I replied over at Baptist Life, but I will offer a more concise version here. It was my intention to present, not a thorough list of the Baptist distinctives, but those that I perceive to be most in trouble and in need of rehabilitation.

Lee,

With regard to the “embarrassing hiatus” I was referring to our lapse in teaching the biblical basis for this doctrine more than to any lapse in its practice. Sometimes we continue to do something long after we’ve forgotten why. With the emergence of recent monographs regarding Baptist ecclesiology, I see light at the end of that tunnel, perhaps. In The Baptist Way, Stan Norman relates his experience of discovering that many Southern Baptist seminary students had never been exposed to any biblical foundation for congregational church governance. I must admit that, although my parents had me in church every time the doors were open, I never heard anyone offer a cogent biblical defense of congregational church governance until I was in Ph.D. studies.

I’d be interested to know what constitutes his definition of the “embarassing hiatus” from congregational polity. If he’s alluding to the modern megachurch movement, AMEN!

Conservatives generally mean doctrinal conformity when they talk about cooperative association. Barber pastors a church that belongs to a cooperative association that refuses to be cooperative on any except for its own terms. That’s not historically Baptist.

I do find much with which to agree, depending, of course, on the definition and intention of some of the terminology. He’s right on target as far as Biblical literacy is concerned. In the wake of the conservative resurgence in the SBC, it’s interesting that the proclamation of inerrancy has not been accompanied by a renewed interest in studying the scriptures.