Wednesday, July 9, 2008

What does it mean to be "Baptist"?

If you attend a Baptist church, it would be very good to know what it means to be Baptist.

Nathan Finn, assistant professor of church history at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (where I attended from 2002-2006), has written an excellent article entitled Christian Identity and Baptist Distinctives. In his article, Finn articulates what Baptists have in common with most other Christians, what Baptists have in common with most other Protestant Christians, and what makes Baptists unique. I highly encourage you to read this article if you have connection with or interest in what it means to be Baptist.

3 comments:

Joe Blackmon said...

Eric

I think he forgot eating fried chicken, skipping the third verse to every hymn and voting the preacher out didn't he?

Eric said...

Joe,

Dr. Finn is talking about Baptists in general. You're talking about my denomination in particular - Southern Baptists. We definitely have the market cornered on what you've mentioned, especially the voting out the preacher part. Yikes!

Joe Blackmon said...

Yeah, I was a bi-vo Southern Baptist preacher. I remember my mother said to my sister who was friends with a preacher's kid at the time "You know why preacher's kids are so mean? They have to play with the deacon's kids." I didn't get that joke til later.

My question about what he left out was really just a joke. Snicker, snicker.