“Edgar Young Mullins I would nominate as the Calvin or Luther or Wesley of the Southern Baptists, but only in the belated American sense, because Mullins was not the founder of the Southern Baptists but their re-founder, the definer of the creedless faith.”—Harold Bloom

In this essay I will explore the thought of Edgar Young Mullins and his relationship to the phenomenon of individualism. I hope to demonstrate that Mullins’ notion of soul competency was not a simple approval of the spirit of individualism coursing through the scholarship of his day, but was rather an attempt to mediate between individual religious experience and the community of faith—the local congregation. I further hope to demonstrate that Mullins’ thought has been misrepresented at times, resulting in an individualistic turn in much of Baptist thought.

Edgar Young Mullins has been proclaimed as the most influential person upon twentieth century Baptist thought.¹ The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote a memorial to Mullins after his death in which they listed his six most influential works—Why is Christianity True? (1905), The Axioms of Religion: A New Interpretation of the Baptist Faith (1908), Baptist Beliefs (1912), Freedom and Authority in Religion (1913), The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression (1917), and Christianity at the Crossroads (1924).² While the works vary widely in scope, there is little argument that Mullins’ most important work was The Axioms of Religion: A New Interpretation of the Baptist Faith. It is in this work that Mullins lays the theological groundwork for soul competency, and he develops the notion with six axioms based on this religious principle. While some discussion has been made regarding Mullins’ axioms, the concept of soul competency has been widely—and at times hotly—debated.

The debate centers around a simple issue: Does one individual have the authority to make normative religious claims for another individual? In other words, just how authoritative can and should one individual be with relation to the theological standing of another? Can one individual decide in toto just what is considered orthodox for a local congregation? One’s answer may depend on how one reads Mullins. Some readers of Mullins have argued that soul competency creates a community of equals—each individual has equal access to God through prayer and Scripture reading. In other words, theological query and decision is, in most respects, an individual issue. In such a situation each person decides how to interpret the Scriptures and what God’s message that individual is. Detractors of this reading have argued that such methodology will inevitably lead to individual relativism. If each person interprets the Scriptures on their own, they argue, how can any unity be achieved? Less sympathetic readers of Mullins have suggested that soul competency is outdated and a different model is necessary within the local congregation.³

Is Mullins an individualist? Was he an authoritarian? These questions seem to be at the heart of the Mullins issue. I would like to suggest that Mullins must be read in a more nuanced manner than perhaps has been done to this point. Mullins was more than a simple advocate of soul competency. Granted, he was soul competency’s champion, and he believed soul competency was at the heart of Baptist belief. Simultaneously, though, Mullins also saw the dangers of individualism that lay behind a misreading of soul competency. His later writings work to correct that drift and situate soul competency within a minimum of belief to counteract against the slippery slope of individual relativism. I would like to examine Mullins’ thought in relation to three of the most influential individualistic intellectuals of the nineteenth century: Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James, and Bordon Bowne. Mullins openly refers to each of these intellectuals through his writings, and his theological program in some way interacts with each of their thought. I hope to demonstrate that Mullins, while attentive to the theoretical programs of each of these individuals, was not necessarily accepting these programs in full. Rather, I believe, Mullins hoped to allow the best scholarship of the day inform his theology but also allow his theology to critique the same scholastic movements. As a result, Mullins did, in some ways, embrace individualism, but he did not accept its theoretical program as fully as some may have suggested.⁴

E.Y. Mullins and Friedrich Schleiermacher

Friedrich Schleiermacher, “The Father of Modern Theology,” wrote a theological

program based on human experience. His Christian Faith and On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers responded to Enlightenment thought by moving the theological question from the realm of the transcendent to that of the imminent. In doing so, Schleiermacher hoped to answer systematic theological questions by examining the human condition and its relationship to God. In order to discover this relationship, Schleiermacher posited a feeling of “absolute dependence” upon God, this feeling being centered in human experience. While Schleiermacher probably did not consider himself to be a radical individualist, his thought was a radical departure from the theological methodology of his day. As a result, much of the theological work done following Schleiermacher drifted toward individualism.⁵

Mullins embraced and used much of Schleiermacher’s thought in his own theology, beginning Mullins’ trend toward the individual’s role in theology. Mullins openly discusses Schleiermacher in several passages through his writings, a pattern taken by most Mullins scholars to demonstrate Mullins’ open approval of Schleiermacher’s theological method. While I agree—Mullins did indeed stand in debt to Schleiermacher on many theological concerns—a close reading of Mullins will also belie some points where Mullins hoped to slightly alter the theological program Schleiermacher had set forth. I would like to suggest that Mullins’ approval of Schleiermacher included the individual, but was not limited to the individualist program. I find Mullins to balance Schleiermacher’s thought with some of his own ideas.

