Lost Lamplighters

Four hundred years ago Thomas Helwys founded the first Baptist congregation in England.  This inspired our Baptist Assembly in London this year.  Helwys wrote of the pre-Reformation days recently past that they were the depth of all darkness, when men might not know what God speaks to them because the Bible, the Scriptures, were not read and available in the language of the common people.  He also bewailed the Established Church of his day - What does it profit the king's people to have the Word of God to hear, and read it, seeing they are debarred of the Spirit of God to understand it other than by the one interpretation by the lord bishops . . .?

Somewhat following Helwys's tolerant ethic (though in truth he was not himself very tolerant of others) the Baptist Union has a minimalistic Declaration of Principle rather than any kind of Creed.  It begins . . .

The Basis of the Baptist Union is: 1.  That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures . . .

Having dispensed with the Pope, the lord bishops and an agreed interpretation of most things scriptural it may be thought that the Baptist Union's components have much in common with a queue of traffic in Victoria Street. A kind of intersecting without meaning.  

But no.  We gather under the headship of Jesus Christ.  And the revelation of our one, sole Authority is found in the Holy Scriptures.  The Living Word is the One that I authenticate in the Written Word.  We may differ in interpretation at times but the root of things is Scripture and there alone.

The logical outcome - whether reviewing Spitalfields in 1612, the life of Baptist Christians before or after the Union's founding or the worldwide expressions of Baptist fellowship (for the most part) - is that a Baptist Assembly will be short on heirarchy but in no imaginable circumstance will it ever, could it ever, be legitimately short on the Holy Scriptures.

Last time I was in a big meeting in London it was the Memorial Service for Anglican evangelical John Stott.  On that occasion, notwithstanding his extraordinary life, there was an exposition of the Bible (of course). Peculiarly, as we Baptists stare into a bewilderment of changing circumstances, the Holy Scriptures did not really attend the Assembly.  I defy any visiting Martian to work out that, once the new President has signed the President's Bible, it had any further centrality in the unfolding acts of programmed singing, screen presentations, dance troupes, story-telling talks, lectures and seminars on history or practice, prayers and appeals for money. We movingly 'recognised' ministers (?of the Word) - without using the Word.  We had a 'Futures' discussion. This plenary and axiomatic discussion was conducted almost in its entirety without any reference to Scripture at all.

I do love Tony Campolo's testimonial stories (though I have heard them enough times now that they might legitimately form part of my testimony too . . .), but this is not what Helwys was fighting the king for.  Even in Helwys's day - even for that matter in pre-Reformation England - you could tell stories all day long.  It was for the Holy Scriptures and ordinary people's access to them that our earliest forebears stuck their necks out. For freedom, yes - the freedom to hear and handle the authoritative Word of God.

Reading others blogs I think I am not alone in these observations but I did not make these observations in any consultation with others - it just hit me very strikingly (perhaps the more so because I missed the Communion Service which may have been the exception to this).

I dread future discussions on contentious issues if we do not centre on Scripture far, far more than this.  I understand that at the last Baptist Union Council a creative soul draped a blue cloth down the centre as a symbol of getting in the flow.    If we don't start centering on the only authority that Baptists can legitimately claim to have - the lamp that guides us into the future -  we might find it more symbolic (and it would save money) just to turn out the lights.