This week I’m joined by Caleb Morell to talk about his book A Light on the Hill: The Surprising Story of How a Local Church in the Nation's Capital Influenced Evangelicalism. It’s a history of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. The church’s current pastor is the influential Mark Dever.
I have a great deal of respect for Mark Dever’s ministry, and this book sounds like a fascinating case study, but I doubt the author’s central point of this church’s unique continuity. If Capitol Hill Baptist was like most 19th century Baptist churches (and I am ready to be corrected on this), then the church today does not hold to the traditional theology of its founders. The church in 2025 would not be in fellowship with the church in say 1925. While many beliefs are the same such as the inspiration of scripture, the atoning work of Christ, gender, the author seems to overlook the importance of the doctrines they have changed. I’ll highlight three: polity, alcohol, and race.
Polity: Historically Baptist churches were congregationally governed by democratic vote with a single pastor as elder, and on rare occasion, additional pastors. This is not the ‘plurality of elders’ model Dever identifies as one of the 9 marks of a healthy church and which is more commonly associated with Presbyterians and the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches. Regardless of who is right theologically, Dever’s model of a plurality of elders leading a church while final authority rests with the congregation was not the polity of the Baptists who wrote the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith to which his church subscribes.
Alcohol: Dever (and I assume his church) takes the standard evangelical position of ‘Christians can’t get drunk. I don’t drink. Churches shouldn’t split over alcohol.’ Historically though many if not most Baptists saw this as a core theological belief. For example, my church’s founding documents from 1837 made two theological commitments: we hold to the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith, and we are a temperance church. Regardless of who is right theologically, there is a huge difference between a church that would ban alcohol nationally (like Capitol Hill in the 1920s) and one which tolerates alcohol even among its members.
Race: the author mentioned that the church accepted its first African American members in 1969. If women’s ordination represents a departure from theological orthodoxy and tradition, how much more so does segregation in the church? I’m sure Capitol Hill Baptist today would be willing to engage in limited cooperation with an egalitarian church, but they wouldn’t touch a whites-only church with a ten-foot pole. And they would justify that distinction by saying the race issue is a greater departure from the gospel, but that is their history and their convention’s history.
Conservative Protestants love to make the same error as the Catholics and Orthodox and pretend that they are carrying on an unsullied and unchanging tradition, but whenever you actually dig into the history there is meaningful change. In the end, the Northern Baptists, for all our other errors, were and are right about this simple point: the only unchanging and binding rule of faith and practice is the Bible.
I have a great deal of respect for Mark Dever’s ministry, and this book sounds like a fascinating case study, but I doubt the author’s central point of this church’s unique continuity. If Capitol Hill Baptist was like most 19th century Baptist churches (and I am ready to be corrected on this), then the church today does not hold to the traditional theology of its founders. The church in 2025 would not be in fellowship with the church in say 1925. While many beliefs are the same such as the inspiration of scripture, the atoning work of Christ, gender, the author seems to overlook the importance of the doctrines they have changed. I’ll highlight three: polity, alcohol, and race.
Polity: Historically Baptist churches were congregationally governed by democratic vote with a single pastor as elder, and on rare occasion, additional pastors. This is not the ‘plurality of elders’ model Dever identifies as one of the 9 marks of a healthy church and which is more commonly associated with Presbyterians and the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches. Regardless of who is right theologically, Dever’s model of a plurality of elders leading a church while final authority rests with the congregation was not the polity of the Baptists who wrote the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith to which his church subscribes.
Alcohol: Dever (and I assume his church) takes the standard evangelical position of ‘Christians can’t get drunk. I don’t drink. Churches shouldn’t split over alcohol.’ Historically though many if not most Baptists saw this as a core theological belief. For example, my church’s founding documents from 1837 made two theological commitments: we hold to the New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith, and we are a temperance church. Regardless of who is right theologically, there is a huge difference between a church that would ban alcohol nationally (like Capitol Hill in the 1920s) and one which tolerates alcohol even among its members.
Race: the author mentioned that the church accepted its first African American members in 1969. If women’s ordination represents a departure from theological orthodoxy and tradition, how much more so does segregation in the church? I’m sure Capitol Hill Baptist today would be willing to engage in limited cooperation with an egalitarian church, but they wouldn’t touch a whites-only church with a ten-foot pole. And they would justify that distinction by saying the race issue is a greater departure from the gospel, but that is their history and their convention’s history.
Conservative Protestants love to make the same error as the Catholics and Orthodox and pretend that they are carrying on an unsullied and unchanging tradition, but whenever you actually dig into the history there is meaningful change. In the end, the Northern Baptists, for all our other errors, were and are right about this simple point: the only unchanging and binding rule of faith and practice is the Bible.