By Bill Leonard
The quest for Baptist identity continues. The American Baptist Churches USA augmented their biennial gathering with a theological conference on the theme: “Memory, Identity and Hope: Intersections in American Baptist Ecclesiology.”
In response to issues raised by the ABC/USA conference in June, I proposed the following reflections for discussion of a Baptist future:
— Anchor identity in a renewed commitment to the concept of a Believers’ Church, Baptists’ singularly most distinctive characteristic and contribution. Concern for a Believers’ Church then becomes a foundation for shaping ecclesiology and ministry, evangelism and mission, conversion and spirituality.
— Address and articulate the meaning of conversion as lifelong experience not simply a singular event. Those who enter a Believers’ Church need to know why and how they believe. So does the congregation that welcomes them.
— Reclaim believers’ baptism as a death-defying sacramental moment and find ways to renew its meaning at every opportunity. In Frustrated Fellowship, the late African-American historian James Melvin Washington suggested that liberation and identity, what he calls “Black Baptist social power,” was found in “the liturgical power of baptism by immersion to transform ‘a bastard people’ into a new social creation with its own ‘cosmology.’” He concludes that, “The Christian movement’s ability to use its liturgies to forge distinctive theologies and spiritual praxes as vehicles for psychic and material deliverance is far more extensive than some have argued.”
— Enhance particularity and inclusion theologically and liturgically through the use of a “Six Principle Baptist” model of a two-fold laying on of hands. Taking Hebrews 6:1-2 as a guide for their biblical identity, these early Baptists administered the laying on of hands to the newly baptized as a sign of the Holy Spirit and the shared calling of all believers. They laid on hands a second time for those set aside for “peculiar” vocation/calling as ministers of the word.
Such a practice defines Baptist community in multiple ways. It acknowledges baptism as the great equalizer, bringing every believer into servant-ministry. It tangibly signifies the “diversity of gifts” and common calling of all who claim faith in Christ. Churches that maintain open baptism policies might use the laying on of hands as a sign of confirmation for those who enter Baptist life from another baptismal tradition, professing their faith and “owning the covenant” without “rebaptism.” Churches that require “rebaptism” might use the laying on of hands as outward confirmation of faith long present in those who join Baptist congregations.
— Reclaim the power of conscience and the role of dissent in Baptist life. In a society where individualism is rampant, churches might recover communal responsibility for distinguishing Christian conscience from destructive fanaticism or political meanness. Yet consciences often conflict and dissent can be painful and divisive. Balancing conscience and community is never easy.
— Listen to the immigrants. Colonial Baptist immigrants challenged Puritan/Anglican establishments in the name of religious liberty. Africans, largely unwilling immigrants, were longsuffering vehicles of racial justice for the entire nation. Scandinavian and Asian immigrants created important segments of Baptist life in the Midwest and in the West. Latino Baptists bring new cultural and linguistic insights into churches old and new. The energy of immigrant faith communities could significantly renew and reinvigorate existing congregations.
— Celebrate pluralism even while struggling with it. Baptists should not fear religious pluralism; they helped invent it. Indeed, the very idea of a believers’ church was predicated on the power of uncoerced faith.
Baptist Samuel Richardson wrote in 1648: “Because it is God’s way, to have Religion free, and only to flow from an inward principle of faith and love; neither would God be worshipped of unwilling worshippers.”
For Richardson, believers, heretics and atheists were answerable to God alone for their faith or non-faith. Such pluralism did not require a nebulous religious syncretism without doctrinal particularity. Everyone had the freedom to choose or reject religious identity. Pluralism means religious groups are free to be as welcoming or as restrictive as their consciences and convictions demand. Potential constituents are free to run to or from them as they choose.
Writing in 1953, Baptist historian Winthrop Hudson described the paradox that anticipated our contemporary dilemma: “The necessity for the churches to exhibit a distinctive faith and life suggests that there must be some normative content to their message. What that content is to be, however, can only be determined by discussion within the churches.”
It is time for multiple Baptist groups to join in that discussion more intentionally than ever before. In fact, it is probably past time.