The principles that form the Alliance covenant were announced to the world in 1987, but they have formed the heartbeat of what it means to be Baptist from our earliest history.
 
“Apart from these basic principles, we are not Baptist at all. These ideas are not around the edges of ‘being Baptist;’ they are the essence of ‘being Baptist,’” Cecil S. Sherman writes in Being Baptist Means Freedom.

Alan Neely, an Alliance founder, who edited the 1988 book, saw its publication by the fledging Southern Baptist Alliance as a means to counter the contempt for the richness of our history, heritage and principles being exhibited by those using the name Baptist without acting as Baptists.

“History will record, I believe, that this was a struggle for the soul of what it means to be Baptist,” Neely writes in the introduction.

A retired missionary and professor of missiology, Neely saw the Alliance as making a stand against religious tyranny and refused, like the 17th century John Bunyan, to make a “slaughter-house” of his conscience or a “butchery” of his principles to a majority vote by those seemingly ignorant of Baptist history and practice.

Although our organization’s name has changed, what has not is our commitment to the principles expressed in our covenant — principles that remain as true today as they were when the Baptist movement began four centuries ago. connections will be exploring each of the principles in the coming months.

Sherman’s words about “being Baptist” quoted earlier introduce chapter two: “Freedom of the Individual To Interpret the Bible,” that bedrock Baptist distinctive also expressed as soul liberty, liberty of conscience, priesthood of the believer, soul freedom.

“Reading and interpreting Scripture for ourselves, led by God’s Spirit within the family of faith while relying on the historical understanding by the church and on the best methods of modern biblical study” is, rightfully so, the first of the seven principles that define who we are and what we are to be about as Baptist Christians.

Baptist theologian and educator E.Y. Mullins said, “competency of the soul in religion under God is a distinctive Baptist contribution to the world's thought.”

Herschel Hobbs and Leon McBeth both contend that this principle is principal:

“Out of this principle flow all other elements of Baptist belief….” Hobbs said.
 McBeth’s take on it: “The concept of the soul’s competency is more than a single doctrine; actually, it undergirds all the other doctrines of the faith.” Read more.

For example, because we believe God respects our free will and sees us as capable and trustworthy, we Baptists practice believer’s baptism.

As Alliance member Tom McKibbens explained in a 2005 sermon to his Massachusetts congregation: “Through soul liberty we recognize that no one else can answer for us — neither priest, nor preacher, nor creeds or councils,” Read more.

Growing up Baptist I was expected to read, study and reflect on Scripture — and even argue about what it meant when needed. I learned that the God who had inspired the Scripture would guide me in understanding that Scripture despite my age, and that sometimes “even a little child” could get it right when adults got it wrong.

I was expected to memorize and follow, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God” (2 Timothy 2:15, King James Version, the only one I knew then.) because nobody should be allowed to impose doctrine or actions on me, and I needed to know what God wanted me to do. I was a Baptist and that’s what Baptists did.

This precious gift from God of priesthood of the believer, properly understood, is exercised in the context of a community of believers.

Or, as James Leo Garrett Jr. once explained, as Baptists we believe in both priesthood of the believer and priesthood of believers. Read more.

And that’s why as a Baptist since 1987, I am grateful beyond words that I can say, “I’m the Alliance.”