Soul Freedom: Baptist Battle Cry.

Humphreys, Fisher

By Grady C. Cothen and James M. Dunn. Macon: Smyth and Helwys Publishing, 2000. 129 pp.

I am glad someone came up with the suggestion that Grady Cothen and James Dunn write this book. Cothen is the administrative genius who successfully led four major Baptist institutions including the mammoth Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and is one of the founders of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Dunn is the political genius who successfully led the Baptist Joint Committee to become the most effective organization in America defending the proposition that in a religiously pluralistic society maximal religious liberty is achieved only by means of the separation of church and state.

Following a preface by each author, the book comprises fourteen chapters; Dunn writes the odd chapters (did he request those?) and Cothen the even chapters. They believe soul freedom is intrinsic to Baptist identity; from it as a center, they move out to address many issues in contemporary Baptist life.

Dunn writes about human rights ("Human rights are rooted in the Bible," p. 1), the importance of evangelists leaving people free to decide ("Voluntary religion, in Baptist eyes, is the only valid religion," p. 23), the separation of church and state (two chapters), creedalism ("A creed prescribes while a confession of faith describes," p. 83), and vouchers ("If one genuinely seeks soul freedom for everyone, he can't vouch for vouchers," p. 99).

Cothen offers a brilliant analysis of the changes in Baptist life. In the past, Baptists seemed disorganized, but they produced "a remarkable and very effective array of institutions and service agencies" (p. 29). "The claim is made that the denomination has been restored to its traditional position; yet, at no point in history has the denomination resembled what it is today" (pp. 96-97). The SBC is undergoing "debaptistification" by its embrace of Evangelicals and association with the Religious Right (RR, not to be confused with CC, Conservative Christians), its descent into creedalism (Cothen traces the stages of the descent), its Executive Committee's expropriation of decision-making authority, and its leaders' disenfranchisement of "fellow Baptists who in fact built the organizations they co-opted" (p. 42).

Cothen is a shrewd interpreter of organizations; how many of us noticed that "One of the most far-reaching changes in theological education in the Southern Baptist Convention is a new directive to the seminaries. All have been instructed to change their constitutions and/or bylaws to provide that the Southern Baptist Convention shall be `the sole member of the corporation,' a legal step that places final authority in the Convention proper instead of in the trustees" (pp. 79-80)?

The authors provide reminiscences of how they became and why they remain Baptists. Dunn manages to be combative and pastoral simultaneously: "Ain't nobody but Jesus going to tell me what to believe" (p. 120). Cothen describes Baptist life in small-town Mississippi and tells how that experience coupled with his education at Mississippi College and at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary led to the outcome that "I had become a Baptist by conviction as well as by family ties." The final words of the book are his but apply equally well to Dunn and to many of us: "These are the things I was taught that make an authentic Baptist. I am sure that I do not fit the prescription of some, but I think I am a traditional and biblical Baptist." Yes, indeed.--Reviewed by Fisher Humphreys, professor of divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama.