Basic Beliefs

You become a Southern Baptist by uniting with a Southern Baptist church, one in friendly cooperation with the general Southern Baptist enterprise of reaching the world for Christ.  Typically church membership is a matter of accepting Jesus as your Savior and Lord and experiencing believer's baptism by immersion.  Southern Baptists have prepared a statement of generally held convictions called the Baptist Faith and Message.  It serves as a guide to understanding who they are.  Copies are available at Southern Baptist churches.

Baptism & The Lord's Supper

"Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water....  It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus."  "The Lord's supper is symbolic act of obedience whereby members...  memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming."

Cooperation

Christ's people should... organize such associations and conventions as may best secure cooperation for the great objects of the Kingdom of God.  Such organizations have no authority over one another or over the churches....Cooperation is desirable between the various Christian denominations....

Evangelism & Missions

It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciple of all nations... to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by personal effort.

Education

"The cause of education in the Kingdom of Christ is co-ordinate with the causes of mission and general benevolence....there should be a proper balance between academic freedom and academic responsibility.....  The freedom of a teacher in a Christian school, college, or seminary is limited by the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ, by the authoritative nature of the Scriptures, and by the distinct purpose for which the school exists."

God the Father

"God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe.  His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace....  God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ."

God the Son

"Christ is that eternal Son of God.  In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary....  He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His death on the cross, He made provision for the redemption of men from sin."

God the Holy Spirit

 The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God....  He exalts Christ.  He convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.  He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.

God

"There is one and only one living and true God....  The eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being"

God's Purpose of Grace

Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners....   All true believers endure to the end.  Those whom God has accepted through Christ, and sanctified through His spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall preservers to the end.

Last Things

"God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end....  Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly...  the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness.  The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell....  The righteous.... will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord."

Man 

"Man was created by the special act of God, in His own image, and is the crowning work of His creation....  By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race....  The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore every man possesses dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love."

Peace & War

It is the duty of all Christians to seek peace with all men on principle of righteousness.  In accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ they should do all in their power to put an end to war...

Religious Liberty

...Church and state should be separate.  The state owes to every church the protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends....  A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal.

Salvation

"Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer.  In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, sanctification, and glorification."

Stewardship 

"God is the source of all blessings, temporal and spiritual; all that we have and are belong to Him.  Christians have a spiritual debtorship to the whole world, a holy trusteeship in the gospel, and a binding stewardship in their possessions.  They are therefore under obligation to serve Himial possessions."

The Christian and the Social Order

Every Christian is under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in his own life and in human society....  The Christian should oppose, in the spirit of Christ every form of greed, selfishness, and vice....

The Church

"A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a local body of baptized believers who are associated by a covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel...  and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth....  This church is an autonomous body....  The new testament speaks also of the church as the body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all ages.

The Gospel

"The fact that Jesus died for our sin, was buried and then rose from the grave is foundational for Southern Baptists.  He lives today and stands ready to give abundant and eternal life to all those who repent of sin and place the faith in Him.  Southern Baptists invite everyone to receive Jesus Christ as a personal Savior and Lord."

The Kingdom 

"The Kingdom of God includes both His general Sovereignty over the universe and His particular kingship over men who willfully acknowledge Him as King.  Particularly the Kingdom is the realm of salvation into which men enter by trustful, childlike commitment to Jesus Christ...  The full consummation of the Kingdom awaits the return of Jesus Christ, and the end of this age."

The Lord's Day

"The first day of the week is the Lord's Day....  It  commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion."

The Scriptures

"The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God's revelation of Himself to men....  It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter...  The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ."

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