I minister on the periphery of Baptist life, trying to start a progressive Baptist church in the heart of the old empire. I’m old enough to remember well the Baptist wars of decades ago, and yet new enough to ministry to be constantly frustrated by progressive Baptists’ preoccupation with differentiating ourselves from what we left behind. When I go to Baptist conferences, I hear lots of conversations that can be grouped into two categories: the first is handwringing over the future of progressive Baptists, and the second is of the “aren’t we more enlightened than other unnamed Baptists” variety. And I’m not really interested in either (though like everyone else, I sometime engage in both).