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What do Baptists and Catholics have in common?
That sounds like the set-up for a joke of some sort–or at least for a very brief response, given the anti-Catholicism that has marked much of the Baptist tradition (even when we were defining ourselves over against the Church of England).
When the Baptist World Alliance and the Catholic Church engaged in a series of international conversations from 1984 through 1988 to see what they might be able to say together, the two communions were actually able to say a great deal about their agreement on “God’s saving revelation in Jesus Christ, the necessity of personal commitment to God in Christ, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, and the missionary imperative that emerges from God’s redemptive activity on behalf of humankind,” as paragraph 2 of the 17-page report “Summons to Witness to Christ in Today’s World” summarized the matters on which Baptists and Catholics were able to say something together about our common commitment to the good news of our testimony that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
That report also identified deep differences evident in those conversations that warranted continued exploration: theological authority and method; the shape of ecclesial koinonia; the relationship between faith, baptism, and Christian witness; and the place of Mary in faith and practice.
When I served as a member of the Baptist delegation to a second series of conversations between the BWA and the Catholic Church from 2006 through 2010, we directly addressed those ongoing differences. The result was a nearly 100-page report, “The Word of God in the Life of the Church,” published last summer and presented at the annual gathering of the BWA in Jamaica that July. The document is not a description of our differences. It is rather a statement of our surprisingly substantial consensus on the church’s participation in the koinonia of the Triune God, the authority of Christ in Scripture and tradition, baptism and the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper, Mary as a model of discipleship, and the ministry of oversight (episkope) and unity in the life of the church.
We presented these agreements as a “differentiated consensus”: paragraphs set in bold type expressed our basic consensus, followed by paragraphs set in regular type that offered commentary on the nature of that consensus and/or identified the ways in which there are remaining differences in how each communion understands and embodies what Baptists and Catholics have been able to say together.
Having said these things together, Baptists and Catholics now have the responsibility of “reception” of the report. In a “Glossary of Key Ecumenical Terms” in my book Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity, I offered the following definition of that task:
Reception—The process by which worldwide communions, national churches and denominations, local parishes and congregations, and individual Christians become informed about, consider, and act upon the proposals and agreements that result from bilateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogue.
When the “The Word of God in the Life of the Church” went online last October, I launched an experiment in utilizing social media to encourage reception of the report. Beginning on October 11, I began posting a semi-daily “tweet” from my Twitter account summarizing in 140 characters or less a statement of agreement from the bold-type consensus paragraphs of the report (actually a good bit less than 140 characters, as the inclusion of the hashtag #BaptistsCatholics and the condensed URL link to the report left only 89 characters for summary and paragraph number reference). Since Facebook status updates don’t have the 140-character restriction, I posted a parallel series of Facebook updates with the full consensus statements from which the tweets were abridged.
I posted the final #BaptistsCatholics tweet on January 3 of this year. Here’s the tweet-by-tweet “Twitter edition” of the bold-type consensus paragraphs from “The Word of God in the Life of the Church,” sans hashtags and URLs:
7. The one God exists from eternity in a life of relationship–a koinonia of persons
7. Jesus Christ, God’s self-revelation, draws us into communion with God & each other
7. The Word of God in the church in the fullest sense is Christ himself
11. The church is a koinonia (fellowship) grounded in the koinonia of the triune God
11. Believers are joined in koinonia through participation in communion of Triune God
11. Believers also in koinonia through participation in community gathered by Christ
11. “Communion ecclesiology” expresses the heart of the nature of the church
12. Principle of koinonia applies both to local church & to gatherings of congregations
12. Local church does not derive from universal church, nor is universal a mere sum of local forms
12. There is mutual existence & coinherence between local and universal church of Christ
16. The koinonia of the church may also be understood as a ‘covenant community’
16. Covenant is God’s initiating relationship with us & our commitment to each other & God
16. Church is gift in being gathered by Christ, & gathers in response to call of Christ
16. Koinonia of church is both gift & calling, as unity of church is both gift and task
20. Communion with triune God & whole church is continually actualized in Eucharist/Supper
20. In Euch we share communion not only w/ congregation but whole church in time & space
20. Because we hear word of God in eucharist, it is a sharing in both word and sacrament
23. Local churches must be in visible communion w/ each other, or communion lacks fullness
26. Local churches have communion w/ each other to hear Word of God & find mind of Christ
37. The Bible is the divinely-authorized written norm for faith and practice
37. The normativity of Scripture is principally located in the worship of the church
37. The Bible was canonized by and for the worshipping community
37. Bible supplies narrative content of acts of worship that recall/represent acts of God
