2003 marks 180 years since the Baptist General Association of Virginia was founded. This is the second in a series of articles telling why the BGAV is still “the right choice” for the Baptist churches of Virginia.

Reprinted by permission of The Religious Herald.

A recent president of the Southern Baptist Convention stated that the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination, the SBC, had undergone “a necessary exercise in self-definition” during the final quarter of the 20th century.

Baptists will debate whether a re-definition of the SBC was necessary, but most agree that Baptists spent the past 25 years trying to understand who they are and what they believe.

While Baptists across the South were taking on a new set of beliefs, the Baptist General Association of Virginia refused to move from the beliefs we have valued for 180 years. In 1989 the BGAV’s Committee on the Denominational Crisis summarized some of these beliefs in a booklet titled On These Truths We Stand. Virginia Baptists affirmed these core beliefs at the BGAV annual meeting in 1995.

• The centrality of Jesus Christ. “Jesus is Lord” is the confession of the BGAV and its churches from its beginning. Jesus is the beginning, center and end of our worship. It is heresy to make the church, denomination or even the Bible as the supreme object of faith.
• The authority of the Bible. In 1988 and again in 1995 the BGAV affirmed its complete confidence in and commitment to the inspired, written Word of God. It is the primary source that sets our faith and practice. From its message Virginia Baptists draw truth and power.
• Soul competency. Every human being is free and responsible for his or her relationship with God. This, wrote E. Y. Mullins almost a century ago, is the “keystone” principle of Baptists. New-style Baptists argue that making faith a personal matter leads to a subjective faith that overlooks the role of Christ in salvation, makes secondary the authority of Scripture and eliminates the need for the Holy Spirit. Virginia Baptists reject this criticism, believing that soul competency comes straight from the Bible’s view of God and humanity. God is revealed to us, and we are free to respond to God and are accountable for our response.
• The priesthood of all believers. Virginia Baptists believe that every person is privileged to approach God without a human intermediary and that every person, led by the Holy Spirit, may interpret the Bible. No human authority should compel another person to submit to his or her interpretation or belief. The BGAV believes in empowering laity for service, and not in making distinctions between the callings of clergy and laity, except in function.
• Believer’s baptism. Most BGAV churches practice immersion as the mode of baptism, for compelling reasons. But the timing is more important than the mode. When Virginia Baptists practice baptism of believers, the baptism is a sign that one is a deliberate, willing follower of Jesus Christ. This squares with our belief in soul competency.
• The autonomy of the local church. The BGAV believes every congregation is self-governing. It is to be under the control of Jesus Christ, not an autocratic pastor, faction of laity or denominational body to which it relates.
• Voluntary connectionalism. Every Virginia Baptist congregation chooses its friends and partners. It may choose to relate to a local Baptist association, the BGAV, the SBC or the CBF, or it may choose not to relate to these. BGAV churches believe no denominational hierarchy may force itself on local churches or compel cooperation. Cooperation is always voluntary.
• Separation of church and state. The BGAV believes this is embedded in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Virginia Baptists want to live in a nation where the institutions of government and religion exist in an atmosphere where individuals follow their conscience, not the government’s direction, in matters of faith. Personal faith thrives best where government and church are free and separate.

This is a summary of beliefs held by a majority of people and churches in the BGAV, having been affirmed more than once by messengers to a BGAV annual meeting.

But they are not binding on any BGAV congregation or its members. It is a consensus of what Virginia Baptists believe, not an infallible document of what they must believe. This is a final principle of our fellowship. The BGAV is confessional, but not creedal.

Virginia Baptists have embraced confessions of faith for 180 years. The BGAV has affirmed such confessions as the Baptist Faith and Message Statement of 1963, which summarizes what Southern Baptists generally believed at that time.

But the BGAV always has rejected creeds, or written documents designed to instruct people what they must believe. Virginia Baptists reject creeds because they usurp the place of the Bible and the role of the Holy Spirit as our Helper in interpreting it. We also reject creeds because as human creations they are incomplete.

The BGAV has not endorsed the Baptist Faith and Message of 2000 precisely because it is being used by the SBC as a creed instead of a confession. It is being wielded as a tool to enforce conformity rather than as a document to state consensus.

The BGAV continues to be “the right choice” for more than 1,400 churches, not in spite of its beliefs, but because it is unwavering in its commitment to historic Baptist truths.

Part 3>>>