Mullins agrees with Schleiermacher on the starting point of theology. In an address to the Baptist World Congress, Mullins discussed the theological trends surfacing in the early twentieth century.⁶ The first figure Mullins mentions is Schleiermacher, who “more than any other one man, perhaps, gave impulse to the new dogmatic construction, began with a religious postulate, man’s sense of dependence upon the Absolute.”⁷ Mullins finds Schleiermacher’s gift to modern theology unmistakable. Schleiermacher has freed theology from the “barren rationalism” which had taken the place of faith for so long.⁸

But almost immediately after noting the gift of Schleiermacher’s thought, Mullins notes some dangers. “It raised at once the question of authority, and set the Christian consciousness over against the Scripture, natural reason, and the church.”⁹ Mullins almost immediately tempers any sense of individualism with a sense of caution. While the individual occupies an important place within theology, elevating the individual over Scripture, reason, and the church seems to raise a red flag for Mullins. Mullins continues, “The underlying assumption was that man, as made in God’s image and restored to proper relations with God, is a reliable channel for the communicaiton of religious truth.”¹⁰ While Mullins does not pass judgment on this “underlying assumption” immediately, his rhetorical structure leaves the reader/listener to believe that the underlying assumption was flawed in at least some sense.

Mullins concludes that such a theological method has some positive qualities. This theological method allows religious liberty because of its freedom for individuals to approach and interpret the Scriptures more freely. The individual’s opinion with respect to the Scriptures has begun to carry more weight. Unfortunately, Mullins concludes, such a theological methodology carries more negatives than positives. In the end, the character of God will change if human experience is to be the beginning point of theology. Mullins concludes that any “harsh” aspects of God must be toned down if human experience is to be the defining factor of theology. Instead, “Fatherhood [becomes] fixed upon as the essential and final interpretation of the idea of God.”¹¹ Mullins concludes that God’s holiness is sacrificed for the individual’s experience, and, in the end, universalism is the only viable theological outcome. Mullins ultimately finds this theological methodology to be useful for doctrinal inquiry into the mystery of God’s character, but its usefulness for comprehending God’s Scriptural character is sacrificed for God’s holiness.

As Mullins concludes his address, he returns to Schleiermacher’s methodology and its troubles:

Schleiermacher’s fundamental conception is simple and clear enough, but lacks in comprehension of all the facts. Theology, if it is to be adequate, must not be conceived so much as a scheme of thought as an interpretation of a scheme of life. It must begin with the moral and religious, and not with the merely intellectual starting point. Theology has too frequently been simply rationalism in a religious garb.¹²

Mullins’ conclusion seems to be quite simple: Schleiermacher is helpful in relating the individual to theological speculation, but ultimately must be tempered by some other spheres of understanding, particularly the practices of the church.

Mullins seems to believe that Schleiermacher’s methodology must be critiqued and adjusted by the authority and place of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit with relation to human experience. Mullins says, “Positively stated, the best theology of the future will continue to accept the authority of the Scriptures, but it will take as its starting point, for the interpretation and illumination of Scriptures, the facts of Christian experience, not in a single aspect, but in their totality.”¹³ In other words, human experience cannot be discounted, but it must be compared and linked to the Scriptures. Mullins later states, “Experience will vindicate the authority of the Scriptures, for the experience of God through Christ and the Spirit is seen to be the real inner bond of unity in all the course of revelation.”¹⁴ Mullins acceptance of Schleiermacher’s theological method is tentative, at best. Human experience is used to validate the truth and authority of the Scriptures, not vice versa.

Mullins should not be thought of as one who does not appreciate or even employ Schleiermacher’s theological method in at least some regard. In Mullins’ constructive theological text, The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression, Mullins finds ample opportunity to return to the basis of Christian experience in his opening chapters. In fact, the very title of his text is indebted to Schleiermacher in some regard, for it was Schleiermacher who made the term “religion” popular once again in theological circles. The opening chapters of The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression—Religion and Theology, The Knowledge of God, Preliminary Study of Christian Experience, and Christian and Other Forms of Knowledge—are foundational for the book, and each of them focus on Christian experience as an interpretive lens for theological reflection. As mentioned earlier, Mullins continues to augment and critique those experiences with the authority of Scripture, but the return to Christian experience belies Mullins’ debt to Schleiermacher’s project. In fact, Mullins presented his lecture to the Baptist World Congress in 1905, warning of the dangers of a theology focused exclusively in human experience. When The Christian Religion came out in 1917, Mullins seemed to attempt to embody the proper navigation between human experience and the authority of Scripture.¹⁵

