BAPTIST DISTINCTIVES

 

 

1. We make a serious and sustained appeal to Scripture.

 

2. We are clear that membership of the church must be based on personal faith, conviction and profession.

 

3. The Church should be free from secular control.

 

4. We believe that the freedom of the Christian involves freedom within the church from any priestly caste or hierarchy standing between the individual and his Maker and controlling the channels of God's grace and freedom from any uniform pattern of organization, however ancient.

 

5. Because we believe in the priesthood of all believers, and "the prophethood of all believers", we believe that an evangelist's responsibility rests on every Christian. There are varieties of spiritual gifts. There are varied offices within the church. But we see danger in any rigid distinction between clergy and laity partly because it seems inevitably to obscure the duties of believers individually and corporately, to witness to others by word and by life, and partly because it seems to deny the power of the Spirit of reveal the thinking of Christ to all who have faith in Him.

 

6. We believe in the separation of church and state.While we would sharply separate church and state; we distrust any rigid distinction between sacred and secular. The church is to be an instrument of the rule of God on the earth. From within its fellowship, men and women go out armed for battle against evil. The gospel must be applied to the ordinary daily life of men and nations and to the whole of life. The gospel must be preached to all men everywhere without distinction of race, nationality and class. The proclamation of the gospel is the concern of the whole church.

 

The last three emphases ... religious liberty, evangelistic responsibility and the corporate vocation of the whole church ... are vital and
essential truths, and they are seen in their proper context when they are seen to arise out of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.

 

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