On Being Baptist

I am currently teaching on Baptist history at the Cape Town Baptist Seminary. This task has allowed me opportunity to think over the identity of the Baptists within the world Christian movement. Together with many others in past and present history, I have been asking afresh the perennial questions: who are Baptists?, what truths do they stand for?, what should they look like today? etc. That is, what facial outlines should we construct to this 'Baptist man'. So, for the next few posts I will be looking at what being a Baptist is all about, with particular reference to some of the challenges we are facing in the Baptist Union of South Africa.  

Before I end let me give you this interesting bit of SA Baptist history... Most, if not all, of the pioneer Baptists who came out to South Africa in the 1820's (Mr William Shepherd, Mr William Miller et al) came from 'Chapels' back in England. These churches did not nominate themselves 'Baptist' but rather Chapels , for e.g., 'Edward Street Chapel', 'Eagle Street Chapel', etc. For this reason the great baptist C H Spurgeon was pastor of 'New Park Street Chapel' and 'Metropolitan Tabernacle' - all without the name 'Baptist'!  I thought this should be of interest in responding to the contemporary trend of some Baptist Churches to drop the name 'Baptist' from their name. More on this later.