Baptist Truths

I’ve been reading articles and writing (actually rewriting) chapters for my dissertation. Doing so keeps me thinking about the problems that I have to overcome for the dissertation to be successful. One is the tension between pragmatists and realists that comes out of the use Lindbeck. I don’t want to get into the fine details about Lindbeck – to lazy. Basically the problem is that all truth is relative to the grammar of the community (pragmatists) yet in theological circles many would like to assume that there are some universal truths which transcend the particular communities – like the idea of the existence of God (realists)

With Baptists this is a very real tension. Because of our individualistic emphasis, i.e. our commonly wrong-headed misuse of the ideas of Soul Freedom and Church Autonomy many churches and individuals will scoff at any attempt to proscribe tenets of belief. “Don’t tell me that Christ is divine – you would be infringing on my soul freedom!”
“Don’t tell me that churches need to be concerned for the poor, - you would be infringing on our church autonomy”

Who would have thought that Baptists could be philosophical pragmatists?

Yet many have reacted against such a reliance upon the grammar of the local community for an understanding of faith (like that is what is happening. We all know that people are really lazy, proud and stubborn). The SBC (God bless them) has come out with statements of “Faith and Message” which basically claim truths for the Southern Baptist community. Others will stay things like, “this is the Baptist way,” or, “this is what Baptists believe,” suggesting that there are universal truths.

Here is the rub – are there universal truths which are spoken about but never directly addressed? Ideas like soul freedom and church autonomy are seldom directly spoken of but are often spoken about or referenced. So perhaps there are truths but they are not truths which can be directly spoken of through the grammar of the community. Instead the language and grammar point to the truths as they can be discerned. The realists are happy, the pragmatists are happy. Everyone is happy. Right?