The Christian Religion, while capturing much of Schleiermacher’s methodology, does not reference Schleiermacher as much as one might expect. When Schleiermacher is mentioned in the text, Mullins typically refers to Schleiermacher’s theological project as one that needs to be critiqued, addressed, or moved forward. For example, Mullins mentions Schleiermacher early in his book, referring to the power of personal experience in relating theological truths. But Mullins quickly qualifies his statement. “But when 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.”¹⁶ Mullins continues his trend of cautiously inheriting Schleiermacher’s methodology but adapting it to his specifically Baptist tradition. Mullins specifically refers to Schleiermacher only three other times throughout his constructive work in The Christian Religion, each time employing basically the same tactic. Mullins finds a kernel of goodness or truth in Schleiermacher’s words and methodology, but ultimately finds them to be unfulfilling. Mullins finds Schleiermacher’s notion of dependence to be “true” but inadequate; the feeling of dependence is not merely individual but also universal; Schleiermacher’s christology is inadequate.¹⁷ Mullins believes Schleiermacher to be an invaluable theological interlocutor, but, in the end, Mullins finds Schleiermacher’s theology to have plenty of shortcomings as well.

What, then, should we conclude about E.Y. Mullins’ relationship to Friedrich Schleiermacher? Based on Mullins’ writings, I think two basic themes emerge. First, Mullins must be seen as an appreciator and student of Schleiermacher’s theology. Few scholars are dealt with as regularly and with as much depth as Schleiermacher in the Mullins corpus. Mullins attempts to treat Schleiermacher’s theology seriously and with great care, and while some might disagree with Mullins’ reading of Schleiermacher, none could discount Mullins’ attempt to give Schleiermacher due credit.¹⁸ In order to understand Mullins fully, one must explore the engagement between Mullins and Schleiermacher. Second, Mullins embraces Schleiermacher only to a particular point, and then hopes to improve upon Scheiermacher’s methodology. Mullins believes that Scripture and the church must be applied more strictly to Schleiermacher’s theological method in order to produce favorable fruit, and Mullins follows this line of thinking consistently throughout his writings. One would have to conclude that Mullins is influenced by Schleiermacher’s emphasis on the individual’s experience in Christ with relation to theological method, but ultimately not convinced that it is the conclusion for such inquiry. This influence will surface later in Mullins’ treatment of soul competency, as Mullins struggles to find a place for Scripture and church in relation to the individual’s experience in Baptist life.

E.Y. Mullins and William James

William James stands alongside Friedrich Schleiermacher as a powerful intellectual voice tending toward individualism during the nineteenth century. James’ philosophical program, pragmatism, focused on the individual’s experience and its relationship to right outcomes concerning ethical situations. James asserted that human experience and truth were inseparable, and his thought had much bearing on other intellectual disciplines. Much of James’ work is credited as the American precursor to psychology.¹⁹ James’ work joining individualism, pragmatism, and religion together was his most famous. Its title, The Varieties of Religious Experience, does well to signify its direction; its subtitle clues the reader even more toward James’ bent: A Study in Human Nature.²⁰ Varieties asserts that religion is primarily an individual and private function of life. One might be religious, therefore, without necessarily partaking in what James refers to as “institutionalized” religion. James argues for a religious lifestyle that can function without a convictional community.²¹

Mullins interacts differently with James than he did with Schleiermacher. Where Mullins attempted to use Schleiermacher’s theology as a starting point and then carry it forward, Mullins attempts to use James’ thought to support his own, but only do so from a specifically Christian standpoint. In other words, Mullins finds much of what James has to say to be very helpful. However, James’ conclusions differ quite radically from those of Mullins.

James finds religious experience to vary from person to person. Because experience is inseparably linked to the truth, there must be some reality behind these experiences. However, because each person tends to have differences surrounding their religious experiences (A Christian has very different religious experiences than a Buddhist, for example), James believes that certain common denominators can be discerned true to all religious experience. These common denominators give the truth about religious experience. Mullins, on the other hand, finds James’ methodology and perception of religious experience to be quite illuminating, but Mulllins refuses to surrender the particularity of Jesus Christ with relation to religious experience. Where James will look for common denominators, Mullins will opt to define experience in terms of Jesus. As a result, one will discover Mullins often quoting James to support a theological point in method. But Mullins will always be careful to relegate James’ discoveries to the particularity of the Christian tradition. Some examples may help clarify.

