I was asked by a friend at breakfast the morning after the New Baptist Covenant Celebration what three things stood out as having made the greatest impact. I thought back over the three-day meeting, and what follows are the three things I mentioned to him, and one other I simply must share with you since its poignancy overpowers me.
First, I hope I will always remember standing at the window of the upper-level press room surveying a panorama of 15,000 empty chairs. Before the first session began, I reflected on the initial pie-in-the-sky attendance projections of 20,000 and of the more recent realistic revisions of 10,000. But looking at all those empty chairs I had my doubts. I felt better when former President Carter confessed to having some of the same thoughts during his opening remarks!
Later that evening, as I again positioned myself at that window, I was so moved at what I saw that I had to blink back my tears. But it wasn't so much the number of people that moved me, even though two-thirds of the chairs were occupied at that point. Rather, it was the kind of people seated there.
White Baptists and Black Baptists and Brown Baptists sat mingled together not as contenders on opposite sides of the aisle, but as fervent celebrants of something new. May I dare to be really honest? Too much diversity causes me to want to retreat to the security of sameness. I admit it. Homogeneity is my comfort zone. People who are just like me think I am normal. I take a measure of comfort in that.
But for the sake of theological correctness, I'm willing to push outside my own comfort. As I stood there allowing my eyes to drink in the human sea before me, I cannot tell you how happy it made me. Here was religious life the way it ought to be — and the way it's ultimately going to be according to Rev. 7:9.
Baptists from North and South; from inner cities and sprawling farms; from hallowed halls of academia and wretched halls of tenements; from board rooms and mail rooms; from tall steeples and storefronts — together occupied those chairs.
They represented a cross-section of American — no, North American life. Seventy-somethings in wheelchairs sat near twenty-somethings in sneakers. Some wore worsted wool suits while two chairs away others were not out of place wearing sweatshirts and jeans. Just so you will know, we were all sizes, too.
But, suddenly, as I studied the crowd, I realized that we were only superficially diverse. At the core of our beings, every Baptist there was the same — created in God's image, ruined by our sin, rescued by the Lord's love, redeemed by Christ's blood, restored by God's grace, and reconciled to one another by the Spirit's fruit.
Regardless of the different appearances of individual Baptists who attended, this was not diversity. This was university! The words of Onward Christian Soldiers came to my mind. “We are not divided. All one body, we.” I was suddenly awed that the truth of those words was personified before my very eyes. And I gave thanks to God.
The second thing that impacted me was the memory of Jimmy Carter's choosing to become vulnerable before the assembly by describing his hopes for the convocation. He described his conversion at age 11 and his nearly 65 years teaching the Bible. Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 must have slipped his mind, for he never referred to it. As he spoke of what was most meaningful to him, he began to describe his hopes for Baptists, and he clearly became emotional. Pausing momentarily in mid-sentence to collect his emotions, he declared “this celebration of the New Baptist Covenant … is the most momentous event in my religious life.”
I know that Carter has come under fire for things he has said and written. His criticism of President Bush was, in my opinion, unfortunate, ill advised and not in keeping with Carter's general spirit of generosity. I was one who wondered if his own outspokenness would sabotage the new covenant celebration before it ever got off the ground. My regret is that some, to their own misfortune, were probably so put off by his remarks that they elected not to attend.
His writings, too, have come under fire. He called the practices of the Israeli government toward its non-citizen inhabitants “apartheid.”
Recently in Jerusalem, I sat with Bob Terry, editor of The Alabama Baptist, Jim Smith who edits the Florida Baptist Witness, and two Baptist representatives from the U.S. who now work with Palestinians. Terry asked them about the ways different levels of society are treated there.
They proceeded to describe rights withheld or delayed to certain groups. I remarked that it sounded like apartheid. One responded passionately, “That's exactly what it is!” and the other affirmed “Jimmy Carter was right when he said that in his book.”
Obviously, those very close to the situation believe Carter's comments were on target. Still, they were controversial. Because of this, I wondered whether he might say something that could inflame passions against the covenant during his press conference or in his address the opening night.
I need not have been concerned. Speaking as he did with clarity and precision, he outlined his hopes that Baptists could come together in absolute harmony. He did not minimize our conflicts but focused on our commonality. He held out hope that those elements would give rise to a new spirit of cooperation.
In a press conference prior to the event, Carter spoke of his regard for Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and revealed that he had written to both Page and to Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, outlining the purposes of the Celebration.
Carter revealed his own vulnerability as he spoke, and I began to realize how much of himself he had invested in this event. During the course of the Celebration, I also realized how indebted we all were to him. Whatever success was and will yet be achieved through this event is due in large measure to his desperate dream that Baptists can set aside differences long enough to come together to do the work of Christ on earth. May his dream become ours and may Baptists realize the dream in our time.
The third great moment of personal impact came during Bill Clinton's address. To establish a context for my remarks, I must share that mine was not a vote Clinton received during his Presidential campaigns. Also, like others, I was fully aware that his speaking at the Celebration while his wife is seeking the presidential nomination certainly provided opportunity for political misstep. Like others, I wondered if he could meet the challenge.
Former President Bill Clinton not met the challenge, but he spoke theological truth with awesome earnestness and humility. He spoke of sin and redemption and reconciliation.
He reminded us that those who disagree with us are as convinced of their correctness as we are and suggested that we should esteem and respect them them and their ideas. With the exegetical exactness of a homiletics professor, he quoted 1 Cor. 13:12 as the reason we need humility, “For now we see through a glass, darkly. But then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part, but then we shall know fully, even as we are fully known.”
He urged the assembly to avoid becoming critical or judgmental because even the most knowledgeable among us knows only a part of the whole. This, he said, should be enough to create humility in us all. According to Clinton, we cannot ignore the truth that since we all see through a glass darkly, we all can be wrong.
One other moment touched me deeply. Pastor Hanna Masaad of the Gaza Baptist Church spoke of his church's suffering, of their hardships, their persecutions, and of the martyrdom of one of their members, Rami Ayaad. (For more on this, see last week's Religious Herald online).
He described the church as being caught between two fires. One is the Israeli government that withholds services and denies or delays administrate processes. In fact, he thanked Carter for intervening with the Israeli government to make it possible for Masaad to accept the invitation to speak at the Celebration. The other fire is the mistreatment and threats they receive from the Moslem majority in Gaza as demonstrated by the murder of Rami Ayaad.
Hearing Masaad's testimony, one could assume that Masaad or the church have become bitter. But bitter they are not. “Is the disciple greater than his Rabbi? Is the servant greater than his master?” Masaad asked, quoting Jesus. Masaad simply asked for his fellow Baptists to pray that that his church might stand strong and be faithful.
As a family of Baptists, we can choose to bicker or we can choose to “lay aside the weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us” (Heb. 12:1, NIV). Is dreaming for an absence of strife among Baptists idealistic? How can we ever set aside our differences and focus on the mutual ministries lying before us? What could cause us to divert our gazes from what we judge to be our brother Baptist's flaws? Ah! As if the writer of Hebrews anticipates the question, he provides the answer in the next verse.
“Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of God's throne.” I feel like humbly celebrating, Will you join me?