Baptist Catholicity

Why We Support Adding the Nicene Creed to the Baptist Faith and Message (2000)

Why We Support Adding the Nicene Creed to the Baptist Faith and Message (2000)

We wholeheartedly support this proposed amendment and pray that Southern Baptists will eagerly and joyfully adopt this motion through the appropriate channels, beginning at this year’s annual convention.

2022 Baptist Classics Reading Challenge

2022 Baptist Classics Reading Challenge

Have you ever wanted to read the classics of the Baptist tradition but didn’t know where to begin? This list takes you through a baker’s dozen of some of the most important Baptist works ever written.

Benjamin Keach on Baptism and Christ's Descent: An Early Example of Baptist Catholicity

Benjamin Keach on Baptism and Christ's Descent: An Early Example of Baptist Catholicity

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON: Benjamin Keach’s view of baptism is orthodox, Reformed, and radical, and it is an example of how Baptists can pursue catholicity without surrendering their distinctives.

How One Church Introduced Reading the Creeds

How One Church Introduced Reading the Creeds

D. JEFFREY MOONEY AND ADRIAN MARTINEZ: Creeds provided a core set of beliefs for our congregation so that, regardless of the distinctions of other Christians around us, we could cling to these core elements and celebrate the fact that we were one family in Jesus.

EBC Manifesto, Article XI: Principled Ecumenism

EBC Manifesto, Article XI: Principled Ecumenism

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON AND R. LUCAS STAMPS: We believe that all Christians should pray for and seek Christian unity across ecclesial and denominational lines and that Baptists should not reflexively reject principled, ecumenical dialogue with other Christian traditions.

EBC Manifesto, Article X: Creation and Redemption

EBC Manifesto, Article X: Creation and Redemption

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON AND R. LUCAS STAMPS: We affirm the continuity of God’s works of creation and redemption. Therefore, we affirm the goodness of all honorable vocations, the importance of embodied habits and rituals, and the value of aesthetic beauty for Christian life and worship.

EBC Manifesto, Article VI: Racial Reconciliation

EBC Manifesto, Article VI: Racial Reconciliation

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON AND R. LUCAS STAMPS: We affirm that all people, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, are created in God's image and, if they have repented and believed in Christ, are brothers and sisters together in the one body of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Because of this shared imago dei and because of Christ's saving work among all nations, peoples, and tongues, we believe that one major task of Baptist catholicity is to promote racial unity, especially within the body of Christ.

EBC Manifesto, Article IV: Baptist Distinctives

EBC Manifesto, Article IV: Baptist Distinctives

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON AND R. LUCAS STAMPS: We affirm the distinctive contributions of the Baptist tradition as a renewal movement within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. These distinctives include the necessity of personal conversion, a regenerate church, believers’ baptism, congregational governance, and religious liberty.

EBC Manifesto, Article III: Always Reforming

EBC Manifesto, Article III: Always Reforming

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON AND R. LUCAS STAMPS: We affirm the fundamentals of reformational theology, especially as they are expressed in the great solae of the Reformation: fallen humanity can be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone on the basis of Scripture alone to the glory of God alone.

EBC Manifesto, Article II: Gospel Centrality

EBC Manifesto, Article II: Gospel Centrality

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON AND R. LUCAS STAMPS: We affirm the centrality of the gospel—the good news of salvation through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God—for Christian faith, life, and worship.

EBC Manifesto, Article I: The Priority of God and His Word

EBC Manifesto, Article I: The Priority of God and His Word

MATTHEW Y. EMERSON AND R. LUCAS STAMPS: We affirm the ontological priority of the Triune God and the epistemological priority of his inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word. Christian faith begins, is carried forth, and ends in God—in his being and works—and is made known to us in Holy Scripture.