In The Christian Religion Mullins often refers to religious experience as the proving ground for the doctrinal construction he offers the reader. In supporting this move, he will regularly refer to James’ work. For example, when Mullins discusses the psychological aspects of Christian experience, he notes that social actions are often driven by the perceptions of others. People often act based on the expectations of those in their social circle; they act so that they might receive their approval. Mullins cites James for the spiritual equivalent:

The desire for God is awakened in our social nature in the highest ranges of its desires. We fear the condemnation and desire the approval of the Supreme Judge. Says Professor James, “This judge is God, the absolute mind, the ‘Great Companion.’ We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of prayer, and many reasons are given why we should not pray, whilst others are given us why we should. But in all this very little is said of the reason why we do pray, which is simply that we cannot help praying. . . . The impulse to pray is a necessary consequence of the fact that whilst the innermost of the empirical selves of a man in a Self of the social sort, it can yet find the only adequate socius in an ideal world.”²²

As James explains his position on prayer, Mullins stands firmly in support. For Mullins finds Christian experience to have a definite personal, psychological aspect. That aspect is made up of individual acts, including prayer, which bring the individual closer to understanding their highest side—their relational aspect to God. As long as James suggests that each member of the human race has a definite need for spiritual experience and that said experience cannot help but be expressed, Mullins stands in agreement.

Later in The Christian Religion, Mullins notes that James argues for a supernatural cause in conversion—what James considers moving from a self-sufficient person to a person aware their interaction with the Supreme Being. “Again, Prof. William James holds that conversion is the result of a supernatural working of God in the soul. It is a miraculous act, not in the pantheistic sense . . . but rather in the strict and proper sense of a direct action of God producing an exceptional result.”²³ Mullins employs support of James, because James supports Mullins at this point. But when James departs from orthodoxy, Mullins is quick to qualify his support of James. “But Professor James is an agnostic as to the cause of Christian experience. We cannot with assurance assert that it is Jesus Christ.”²⁴ Mullins does not agree with James at this juncture, and therefore defers to Ritschl. “As against [James], Ritschl holds that the one thing we do know certainly is that the knowledge and power of God is mediated to us through Jesus Christ.”²⁵ Mullins appreciates James’ profession of a miraculous conversion, but where James tends toward a more unitarian understanding of religion, Mullins prefers to retain the particularity of Jesus Christ.

Mullins repeats the pattern of appreciating yet distancing himself from James in his book Why Is Christianity True?. Mullins argues that repentance and conversion are individual acts; they cannot happen simply because a church, or any other formal community for that matter, forces them to happen. Conversion is a matter of the individual’s heart. He quotes James on this: “Religious thought is carried on in terms of personality, this being in the world of religion the one fundamental fact. Today, quite as much as in any previous age, the religious individual tells you that the divine meets him on the basis of his personal concerns." ²⁶ Mullins is happy to utilize James, the representative of modern science, to support his conclusions. But Mullins again qualifies his relationship to James, noting that James “does not concede the evangelical claim that Christ is the author of religious experience.”²⁷ Mullins continues to utilize James in this section of his book, noting that James finds religious experience to begin with personal uneasiness which leads toward a solution found in a personal experience with the Divine. Mullins essentially ‘baptizes’ James’ methodology, allowing the method of individual religious experience to speak to the problems Mullins finds pressing.

Another example from Why Is Christianity True? provides a much more lengthy chiding of Mullins toward James. As Mullins discusses the personal aspect of God intervening into individual human lives, he provides the Christian name for such an aspect of God: the Holy Spirit. Mullins notes James’ disagreement and his response to James:

But to assert anything definite about this supernatural power which enters the soul is, Professor James contends, simply to adopt an overbelief. The Buddhist calls it one thing, the pantheist gives his answer and so on to the end. The Christian says it is God, or Christ, or the Holy Spirit, but there is no proof of this. It is merely his overbelief.

Now we admire the empirical scientist who is jealous of his principle of rigid adherence to facts. His steadfast refusal to accept unfounded conclusions is wholly admirable. But he overreaches himself when he concludes that Christ’s presence in Christian experience is merely an overbelief. In a sense, of course, every opinion relating to the unseen world is and “overbelief.” The existence of the soul itself is such an overbelief. Yet consciousness and will are hopeless problems to scientific psychologists save on the “theory” that there is a soul which lies behind, and unifies experience.²⁸

Mullins continues on in his rebuttal of James for some time, but the essential point is clear. Mullins appreciates the emphasis James places on the individual and their experience with relation to God. Simultaneously, Mullins will not deter from the particularity of the Christian experience with relation to religious experience, and Mullins insists on defining religious experience with those terms.

Mullins discusses James and his usefulness for theology in an essay entitled, “Is Jesus Christ the Author of Religious Experience?”²⁹ Most of his conclusions have already been discussed in some capacity above, but it is fitting to note that Mullins felt strongly enough about the particularity of Christ and His relationship to the individual’s religious experience to write an essay devoted solely to the topic. Mullins again charges James with refusal to acknowledge the particular within his religious experiential system, but acknowledges James’ work in the field. Mullins writes, “In view of the radical claims of the agnostic philosophy of recent times and of Professor James’ well-known adherence to empirical methods in science, his position as indicated here . . . ought to be regarded as an advance towards Christianity.”³⁰ Mullins continues his love-hate relationship toward James by suggesting that James moves the modern thinking world closer to Christ, but does not do so fully enough.

