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COMMENTARY: The Mullins Blip By
William L. Hendricks Excerpt from article in the online version of The Baptist Standard
After
43 years of teaching Baptist theology to Baptists, I am bemused
(and certainly not amused) about some contemporary discussions
concerning E.Y. Mullins' place in our Baptist heritage. A wise
way to know the thought of another is to go to the source-the
writings of the person being so freely interpreted by others.
Let
Mullins speak in his own words. His major books are "The
Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expressions," "Why
is Christianity True?," "The Axioms of Religion,"
"The Life in Christ" and "Baptist Beliefs."
Good
authors state their presuppositions in the introduction or first
chapter of their work. Anyone reading the introduction and first
five pages of Mullins' "Christian Religion" will
discover Mullins' ultimate allegiance is to God, through Jesus
Christ in the Spirit. No Baptist should fault that as a statement
of authority. Mullins
acknowledges Christian experience is important to his theology.
"Another method of dealing with the doctrines of the Christian
religion is that which gives prominence to Christian experience.
It is the method adopted in this work." If
one bothered to read the next page, (page 10) a host of questions
should be put to rest. "But we speak of making experience
explicit in expounding the doctrines of Christianity, we are by
no means adopting that as the sole criterion of truth. He
would be a very unwise man who should attempt to deduce all Christian
doctrine from his own subjective experience. As
we shall soon see, Christianity is a historical religion. Jesus
Christ is its sole founder and supreme authority as the revealer
of God. The Scriptures are our only source of authoritative information
about Christ and his earthly career. These are fundamental to
any correct understanding of our religion." The
authority of the Christian faith is succinctly stated by Mullins:
"We may now sum up a general way the factors which must be
taken into account if we are to understand the Christian religion
and the doctrinal teachings which arise out of it. "First
of all, we must recognize Jesus Christ as the historical revelation
of God to men. But Christianity is bound up indissolubly with
the facts of the historical Jesus. "Secondly,
we must assign to their proper place the Scriptures of the New
Testament as the indispensable source of our knowledge of the
historical Jesus and his work for our salvation. "In
the third place, we must recognize the place and work of the Holy
Spirit in the hearts of men. He continues the work of Christ.
It is through him that we are led to accept Christ. It is in and
through him that the meaning of the Christian facts are brought
home to us. "Fourthly,
we must seek to define and understand the spiritual experiences
of Christians as subject to the operation of God's Spirit revealing
Christ to them. The history of doctrine will aid in this, but
we must make also a direct study of experience itself. "Now
it is in the combination and union of all these factors, and not
in any one or two of them taken by themselves, that we find what
we seek when we undertake a systematic study of the Christian
religion and its theology." This
is Mullins' part of our Baptist heritage, and no revisionist history
or attempt to excise his influence is needed. Without being unduly
pious, one must wonder what Christ thinks about our contemporary
wounds to his body. We
must acknowledge with gratitude the work of our spiritual forefathers
in shaping our heritage. But we must also move on under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit, who is getting short shift in all of this
fruitless discussion. |
