Cled E. Wallace
Dr. A. J. Barton, prominent Baptist, says, “It would be a little difficult to say which distinctive Baptist doctrine or principle is the most basal, the most fundamental of all.”
I can suggest to Dr. Barton something more difficult than that. If he is burning for hard work, let him by searching find even one “distinctive Baptist doctrine or principle” in the New Testament. Imagine Paul chattering about, “our most deeply-cherished Baptist principles and traditions” as Dr. Barton does! Paul was interested in the purpose of God to “sum up all things in Christ.” He did not cherish any partisan “principles and traditions.”
The Doctor mentions, “Our Baptist interpretation of the New Testament.” Taken along with “our” Methodist and Presbyterian and several dozen other “interpretations of the New Testament,” “we” have reduced the New Testament to a pretty sorry mess, haven’t we? The average man would get along better with nothing but the New Testament.
