The Freedom and Responsibility of the Baptist Individual to Engage in Witnessing

The Freedom and Responsibility of the Baptist Individual to Engage in Witnessing

Robert E. JOHNSON

This article focuses on the freedom and responsibility of the individual believer to engage in Christian witness. Beliefs about God, humanity, the Bible, and salvation constitute the starting point for Baptists' theology of witness. Historically Baptists have tended to understand witness in very individualistic and otherworldly terms. History teaches us that tension often is generated between a person's identity and faith when witness fails to take a person's culture into consideration. Geoffrey Harris and David Bosch offer studies that give insight into the various forms that Christian witness took in the early church and during the centuries since. Good witness calls for preparation, commitment, and faith. Witness is multi-dimensional, and should be discipling, inclusive, holistic, incarnational, and urgent. Witness often includes uncomfortable changes, and may even require personal transformation . Witness is not for the fainthearted. Yet, as Jesus' disciples, we all are called to be witnesses of the mystery of God's creative and redemptive work.