It’s getting harder and harder for a Baptist like me to find a place to connect.
I love our church (First Baptist of Huntsville, Alabama) and my relationships and connections in the community. Yet I’m “Baptist wired” to connect also with a broader body of spiritual kinfolk. So I want a “people” – Baptists among whom I don’t have to walk on eggshells and with whom I can devote my energy to mission, not to debating each other or to demonizing other Baptists.
I’m not writing off anybody, mind you. But connecting with Baptists beyond our church is getting harder and harder. It feels like my tribe, and my options, could be shrinking.
To what Baptist sending agency do I direct my missions giving?
My wife, Keri, and I were missionaries to Nigeria with the International Mission Board and there are lots of folks I admire who still are part of the IMB. However…
“Among moderate Baptist influencers, what I would consider ‘centrist’ perspectives seem increasingly scarce.”
Several months ago, when the brand new president of the IMB still was executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, the KBC voted not to allow churches who are dually aligned (Southern Baptist Convention and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship) to associate with them. Our dually-aligned church would have been booted from the KBC, so I probably am less-and-less welcomed at the IMB.
Furthermore, I could not now be a missionary with the IMB because I would not be able, with integrity, to sign the 2000 version of the Baptist Faith & Message (a requirement of their missionaries). Does my commitment to international missions mean sending my money to an agency with which I could not serve?
On the other hand, the CBF missions passion doesn’t seem to match my own. North Carolina teacher and writer Tony Cartledge wrote in 2014 about the decline of missions in CBF life and acknowledged that a call to “win the lost at all costs,” accompanied by the message of a literal hell, have been replaced with “social ministries that make life better for people.”
While I fully embrace a holistic approach to mission and am fond of CBF’s leaders, I lament the apparent loss of a driving passion for the conversion of people to faith in Jesus. And, frankly, I am disappointed that in the CBF world there seems to be a lot more energy devoted to things like opposing predatory lending (worthy cause that it is) than to making disciples and baptizing them.
What Baptist seminaries do I recommend people from our church attend?
Everyone is welcomed in our church, but I cannot affirm, for marriage or church leadership, those in same-sex relationships. There are Baptist seminaries in which my traditional position on sexuality would mark me as a fundamentalist.
I also believe the Bible allows for women to be deacons and pastors. I understand why so many disagree, yet I did not come to my position casually. There are Baptist seminaries in which my support for women in ministry would mark me as a liberal.
The list of Baptist seminaries I recommend, as you might imagine, is pretty short.
“I find myself increasingly at home among some groups that don’t have ‘Baptist’ in their names.”
What Baptist gatherings will I attend?
I go to one Baptist gathering and I hear folks only in the tradition of Barbara Brown Taylor or Brian McLaren. I go to another and I hear folks only in the tradition of Jerry Falwell Jr. or Franklin Graham. That would be fine if I also could hear someone who represents a more centrist position. Like someone in the tradition, say, of Debra Hirsch, John Ortberg, Erwin McManus or Scot McKnight. What Baptist get-together do I go to for that?
How did we get here?
I supported the moderate Baptist movement among Southern Baptists back in the 1980s. I was an un-influential seminary student, yet I believed one could be a good Baptist, for example, without assuming the days of creation were seven, literal, 24-hour periods. I also believed the moderate leaders were right to champion ministry options for Baptist females. And I believed the term “inerrancy” was so politically charged its use was not necessarily helpful.
Yet I never dreamed, and I’m guessing most of those early moderate leaders never dreamed, we’d end up where a Centrist Baptist like me would find connecting to be so hard. Back in the day I heard dramatic warnings about the proverbial slippery slope from pulpit-pounding preachers in the SBC. Now I imagine the pulpit-pounders are declaring, “I told you so.”
“Maybe the middle is simply not as noisy as the edges.”
Baptists to the left of me. Baptists to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle…
Lots of Baptists to the right of me are a long way to the right of me. Lots of Baptists to the left of me are a long way to the left of me and, here’s the kicker, seem to be drifting further left still. Among moderate Baptist influencers, what I would consider “centrist” perspectives seem increasingly scarce. Voices from the very left edge of the Baptist family, however, are referenced and quoted frequently. The moderate center apparently has shifted leftward. (By the way, this shift seems to be more on the part of clergy than the persons in the pew. And that’s a whole ‘nother conversation.)
Candidly, when I’m with my circles of close pastor-friends I’m on the conservative end of things, and that doesn’t seem to be a problem for any of us. But with what national body am I most likely to find convictional congruence and personal connection? And what do I say to our church if we are ever told we have to plant our flag with either SBC or CBF?
Relationships beyond my customary circles are increasingly attractive. I have far more in common with the evangelical segment of American Baptist Churches USA, for example, than with some in the SBC and some in the CBF. And I find myself increasingly at home among some groups that don’t have “Baptist” in their names – people who believe Jesus is the Savior and the Bible is divinely inspired and aren’t so far to the left or right of me that the relationship feels forced.
Maybe I’ll form my own denomination – made up of people who believe exactly as I do. No, that would be a small and boring circle.
Maybe I’ll become an Independent Baptist. No, I’d have a hard time making much of an impact on my own.
Maybe I’ll focus solely on the amazing people of FBC, Huntsville, and the wonderful city in which I live. No, that feels too provincial.
So I still will connect. It’s just getting hard for, alas, my tribe is shrinking. Maybe. Or maybe the Centrist Baptist tribe is as large as it ever was. Maybe the middle is simply not as noisy as the edges.
