RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — Cecil Sherman, a pivotal figure in moderate Baptist life for the past half century, was recognized Sept. 10 for his fierce commitment to religious freedom as Associated Baptist Press presented him one of its top awards before a room filled with his family, friends and colleagues.
The recognition is “truly a celebration of life — A life devoted to truth and truth-telling; to integrity, honesty and courage; in defense of the bedrock Baptist principles we hold dear, for which our forebears sacrificed immensely; and in service to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the freedom it offers,” said ABP executive director David Wilkinson in presenting the news service’s Religious Freedom Award.
Sherman, who challenged conservatives’ move to control the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s and later helped shape new organizational structures for moderates excluded from SBC life in the 1990s, actually received the award a year ago in a Houston hospital room where he was fighting cancer.
The award honors individuals whose achievements advance the principles and practice of religious freedom, particularly in the field of journalism, and is usually presented in conjunction with an ABP directors’ meeting. But after Sherman was hospitalized with an uncertain diagnosis, directors, who long ago had selected him as an award recipient, decided to make the presentation as a way of encouraging him, hoping a recovery would permit a more public presentation later.
“… Truth be told, there was good reason to believe that Cecil might not leave that hospital,” said Wilkinson. “Well, Cecil set that prominent trademark Sherman jaw more firmly than ever and thanks to his unyielding faith … [he] defied the odds and he is here tonight, back in the pulpit, back in the classroom, back with friends and family.”
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The Sept. 10 event was held at River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond, which Sherman attends. The city became his home when he began teaching at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond some years ago.
In his acceptance speech, Sherman hailed religious freedom as “the original Baptist idea.”
“It’s about the only Baptist idea. Now that does not impoverish us. That’s the singular thing that was Baptist. … When they were at their best they worked to get [religious freedom] and to give it.”
As Baptists have moved from minority status to prosperous influence in American life, their concepts of religious freedom have changed, said Sherman.
“Some who call themselves Baptist are suspicious of freedom,” he said. “They think freedom is really a code word for liberalism. And so when people ask for freedom it’s interpreted in some quarters as something other people dread. So those people have created tests and creeds that cramp freedom and recreate the theological coercion that called Baptists into being 400 years ago this year.
Such people “do not know the Baptist spirit,” which trusts ordinary people with both the Bible and its interpretation, Sherman said.
“Baptists never resort to force to obtain even a worthwhile end,” he said. “Religion is voluntary. To force people toward or away from religion is a violation of things fundamental. A Baptist believes freedom is more likely to lead to good than evil. That idea is worth hanging on to.”
In a keynote address, BTSR professor Dan Bagby said Sherman’s support for religious freedom echoes the firm stance taken by the reformer Martin Luther, who nailed a summary of his views to the door of a German cathedral in the face of opposition from the prevailing religious authorities.
“In the last years of the 20th century and the beginning of this century another man has done that, in particular in three places, and because of that he has blessed us all,” said Bagby.
The first place, said Bagby, was in Asheville, N.C., where as pastor of First Baptist Church there, Sherman insisted the congregation welcome African Americans as members, despite the opposition common in the South during the period. “There are not a lot of people willing to lose membership over honesty, integrity and the expression of the Baptist church as the family of God,” said Bagby. “You nailed it on the door.”
The second place was during the SBC’s battle over biblical interpretation, when “a few people tried to tell everyone how to understand the Bible,” said Bagby. “He stood and said we need the freedom to understand the Bible as it comes to us without an interpreter. He declared that those who would stand for that kind of freedom need to be recognized. That’s the second time you nailed it.”
At BTSR, the third place, Sherman resisted those who at the seminary’s outset — “some even in our classrooms” – said women should not serve as pastors. “And one more time he stood and said that women have the right to hear the word and receive the call along with everyone else,” said Bagby.
“In standing for the truth Sherman has made possible the expression of religious freedom for so many,” particularly “in regard to worship, in regard to Scripture and in regard to calling.”
Eugenia Brown, Sherman’s daughter and a professor at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisc., shared reminiscences of life with a father committed to religious freedom and inquiry. She recalled how, as a college graduate in her 20s, she quizzed Sherman on thorny theological concepts and that his responses always were “patient with her youth and rooted in full orthodoxy and conviction.”
Still, she persisted, said Brown. “ ‘But what about the cross, dad? Why couldn’t God have saved us in some other way?’ He paused for several breaths and then said I don’t know. [My] father who knew so much, who was respected by so many and had all the answers, he said, ‘I don’t know.’ He told the truth and [my] faith did not falter – it took wing.”
During the banquet, Wilkinson presented Sherman with a framed print by Maxwell Mays, continuing an ABP practice, begun when the award was initiated in 1994, of giving each recipient a copy of the New England artist’s imagined 19th-century views of Providence, R.I., which often include the spire of the First Baptist Church there – the first Baptist congregation in America.
Wilkinson also announced the establishment of the Cecil and Dot Sherman Fund for Reporting on Baptist Congregational Life and Leadership. Gifts to the fund will support ABP’s efforts to “tell compelling stories of Baptist churches and leaders,” said Wilkinson.
Robert Dilday is managing editor of the Religious Herald.