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The significance of E. Y. Mullins's: The Axioms of Religion: one clue to the significance of The Axioms of Religion, the 1908 book by E. Y. Mullins, is found in the sub-title: a new interpretation of the Baptist faith.

Article Excerpt
Mullins wrote, "For a number of years, the author has felt that fresh statement of the Baptist position was possible which would enable the world to understand us better." (1) He also wanted the world to know that the Baptist faith was closer to the New Testament ideals than most others, and he felt that if his fellow Baptists remembered that, they would feel better about themselves.

How the Book Came to Be Written

According to Mullins, his book was a compilation of five speeches that he gave about the contributions Baptists had made to the world. The first speech was presented at a meeting of the American Baptist Publication Society in St. Louis in 1905, followed by the second speech given that same year in London, England, for the Baptist World Alliance. The audience at the Baptist Historical Society of Virginia meeting held at Richmond College heard his third speech in November 1906; and soon after, the fourth speech was delivered to the messengers at the annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia in Richmond. The final speech was given in 1907 at the Baptist Convention of North America meeting in Jamestown.

Harold W. Tribble, Mullins's colleague at Southern Seminary, reflected on that process:

These speeches were so fresh and impelling, his outline so simple, his argument so irrefutable, that one enthusiastic listener asked for the privilege of using his material in a book that he proposed to write. Dr. Mullins replied that he preferred to write his own books. When that message finally appeared in book form in 1908 ... it was immediately popular in this country and in England, and its popularity was sustained for a full quarter of a century. (2)

What is the Significance of The Axioms

With such a popular reception, the book obviously served its purpose as an effective explanation of Baptist identity at the beginning of the twentieth century. Now, one hundred years later, two questions arise: (1) Since Baptist life is not static, but alive and changing, is not there a need for an updated and more accurate expression of Baptist identity today? and (2) Can Mullins's book still provide a sufficient basis for such a reinterpretation?

Most Baptists would say "yes" to the first question, but some who have reexamined Mullins's approach have vigorously answered the second question "no." For example, in 1997, framers of "Re-envisioning Baptist Identity: A Manifesto for Baptist Communities in North America" rejected Mullins's interpretation as unbalanced and outdated. (3)

Another negative answer has come from William Brackney, who linked Mullins's view of soul competency and local church autonomy with the outdated "local church protectionism" of the Landmark movement, and condemned Mullins's emphasis on individual Christian experience as unbiblical. He accused Mullins of imbibing too deeply from the spring of rugged democratic individualism and the emerging sciences of psychology and sociology. (4) In a similar vein, James McClendon caricatured Mullins's idea of soul competency as "his anthropocentric motto" that was framed too much in terms of "the rugged American individualism of Theodore Roosevelt to do justice to the shared discipleship Baptist life requires." (5)

Albert Mohler, who followed E. Y. Mullins as president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary seventy years later, in an unfortunate misreading of Axioms of Religion, accused Mullins of setting the stage for "doctrinal ambiguity and theological minimalism." In other words, Mullins is to blame for what Mohler believes is a drift towards theological liberalism among Baptists today. According to Mohler, Mullins's emphasis...

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