Mullins’ relationship to James may be more complicated that that of Mullins and Schleiermacher. Mullins, as an educated person, appreciated the sheer intellect and academic prowess of James on some level. And, as indicated above, Mullins found James’ work to be helpful in centering Christianity around the religious experience of individuals. Given those positives, however, one would have to conclude that Mullins found it difficult to separate the conclusions of James from the personal life of James. Whereas James lived a life of semi-agnosticism, Mullins continually worked to include, yet distance, himself from James and his conclusions. Mullins, it seems, appreciated James’ work for the individual, but Mullins could not allow James to speak for himself.

E.Y. Mullins and Borden Bowne

Mullins’ place with relation to his contemporaries becomes clearer after examining one final scholar: Borden Parker Bowne. Bowne’s thought was not too terribly different from James’ and Schleiermacher’s with respect to the fact that Bowne found human experience to be the central focus in determining truth claims. Bowne’s philosophy, personalism, as it came to be called, affirmed what James and Schleiermacher already assumed: the individual’s experience creates a milieu through which reality is interpreted. Bowne’s thought represents the height of New Deal individualism, giving the individual a much higher place than was previously assumed. Bowne was no strict humanist, however. Bowne simply posited that individuals came to recognize their place within the world once they discovered their relationship to the highest Supreme Individual. Bowne wrote, “A world of persons with a Supreme Person at the head is the conception to which we come as the result of our critical reflections.”³¹ Bowne found the individual to have a place with direct relation to the Divine, a concept Mullins would support in his Axioms or Religion.

Mullins’ discussion of Bowne is much less involved than Mullins’ work with Schleiermacher or James. One could speculate why this is the case, but Mullins does not speak directly to the issue. The few references Mullins does make to Bowne are much more positive in nature than the references to Schleiermacher and James; Mullins sees no need to qualify them extensively. Mullins addresses Bowne’s philosophical system in an essay in Review and Expositor. Mullins uses that essay to criticize pragmatism and humanism, but finds positive ground in personalism. Mullins sees personalism and a foundational movement for those hoping to use human experience as a foci for intellectual understanding.³²

Outside of this positive mention in an essay, one is hard-pressed to find other references to Bowne in Mullins’ writings. In The Christian Religion Mullins makes passing reference to Bowne and his system. Mullins writes, “Blewett and Bowne combine all the lower elements [of anthropology] into a self-consistent personalism, or Christian theism, which unifies the many elements of modern thought, thus approximating very closely an evangelical Christian result.”³³ Mullins concludes that Bowne’s system can be approximated with Christianity, leading him to write, “Thus it appears that modern thought at no vital point contradicts the Christian view.”³⁴ Mullins’ brief discussion with Bowne ends in his seeming acceptance of the system as a valid way to approach understanding humanity. Bowne’s system of personalism, placing individual at the center of thought, finds a place in Mullins. But does Mullins wholly accept individualism?

E.Y. Mullins and Soul Competency

The notion of soul competency is typically credited to Mullins.³⁵ This theory, that individuals are able, under God, to discern God’s will and message personally, is at the heart of Baptist thought, according to Mullins.³⁶ And it is here that confusion has arisen with respect to how one is to read Mullins. When Mullins says, “The sufficient statement of the historical significance of the Baptists is this: the competency of the soul in religion,” how is one to interpret such a remark?³⁷ At face value it seems that one would assume that soul competency is a necessary qualifier for one to be a Baptist. But how is one to interpret soul competency? Given Mullins’ response to the three previous scholars, how is the individual’s role in religion to be defined?

Mullins, I believe, is not a strict individualist as some might suggest. Rather, I find Mullins’ notion of soul competency to lie at the intersection of personal responsibility, local congregation, and the work of the Holy Spirit. This intersection is a difficult one to navigate, so I believe one must read Mullins closely and carefully to follow his path.

If one is to understand soul competency, then one is forced to engage The Axioms of Religion, arguably Mullins’ most influential work. While Mullins does more systematic and constructive theological work in The Christian Religion in its Doctrinal Expression, it is The Axioms of Religion that lays the prolegomena for Mullins’ constructive task. In Axioms Mullins suggests that Baptists have historically always centered their beliefs on soul competency. Mullins qualifies his statement, though, pointing out that soul competency is a competency under God, not a competency in the sense of human self-sufficiency. It is this compounding of the individual and God’s work within the individual that muddies the water. Mullins seems to believe that if one stands honestly before God and seeks God’s counsel and teaching honestly, then one will come to the correct answer. Given a consistent God and a same seeking of God in another individual, one would assume that two individuals seeking God’s counsel on the same topic would come away with similar answers. But personal experience seems to differ. Two Christians earnestly seeking God on the same topic have often come away with different answers. What is going on here? Is God giving different answers based on different situations? Or are humans simply misunderstanding God’s Word to them? Or is there another answer?

