than faithful, constant, brave or free: call them not even human beings, if you have any sense. . . . But should you hear that these men hold the Good to lie only in the Will, only in rightly dealing with the things of sense, take no more trouble to inquire whether they are father and son or brothers, or comrades of long standing; but, sure of this one thing, pronounce as boldly that they are friends as that they are faithful and just.
Epictetus, The Golden Sayings, LXXXII
For Epictetus and fellow Stoics, “salvation” was highly individualistic and not viewed from the lens of natural collectives of any kind, even of family. The only group they cared about belonging to was the group of individuals who chose to place their interest in the Will. Epictetus, of course, lived nearly 2000 years before modernity.
Likewise, if we look at the ancient world of biblical history, we see that salvation and other goods were not always a matter of belonging to a natural collective, but were often received by individuals apart from their kin and nation. Therefore, it cannot be argued that they viewed everything in collective terms, or always interpreted the promises of God with a “corporate” hermeneutic. It’s true that Abraham’s covenant was corporate insofar as the covenant of circumcision embraced his natural posterity, but Abraham himself did not receive the covenant in a corporate manner. It did not pass down to him corporately — rather, he received it as an individual apart from the household he descended from. Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee [2nd person singular] out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee (Genesis 12:1). By this, Abraham was made the father of believers, which the Apostle Paul tells us was meant to show us that God receives those who come to Him by faith apart from any corporate status like being a Jew or Gentile, or being part of this family or that nation (Romans 4:9-18). Indeed, this is the constant theme of the New Testament, which denounces those who trust in a corporate status and demands the fruits of individual faith and repentance. And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham (Matthew 3:9). Also pertinent to the discussion are the sober words of our Savior, who says He has come to bring a sword within our very houses: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:34-7). These words would be impossible to understand if the ancients were incapable of viewing themselves apart from a corporate identity, or were unable to distinguish between the salvation of an individual and of a group.
Against Abstract Hermeneutics
My point in all this, of course, isn’t to deny the importance of collectives or the reality of corporate promises. It isn’t even to deny that the ancients were more conscious of their group identities than modern Westerners are. Rather, my point is that the concept of self is a basic human principle, not a product of modernity, and thus we can easily find it in the ancient world. The ability of man to distinguish himself and his blessings from others in his family or nation is inseparable from being man. Therefore, since both ancients and moderns can recognize these distinctions, we cannot simply dismiss a hermeneutic as “individualistic” and “modern” because it views a particular blessing or promise as not being corporate in nature. If ancients and moderns alike can distinguish the well-being of a community from an individual, we need to throw out these kind of a priori hermeneutical restraints of individualism vs. collectivism and deal with the particular doctrines at hand. We need to ask whether the Bible depicts this particular blessing as being given to individuals or to corporate entities. And if we come to the conclusion that a particular good is given to individuals, that cannot make us modernists anymore than it would make Socrates, Epictetus, John the Baptist, or even our Lord Himself a modernist. We have to do the hard work of exegesis, and not wave the hand a priori because of a (highly modernistic) understanding we have of ancient psychology. In dismissing credobaptism as individualistic, and modern because individualistic, Dr. Barrett unwittingly embraces the very same tactic that has been used by Roman Catholics like Jacques Maritain to accuse Luther of inventing “the self” by interpreting the Bible as an individual, and thus (according to Maritain) ushering in modernity and all the evils that go with it. If it’s nonsense when Roman Catholics use this kind of argument, then it’s just as much nonsense when our paedobaptist brethren do the same.
It is Not Modern to be Baptist
But the easiest way of all to prove the absurdity of the argument is to point out that Baptists are not modern. Modernity proper is typically viewed as beginning in the 19th Century, well after the start of the British Particular Baptist movement in the 17th Century which we descend from. Our theologians not only used the same pre-modern hermeneutics of the broader Puritan/Separatist movement, we also retained those hermeneutics long after the major universities of the paedobaptists fell into Enlightenment errors. Furthermore, even though the Particular Baptist movement we descend from emerged in the 17th Century, credobaptism as a whole did not. Aside from seeing nothing but credobaptism in the Apostolic church revealed in the pages of the New Testament, we also see no evidence of infant baptism outside of the New Testament until late in the 2nd Century via an indirect reference made by Tertullian, who argued against it. Even then, his reference was more of a warning than an indication that infant baptism was widely practiced at all in his day, which we find little concrete evidence of before the 4th Century. And whatever differences one wants to make between Tertullian’s understanding of Baptism and the common understanding among Baptists today, it’s clear that Tertullian was not viewing the ordinance of Baptism in corporate terms — nor, for obvious reasons, could anyone who upholds credobaptism do so. Therefore, our apparently “modern” and “individualistic” hermeneutic was practiced 1800 years before modernity, as well as by all credobaptists who have defended the practice since Tertullian’s time (which men such as Henry Danvers and Thomas Crosby have long since proven had its witnesses in all ages, even if relatively obscured for a season).
Thus, credobaptism is not only free from the charge of being an offshoot of modern individualism, it also cannot be accused of the other kind of individualism insinuated by Dr. Barrett — a tradition-hating biblicism. It’s most certainly true that our Baptist forebears were willing and able to stand against the traditional consensus of their own day when they found it to be odds with the word of God (as all those who confess Sola Scriptura must do). But while they weren’t afraid to stand against the tide, they also made it plain that they self-consciously considered themselves defenders and reformers of historic Christianity. Otherwise, men like the aforementioned Danvers and Crosby wouldn’t have labored so strenuously to prove that credobaptism was not an innovation, nor would the editors of the 1689 have copied the wording of the Westminster and Savoy word-for-word in all the areas they agreed with.
Concluding Remarks
One of the things I love about reading the old dead guys is the rigor of their argumentation. They were hardly ever satisfied in making a priori denunciations of their opponents’ positions based on some abstract feature of their thought. Instead, they were accustomed to establish their positions via inescapable logical deductions and concrete proof. Not only is Barrett’s formula that Baptist hermeneutics = Individualism = Modernism built on false premises, it’s in and of itself a deeply modernistic form of argumentation, using modernistic categories and leaning on the same kind of abstract comparisons which the modern academy has a habit of substituting in the place of demonstration. If we want to discuss whether or not the ordinance of Baptism in particular is to be administered corporately or not, that’s all well and good. Baptists have never been afraid to fight on that ground, and we can talk about Acts 2 and the distinctions of covenants until we’re blue in the face. But let’s leave these kinds of abstract speculations about ancient psychology to disciplines like sociology, which have little else to work with in the first place. Instead, let’s follow the footsteps of the ancients in earnest by focusing on what can be proved from the text and the analogy of faith. Only then can we cut through the chaff and live out Sola Scriptura in a way that’s consistent with the practice of historic Christianity.
~Andrew Warrick
The Particular Baptist 
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