Speak up

You may not expect this from a bunch of journalists, but this new website reflects our Baptist theology.

We believe in the twin doctrines of soul competency and the priesthood of all believers. Soul competency is the idea that God has created all people—every individual—with the capacity to relate directly to God. We’re all “competent” to approach God directly, of our own free will, and to have a loving, abiding relationship with God. And the priesthood of all believers means we don’t need any pope, priest, pastor, rabbi, imam or other spiritual intermediary to stand between us and God, to be our intermediary with God.

This is why, for 399 years, Baptists have practiced democracy in our churches, associations and conventions. Since we believe God has made each believer a free priest with direct access to God, then each individual should be free to participate in and give direction to our corporate life together. So, we’re big voters. Every so often, we gather together to do business, and each vote is both a practical matter of making decisions and a theological assertion of our belief in soul competency and the priesthood of all believers.

Theology of news

That’s why communication always has been important to Baptists. If we expect Baptists to make good decisions, then we all need access to accurate information about the issues and challenges before us. For generations, Baptists have published newspapers to help participants in their societies and conventions understand their common concerns so they can make good decisions and rise to their opportunities. As a newspaper, the Baptist Standard has been facilitating this kind of communication for 120 years.

For about a decade or so, the Standard has placed everything that goes in the print edition on the Internet, too. In fact, for most of that time, we’ve actually published more online than in print—like Bible study lessons, extra letters to the editor, even news and feature stories that just didn’t fit in the print edition.

But with this new website, we’ve laid the foundation to do much more.

This is where you come in

One of the most significant components of our new site is the comment feature. We’re giving you the opportunity to add your comments to our blogs, editorials, news stories and just about everything we post online. We’re not just giving you that opportunity; we want you to comment. One of the main reasons is because we actually believe all that soul competency/priesthood of all believers stuff. When you read something, have an idea and share it, we’re all enriched.

I’ll tell you the first time I realized I wanted to add comments to the Standard website. It was May 25, 2007, the day Herbert Reynolds died. Dr. Reynolds was president emeritus of Baylor University and had been a gracious friend and mentor to me. Instinctively, I clicked on the Waco Tribune-Herald website to see if I could find more details. The Trib already had added a comment feature to its news stories, and throughout the day, friends and former students added their tributes to a life well-lived. Their beautiful stories provided a poignant dimension to the reporter’s article, and I wanted the Baptist Standard to give our readers that opportunity to inform and inspire each other.

So, all of us here hope you’ll participate. Of course, you still can send letters to the editor. But we also want you to feel free to comment when you’re inspired by an article, editorial, letter, blog or other item. Your “voice” is important.

OK, here’s the catch

 In order to comment, you have to register. It’s easy. Even I can do it. Right now, we’ve placed a couple of registration links on our homepage. One is a button on the top of the left column. The other is a link in the bottom-left corner of my blog box. Either link will take you to a confidential form where you can sign up, get your password and get started. 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Next time

One more blog about what we hope to do with this site. Then we’ll move on. (I promise.)