In order to answer the question before us, let us read Mullins a bit more closely. Chapter Four in Axioms, “The Soul’s Competency in Religion,” addresses the issue in more depth than any other section of the Mullin’s corpus. The first subheading of the chapter, “Romanists and the Soul’s Competency in Religion,” discusses the place of the individual within the ecclesiastical structure of Roman Catholicism. Mullins suggests that the very structure of Roman Catholicism stands opposed to the soul’s competency in religion, for papal infallibility combined with authoritative tradition forbids the individual soul to disagree. “Thus, from beginning to end and throughout its very fiber, Romanism rears its ecclesiastical structure on the denial of the soul’s competency in religion.”³⁸ Mullins contends that the New Testament allows individuals to approach God directly without a human priesthood. It is interesting to note that Mullins begins his discussion of soul competency with a discussion of Roman Catholicism, the very example of what soul competency is not. In some respects, Mullins casts soul competency as a reactionary concept against the ecclesiastical structure of Roman Catholicism by beginning in such a manner.

Mullins continues the discussion of soul competency in this chapter by noting some inconsistencies within Protestant life with regard to soul competency. Mullins specifically targets infant baptism, arguing that pedobaptism does not allow for individual conscience in conjunction with God to lead toward repentance. As a result, the soul’s competency is violated, and, according to Mullins, the soul’s need to be justified before God by faith is also violated. Thus far, then, Mullins has described soul competency as the right to equal and unfettered access to God without a human priesthood and as an individual’s conversion before God by faith.³⁹

Two closing statements augment Mullins’ statement about soul competency. Mullins states that the only philosophy possible for one who believes in the soul’s competency is Christian theism, for such a philosophy is the only system that presupposes “God’s ability to communicate a revelation to man and man’s capacity to receive it and to communicate with God.”⁴⁰ In other words, soul competency allows humanity to perceive God’s revelation and allows humanity to somehow grasp that revelation. Such a grasp then allows for the second statement. Mullins suggests that soul competency drives humanity to work harder and harder to liken themselves in the image of Christ, for a human who perceives their flawed nature will continue sculpting themselves until progress has been achieved.⁴¹ Soul competency then, seems to stand as follows: Humanity has free access to God, thus allowing for individual conversion and justification by faith before God. Such justification allows humanity to perceive God’s revelation and comprehend it, and in comprehending God’s revelation, soul competency spurs humanity forward into the image of Christ.

Mullins’ presentation of soul competency in Chapter Four of The Axioms of Religion seems quite clear. Few Baptists would disagree with the principles set forth by Mullins in this chapter. Perhaps most striking about this explanation of soul competency is its lack of emphasis on doctrinal formation. The question that led us to this passage (Does God answer differently to different believers asking the same question?) seems moot when confronted with this explanation of soul competency. Mullins does not address this question. Does Mullins believe it peripheral? Or does the problem simply not occur to him? One can only guess. But the preliminary discussion of soul competency focuses more on individual responsibility before God and less on individual action. In other words, Mullins seems to believe that the competent soul will act freely and correctly once affected by God’s justification.

The soul’s competency comes into even sharper focus when one reaches Chapter Seven, “The Religious Axiom.” The Religious Axiom states, “All souls have an equal right to direct access to God.” Mullins explains that one must have a strong view of the individual in religion, because the individual stands responsible before God alone. Thus, soul competency allows all persons to have equal access to God.

It simply asserts the inalienable right of every soul to deal with God for itself. It implies of course, man’s capacity to commune with God. It assumes the likeness between God and man. It is based on the principle of the soul’s competency in religion. It asserts that on the question of spiritual privilege there are no differences in human nature as warrant our drawing a line between men and claiming for one group in this particular what cannot be claimed for others. It denies that there are any barriers to any soul to any part of the Father’s grace. There can be no special classes in religion.⁴²

Soul competency stands guard against a class system developing in the church. All believers stand on equal ground before the throne of grace. Again, the reader sees here the emphasis of soul competency upon the doctrine of justification and the reception of God’s revelation.

