NORMAN, Okla. (ABP) — The plight of poor people depends significantly upon Baptists' determination to retain their spiritual legacy, an urban pastor who spent a decade ministering in one of the nation's poorest counties told participants at the New Baptist Covenant regional meeting in Oklahoma.
"We must preserve a distinctively Baptist witness in the world, because the poor, the hurting and the lost are depending upon it," insisted Ellis Orozco, pastor of First Baptist Church of Richardson, Texas, and former pastor of Calvary Baptist Church of McAllen, in Texas' impoverished Lower Rio Grande Valley.
"The poor are depending upon our witness in the face of the strongholds of systemic evil in our … nation," Orozco said.
Ellis Orozco preaches at New Baptist Covenant celebration in Oklahoma. (Photo by Joey Pyle)
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Orozco said Baptists must maintain their advocacy and help for the poor "in a world that will grow increasingly hostile toward Christianity and increasingly apathetic toward the poor."
The plight of the poor is spiraling in large part because of globalization, he explained. The world's economy is interconnected, change is accelerating, corporations and nations are going bankrupt — and the poor are stuck at the bottom of all the upheaval.
"It's a mind-blowing and dizzying time to be alive, and most Christian groups will begin to shrink away and build fortresses of protection against every perceived danger or threat," he said. "But I believe that we, as Baptists, have been shaped as a people for such a time as this. We have in our arsenal of faith practices the tools we need to ride the waves of change."
Those "tools" reflect Baptists' unique combination of historic values and beliefs, he said. They include soul competency, the priesthood of every believer, religious freedom and the separation of church and state, voluntary cooperation based upon missionary zeal and church autonomy.
The ways in which these qualities interact "make us especially adept for the challenges of the next century," Orozco said.
He cited political columnist and author Thomas Friedman, who predicts nations and institutions will not survive the escalating demands of globalism if they are rigid, autocratic and controlling. But Baptists' heritage gives them the flexibility and openness to thrive amid globalism, Orozco said.
Unfortunately, Friedman's description of rigidity and autocracy describes much of religion in America, Orozco observed, pointing to increasing polarization in American politics and religion. Consequently, both the religious right and the religious left — conservative and liberal — have become captive to the culture and unable to offer leadership.
"The Christian church in America is being pushed to the margins," he said, but that's not bad. "As an ethnic minority in America, I say to the church, 'Welcome to the margins.' … It may be the very thing that saves American Christianity."
Orozco said operating from the margins could overcome the conflict of interest generated by religion's desire to work from a power base at the center of society.
"The church cannot serve a socio-political ideology and Christ at the same time," he stressed. "The church can speak prophetically only from the margins of society — only from outside the corridors of power, never from the center."
"Any Christianity operating from that position will be a controlling, legalistic and spiritually oppressive force, unable to distinguish the voices of political allies from God's voice," he said. "And, I would add, that is the very kind of institution that will wither under the weight of globalization. It is imperative that we remain distinctively Baptist because we have the right recipe to be a prophetic voice, speaking from the margins, in a shrinking and dynamically changing world."
Baptists' spiritual heritage also enables them to collaborate well with others to accomplish vital objectives, Orozco said, referencing what Friedman calls "open-sourcing."
"It's messy," he conceded, noting, "The larger Christian witness in America doesn't like messy." But that runs counter to important trends that track effectiveness the world over, he added.
Unfortunately, "the larger Baptist witness in America is pulling out of collaborative efforts and building more doctrinal walls than ever before," he said. "It is one the most frustrating problems in Baptist life today. It is absolutely essential that we ride the wave of collaborative communities. If we don't … I'm not sure who else will. And if we don't, the ones who suffer the consequences of our failure are the poor."
Because many Baptists in America have "fixated on a few politically salient issues," and even though those issues are important, "we have largely abdicated our prophetic voice where it counts the most," he charged. "We have failed to throw the full weight of our Baptist strength behind the life-and-death issues that affect the most people — the multiplicity and complexity of issues surrounding the plight of the poor."
In contrast, Jesus side-stepped political issues in order to care for the poor, Orozco said. "Jesus began his most famous sermon by saying, 'Blessed are the poor," he explained. "His heart was always with them.… He spent all his time, it seems, in the small villages with the poor."
"Both the left and the right in American Christianity have sold out to one political perspective for 30 pieces of silver — promises that never come true, and trickle-downs that never trickle," Orozco said. "Their political litmus tests ignore the largest, and in global terms, the most devastating issues of our times — all of the issues fueled by abject poverty."
Baptists often sing the old hymn "Wherever He Leads, I'll Go," but Orozco said there's only one way to prove they mean it: "Jesus always leads us to the poor."
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Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard.
Click here for the full text of Orozco's sermon.