Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 22:1 (Spring 2025)
Article: The Unique Contributions Of The 1925 Baptist Faith And Message
Author: Jonathan McCormick

The Unique Contributions Of The 1925 Baptist Faith And Message

Jonathan McCormick

Jonathan McCormick serves as associate professor of theological research and director of library services at Gateway Seminary.

Introduction

When analyzing confessions, there are several ways to address the confession. One method is to look for where the confession repeats, adapts, or diverts from the tradition in which the confession resides. Another valid way of addressing a confession is to look for unique material in the confession to understand the authors’ aims in their historical context. Jaroslav Pelikan observes, “Most statements of faith have been enacted as occasional documents that were initially drafted under specific circumstances of on time and place to meet a particular need or respond to a particular challenge, not always with an eye to the indefinite future.”1 The unique contributions of the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M 1925) can help Southern Baptists a century after its composition to understand what the committee saw “a particular challenge” to the Southern Baptist Convention not addressed by the New Hampshire Confession of Faith or the Abstract of Principles of Southern Seminary.

Regarding the BF&M 1925 Lumpkin asserts, “This statement was an enlargement of a statement of principles (based upon the New Hampshire Confession), which had been prepared in 1919 as a worldwide greeting to Baptists following World War I.”2 Lumpkin means that the BF&M 1925 resulted from the merger of the New Hampshire Confession of Faith and the Fraternal Address

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into a complete confession of faith. Lumpkin’s explanation does explain the new material in the BF&M 1925.

The Committee did not see themselves as writing a new confession of faith. L. R. Scarborough referred to the proposed document as “a revised and enlarged statement of the New Hampshire Articles of Faith.”3 E. Y. Mullins wrote a small, lay-level book called Baptist Beliefs. In the introduction to this book, he described the purpose as suppling “A general survey of beliefs commonly held by Baptists.”4 He said regarding The New Hampshire Statement of Faith that “This declaration of faith has become almost the sole Confession used in the North, East, and West, where Calvinism has become most modified by Arminianism.”5 Using material from Baptist Beliefs as a background for revision and enlargement of the New Hampshire Statement of Faith would be consiste...