| | | | “The right to private judgment is the crown jewel of humanity, and for any person or institution to dare to come between the soul and God is blasphemous impertinence and a defamation of the crown rights of the Son of God.”
~ George W. Truett |
Baptists have had a long-term determination to adhere to the Biblical doctrine that they call "Individual Soul Liberty."
Church history verifies that Christians have died for this principle. The teaching that individuals are sovereign in matters of faith is one that Baptists will not compromise.
The individual soul is answerable to Almighty God and to Him alone. This precludes giving up that independency to a pope, a priest, a system, an organization, a convention, a fellowship, an association, or any other human being. None of these are given the authority to interpose anything whatsoever between the individual believer and God concerning any matter of faith.
A person may then choose to be a Baptist, a member of another Christian denomination or to choose no religious belief system and neither the church, nor the government, nor family or friends may either make the decision or compel the person to choose otherwise. Furthermore, a person may change his/her mind at any time.
This doctrine springs from the many examples in church history where the independency of the believer was stifled and sometimes even forbidden. Under the rule of Constantine, Roman law demanded that all people in the Roman Empire become Christians. The result of this law was forcing Christianity upon the masses by infant baptism and a meaningless profession by adults. Accordingly, the Dark Ages are a testimony to the absolute failure imposed on believers when the "church" begins to dictate whatever "truth" it deems necessary to force all members to conform. Not only is Roman Catholocism guilty of this but so are many of the mainline Protestant denominations.
Furthermore, Baptists themselves would do well to avoid the denial of this doctrine. Pastors who overlord their flocks or churches that submit themselves to denominational control will need to return again to the Scriptures concerning this vital historical Bapist distinctive. To demand, whether directly or indirectly, that believers submit to any kind of authoritarian rule is both unscriptural and, in fact, questionable. This generation has seen its Jim Jones's and David Karesh's. Whenever believers give up their individual soul liberty in favor of following the demands of another person or affiliation, they do indeed compromise this essential doctrine of the faith. |
"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
~ 2 Corinthians 3:17
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." ~ Galations 5:1
"But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." ~ James 1:25 |
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