Thus far soul competency has been discussed primarily in terms of the soul’s responsibility before God with respect to repentance. But one of the elements of soul competency is the soul’s ability to recognize God’s revelation, specifically the revelation presented through the Scriptures. Given each individual’s equal access to God’s revelation, how does soul competency translate with regard to biblical interpretation? Given the ecclesiastical axiom, there is no class difference within the church. As a result, each church member has the right and the ability to interpret the Scriptures as they see fit under God. Mullins saw the danger in this, but refused to surrender the ability of individuals to read and interpret their Bible. The beauty of Baptists, as Mullins saw them, was their emphasis on the individual, their refusal to infringe on the religious liberty of other individuals. When asked where one should draw the line of individualism, Mullins replied, “The reply is that in one sense there is no line to be drawn anywhere because Baptists believe in absolute religious liberty for all men everywhere, as will appear later. Among themselves, however, the corrective principle is the lordship of Christ. It is this lordship which unites Baptists in a coherent body.”⁴³ Mullins finds the individualism of the Baptist faith to tempered by the lordship of Jesus. It is his constant appeal to the Christ that tempers the thought of Mullins from the individualism prevalent in his day. Biblical interpretation may result in a variety of views in a Baptist group, but, if those interpretations are within the lordship of Christ, Baptists should find a way to allow for a variety of interpretations.

Mullins’ conception of soul competency, then, seems to fit the definition presented earlier, but needs now to be fleshed out with respect to the scholars mentioned earlier. How does soul competency relate to Schleiermacher, James, and Bowne? What prevents Mullins from becoming a radical individualist?

Conclusion: E.Y. Mullins and the Convictional Community—The Church

The first three sections of this essay demonstrated the influence and difference Mullins displayed with Schleiermacher, James, and (more agreement than disagreement) Bowne. In the end, Mullins found Schleiermacher wanting because Schleiermacher posited personal experience as superior to Scripture and church. James was helpful for Mullins’ methodology, but James refused to acknowledge the particularity of the Christian faith. Mullins agreed with Bowne for the most part, because Bowne allowed his personalism to translate specifically into Christian theism, the philosophical system which allows for soul competency. So clearly Mullins is not a strict individualist, for he qualifies his association with individualistic programs and scholars. But Mullins is an individualist, because the soul’s freedom before God and the individual’s right to interpret Scripture with access to God is at the heart of Mullins’ thought. What is the difference between Mullins and these other individualist scholars?

Much of contemporary theological thought has focused lately on community. After the individualistic tendencies of modernity, community has served as a helpful corrective to theological thought, primarily because more and more disciplines are noticing the interconnected nature of the world. Robert Bellah and his colleagues noted the outcome of this radical shift toward individualism in American culture with his work, Habits of the Heart. In it, Bellah tells the story of Sheila Larson, a young nurse who describes her religious belief as “Sheilaism.”⁴⁴ The postmodern theological project has worked to combat such radical individualism. Postmodernity has suggested that each individual brings assumptions to the philosophical/theological table, and those assumptions are founded within that individual’s community—whatever that community may happen to be. One of the voices at the forefront of that discussion was the voice of James McClendon, a Baptist theologian. McClendon suggests that theology cannot be done if divorced from a convictional community—a group of people with similarly held beliefs.⁴⁵

My conclusion, after careful comparison between Mullins and other individualist scholars, is that Mullins was not a radical individualist, and his notion of soul competency differs from radical individualism because of his convictional community—the church. Granted, Mullins was a modernist. And reading postmodern notions back on figures employing modern theory can be dangerous. But I believe Mullins supports my assertion on three different fronts.

First, Mullins continually tempers soul competency with terms like, “under God,” “the lordship of Christ,” and “the authority of Scripture.” Such terms are not chosen randomly; they are chosen very carefully indeed. Such terms are the terms of Mullins’ convictional community, the local Baptist congregation. The very concept of soul competency suggests independence with respect to the individual’s role within a church/community. In other words, the community Mullins chooses to discuss is a community made up of independent and willing participants. These individuals have voluntarily decided to place themselves within the convictions of the local Christian congregation. By doing so, certain authorities are recognized which seem to trump even the individual. It is these authorities that Mullins refers to repeatedly as he says the soul is competent in religion under God, or through the lordship of Christ, or under the authority of Scripture. The convictional community has set these authorities as voluntary authorities, and Mullins demonstrates the place of the convictional community in his thought by subjecting the individual to authorities outside the individual themselves.⁴⁶

