Neo-Orthodoxy, Soul Competency, and the SBC

Neo-orthodoxy (inspired by Kierkegaard’s subjectivity) was popular in the SBC because it went well with the influence of Mullin’s experiential theology which emphasized the transformation of the person over mere intellectual assent to particular doctrines. For both Kierkegaard and Mullins, what mattered was a direct encounter with God unmediated by hierarchy. Mullins got this from W. James but also by unifying Baptist distinctives and conceptions of anthropology and ecclesiology under soul competency. Significantly, Baptists like H.W. Robinson, A.R. Johnson, and later F. Stagg, D. Moody, and E.E. Ellis were able to rediscover the Hebrew anthropological conception of the individual in relation to its corporate responsibility, which nested nicely within soul competency. All these theological ideas came out of Augustinian-Renaissance-Protestant individualism, Enlightenment natural law, Romanticism’s reaction to the detached rationality of Enlightenment objectivity, and supported by their manifest success in politics, economics, and missions. I believe it was the quite natural coming together of neo-orthodoxy and soul competency that explains the tremendous missional/evangelical success of the so-called “moderate” years of the SBC. I also believe that the decline in the SBC began with the rejection of neo-orthodoxy and soul competency, in favor of fundamentalism’s modernist assent to doctrine and Landmarkism’s concentration on hierarchal authority. This denominational transition manifested itself in creedalism, authoritarianism, the suppression of women, and the elevation of abusive bullies to leadership so long as they assented to the correct doctrines and towed the authoritarian line. However, because this transition went against Scripture, reality, and, most importantly, the movement of the Spirit, it failed and necessarily must result in either repentance or dissolution. Thankfully, what I am seeing is repentance. I’m seeing a rejection of bullies, a dismissal of those advocating authoritarianism, a gradual rejection of complementarianism, and a more experiential engagement with God against mere intellectual assent to doctrines. These are positives that bode well. Granted, much more is needed, but I’m pleased in the overall direction the SBC is taking in reestablishing the Baptist distinctives and philosophies that greater adhered to the reality that the Scriptures were teaching and to which the Spirit is directing.