0.5 2.1 from submission to freedom: ideology informing baptist  (Page 2/5)

Accepting the premise that the Bible contained a concrete and tangible system of thought that was authoritative and final, Baptists sought to decipher its pattern logically and follow it faithfully. Through the middle of the nineteenth century, most Americans shared their view of the "plenary inspiration" of the Bible, "believing," according to Aileen Kraditor, "that the Scriptures were literally the word of God, infallible not only in matters of moral and religious truth but also in regard to statements of scientific, historical, and geographical fact." Aileen S. Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), p. 64 Kraditor adds that the vast majority still held these convictions in the 1880s. ibid., p. 65. In Texas, as in other frontier and rural areas, the inerrancy of the Bible, as interpreted rationally and heightened with the emotional heat of evangelistic fervor, was synonymous with "pure and undefiled religion." This formula, born of the extension of the Protestant Reformation into the age of science, was endowed with timeless authority by nineteenth-century Americans, connecting them with first-century Christians in a pure line of certitude.

Although a radical Reformation, biblical-centered version of Christianity dominated the intellectual climate of Texas Baptists, there were other ideological winds whose force helped form their opinions and guide their activities. They did not separate these strains from Christianity, but read them into the biblical witness. These ideas, however, existed apart from Christianity and it from them in other ages and cultures. In the nineteenth century they had temporarily blended to inform and reflect the burgeoning cultural pattern of southern and frontier American life.

Primary among the ideas they drew from the general culture was the democratic tradition, with which they had strong historical association. "Baptists are democrats of the purest strain," they have loved to claim. Baptist Standard (Waco), May 15, 1919, p. 16. Hereinafter in these notes this publication will be referred to as "BS." The place of publication from inception until February 3, 1898, was Waco, Texas; from that date it was published in Dallas, Texas. "Our ideas have always been democratic. . . The competency of the individual soul in the presence of his God has always been a Baptist fundamental . . . whenever the kingdoms of the world become complete democracies they will have to adopt the Baptist form of government." BS September 16, 1914, p. 19. Paul M. Harrison claims that the Calvinist fore-fathers of the Baptists were concerned with the issue of freedom, but they primarily emphasized the freedom of God and secondarily that of man and the local church. By the nineteenth century, however, "a theological individualism displaced the concern for God's sovereignty, and . . . the Baptists placed almost exclusive emphasis upon the sovereignty of man and the freedom of the local congregations from any form of ecclesiastical control." Paul M. Harrison, Authority and Power in the Free Church Tradition: A Social Case Study of the American Baptist Convention (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), pp. 11-12.