Second, Mullins discusses the place of the local congregation with respect to the individual in The Axioms of Religion. While the notion of soul competency does control much of Mullins’ thought, the relationship between believers is an important aspect of soul competency that prevents Mullins from becoming a radical individualist. In other words, Mullins appreciates the local congregation as an interpretive lens through which the autonomous soul must be seen if it is to be understood fully. Mullins writes, “Equality before God makes men equal in their ecclesiastical standing. The church is a brotherhood because it is a family of which God is the Father and Jesus Christ is the elder brother . . . the methods of the church are those of a spiritual brotherhood of equals.”⁴⁷ Mullins’ thought is not as communally dependent as the thought of some theologians today, but Mullins clearly lays forth the basis for interpreting soul competency away from pure individualism. Soul competency begins in a spiritual brotherhood, not in a solo act. The relationship of believers under the lordship of Christ assures a communal understanding which affects the individual soul. Mullins continues, “The nature of Christ’s church is determined by the twofold relationship of the believer, one to Christ Himself, the other to the brethren.”⁴⁸ In other words, each believer in the church is singularly responsible to Christ, but each believer must work to have the right relationship with the church as well. Part of that responsibility lies in allowing each member of the community to have their own interpretation of God’s revelation, but another part of that responsibility lies in serving and loving together with the other members of the community. “That is, the church is a community of autonomous individuals under the immediate lordship of Christ, held together by a social bond of common interest due to a common faith and inspired by common tasks and ends, all of which are assigned to him by the common Lord.”⁴⁹ The autonomous believers are bound by their common duties, but, because of their equality before God, they work toward those common goals through democratic polity. Mullins finds each believer to have a direct relationship to Christ and a direct relationship with one another. The local congregation forms a body with which soul competency works and is interpreted.

Third, and finally, Mullins speaks in favor of confessions of faith (occasionally called creeds as well) because of their emphasis on the convictional community. Baptists are discussing creeds and their place in Baptist life even today, and many Baptists claim that creeds have never been accepted in Baptist life. But Mullins does not seem so afraid of the word “creed,” provided coercion is not involved.

There has been much recent discussion of Baptists and their relation to creedal statements. We usually prefer the expression “confessions of faith” because in some denominations coercion has often been associated with the creeds of the past. But properly understood a creed with Baptists means simply what we believe. Creed and confession of faith mean the same thing. I invite attention first to some fallacies about creeds. The first is the widely circulated statement that Baptists have no creeds. As a matter of fact, Baptists have published a large number of articles of faith.⁵⁰

Mullins finds creeds to be acceptable in Baptist life, because they bring beliefs to the forefront. Again, Mullins opposes coercion at any point in this process, but Mullins believes that the soul competency of Baptists allows for the writing and adopting of confessions of faith quite regularly and easily. “A second fallacy is that Baptist liberty prohibits creedal statements . . . How exactly the opposite is true.”⁵¹ Mullins finds the freedom of Baptists to allow them the right to speak their mind on their beliefs at any given juncture. By participating in confessions of faith, Baptists define their community more closely, and therefore soul competency may work more effectively. “[Confessions of faith] educate the young believer. They enable the average church member to get his bearings. They define certain great limits within which a man is entitled to call himself a Baptist.”⁵² Mullins appreciates creeds/confessions of faith because they define the Baptist community closer, and therefore the liberty of the individual believer can function freely within those bounds. Mullins sees no problem with such a fact, because individual liberty takes place within a community. The convictions of the community must be retained if the notion of soul competency is to be preserved.

In fact, in an attempt to preserve the convictions of the Baptist community, Mullins wrote a book for popular purposes entitled Baptist Beliefs. In that book, Mullins explains why preserving the community’s convictions are important:

This is not written as a formal creed. If so it would be much more condensed. A very few sentences at most would be sufficient for each article. But there are a number of excellent Baptist creeds in existence already, and what is proposed here is not the setting up of another, but rather a restatement and interpretation for the general reader of those now in existence and in common use among us.⁵³

Because Mullins values the “general reader,” he wants to set out the basic beliefs of the Baptist community so that each member of the community may equally participate in the life of the church. By writing and supporting confessions of faith/creeds in Baptist life, Mullins argues for a more communal understanding of Baptist life than some may have previously supposed. As a result, Mullins’ notion of soul competency is best read from inside this convictional community perspective.

Schleiermacher, James, and Bowne each provide a glimpse into the thought of Mullins. Indeed, one cannot understand Mullins obsession with the individual and the individual’s right to stand before God alone without engaging these or other nineteenth century scholars who supported the individualist movement. Those who have read Schleiermacher and the like are more likely to appreciate the work Mullins did; his theology managed to engage the scholarship of his day while maintaining a particular allegiance to Christ. Simultaneously, though, the doctrine of soul competency should not be read exclusively as individualism in the thought of Mullins, nor should it be interpreted in such a manner in today’s Baptist community. Rather, the careful reader of Mullins will detect Mullins’ insistence on the convictional community that he found so powerful: the local Baptist congregation. Soul competency must be read and interpreted through the lens of community in Mullins thought. Without the understanding of community qualifiers (“under God,” etc.), relationships within the church, and the confessions of faith Mullins supported, one cannot properly read soul competency, and therefore cannot understand the tenet at the heart of Baptist life today. Mullins should be seen as an advocate of the individual to be sure, but he should also be seen as a communal theologian, one who loved the church as much as the individual.

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