37. Scripture is the source of story of the triune God in which worshippers participate
41/42. God is the author of Sacred Scripture…through human instrumentality
46. OT and NT together form coherent story that requires a Christ-centred interpretation
56. Bible is written embodiment of living tradition handed down through work of H. Spirit
56. The source of this process of transmission is the living Word of God, Jesus Christ
58. Scripture & tradition coinherent–mutual indwelling & interweaving of 1 in the other
58. Scripture and tradition should not be considered as separate and unrelated sources
58. Scripture & tradition = 2 streams flowing together from same source: God’s revelation
63. Apostolic tradition distinguished from merely ecclesiastical trad; apostolic normative
73. Sacraments/ordinances = signs through which God acts, visible signs of invisible grace
77. Sacrament and ordinance express both God’s gift of love & faith-filled human response
77. Sacrament/ordinance becomes intersection between divine commitment & human commitment
79. Christ central to meaning of sacraments/ordinances & their relationship to the church
81. There is a coinherence between sacraments/ordinances and preaching of the Word of God
83. Baptism and the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper are central to the life of the church
85. Sacraments/ordinances are encounters w/ Christ that transform worshipers by the Spirit
85. No experience of salvation is fully whole without entrance of the believer into church
85. There can be no experience of grace apart from faith
91. Rel. of faith & sacrament/ordinance involves faith of individual believer & community
93. We baptize in obedience to Christ’s command ‘Go therefore..baptizing them’ Mt 28:19-20
93. Baptism has its foundation & meaning in the doctrines of the Trinity and Christology
93. Through baptism we are brought more deeply into the communion of the triune God
93. Through baptism…we [also] share in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ
97. Faith is always necessary for baptism
101. Initiation into Christ & his church is a process wider than the act of baptism itself
101. Can recognize different forms of initiation as an entire journey of faith and grace
107. Baptism is with water, in name of Father & Son & Holy Spirit, & a once-for-all event
109. In baptism we are united with other believers in the church of Christ (1 Cor 12:13)
113. Baptism signifies forgiveness of sins and new birth
116. Eucharist/Lord’s Supper is essential to the church & celebrated in obedience to Jesus
119. The Bible must play a formative role in the liturgy of the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper
121. There is a trinitarian pattern in the order of worship of the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper
125. Christ is really present to his disciples in celebration of Eucharist/Lord’s Supper
130. There is a strongly ethical & eschatological dimension to the Eucharist/Lord’s Supper
133. Mary has significant place in NT–witness to Christ, mother of Savior, called blessed
133. Beliefs about Mary should be rooted in, warranted by, & not contradicted by Scripture
135. Mary belongs to the Jewish people….Mary may be called ‘Daughter of Israel’
137. A number of Old Testament passages may be interpreted as referring to Mary
139. The Gospels present Mary as ‘hearer of the Word’–a disciple who heard, obeyed Word
140. Jesus conceived by Spirit, born of Virgin Mary–sign of divine origin & true humanity
143. Mary is properly named the Theotokos or ‘God-bearer’–safeguards identity of Christ
146. Mary has a special calling in plan of salvation, but also redeemed by Christ by grace
150. Mary is a model of discipleship in faithful listening and obedience to God’s Word
154. Mary is not only a member, but also representative figure, of the church of Christ
156. The church prays with Mary and learns to pray like Mary in the communion of saints
159. The representations of Mary in particular cultures are subject to the gospel as norm
162. Christ is the head of the church, her founder, creator and cornerstone
162. The church owes her whole existence to Christ, who is her ‘episkopos’ (1 Pet 2:25)
162. Christ nourishes/sustains church with Gospel & celebration of sacraments/ordinances
165. Episkope (oversight) is Christ’s gift to church to enable ministry of people of God
165. Christ calls whole people of God to share in his ministry as prophet, priest & king
165. The episkope of some is a gift of Christ to enable & equip body of Christ as a whole
168. Our differing patterns of episkope seek to be faithful to Scripture & apostolic trad
173. Episkope is exercised in personal, collegial and communal ways in the church
176. Episkope primarily exercised in local church, but always in communion w/ wider church
179. Personal episkope is established by Christ for the good of the church
182. One principal purpose of the ministry of episkope is the promotion of Christian unity
184. Jesus’ prayer for unity (=both spiritual&visible) sets out vocation of all Christians
186. The unity of the church reflects its apostolicity, expressed both by faith & ministry
186. Ministry is apostolic if it hands on apostolic faith & fulfills missionary mandate
200. Past failures of both Baptists & Catholics must be addressed with due repentance & appropriate action
The report itself says those things much more fully and with all the necessary qualifications and distinctions. I hope this radical abridgement of the essential Baptist-Catholic consensus expressed in “The Word of God in the Life of the Church” will pique the interest of ABPnews Blog readers enough to encourage further reception of the report—which is not necessarily agreement with its take on Baptist-Catholic consensus, but “the process by which worldwide communions, national churches and denominations, local parishes and congregations, and individual Christians become informed about, consider, and act upon the proposals and agreements that result from bilateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogue.”
That sort of reception starts with reading—even if it’s only 140 characters (or less) at a time.