A few days ago there was a news piece posted here reporting on an interview with Dr. Roger Olson in which he argued that what he sees as the leftward theological drift of some in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (no names were mentioned) is causing problems for those, like himself, who consider themselves “moderates.” His advice was for “those moderate Baptists who are really liberal, in the historical sense, to drop the label moderate and just call themselves liberals.” His example of who might be considered a liberal is someone finding himself in agreement with the theology of the late Marcus Borg.
The piece prompted an unusually large number of comments along with at least two perspectives pieces. Some were critical. Some acknowledged they agreed with his assessment. I contributed my own reflections on the matter and this led to some engagement from another thoughtful commenter. I offered some thoughts on the challenge presented by labels generally balanced against their necessity.
The truth is that labels can be helpful when they are accurate because they lend us the proper language with which to talk about something. For instance, I’m writing this on my laptop while sitting on my couch. Across the room from me is our television. Those labels are accurate and helpful. If I said I was writing on my television while sitting on my laptop across the room from my couch that wouldn’t make any sense. That or I was going to have a mess to clean up when I finished.
The labels “conservative” versus “moderate” versus “liberal” when applied to a person’s set of beliefs can be equally helpful, but are trickier to apply given that there is an inherent degree of relativism to such labeling. As I wrote in my first comment, “From the perspective of the [Southern Baptist Convention] the CBF was and is a ‘liberal’ organization with some members falling more left on the issues than others. For the most part, the SBC today is rather uniformly ‘conservative’ with some members falling more to the right on issues than others. We could use the pejorative ‘fundamentalist’ label to describe them, but that doesn’t seem helpful. Perhaps ‘ultra-conservative’ is better? I’ll leave that to the labelers. Within an avowedly ‘moderate’ organization, though, labeling becomes more difficult. No one wants to use the label ‘conservative’ because of the SBC implications and not many in the CBF want that. The label, ‘liberal,’ though, is equally problematic because it often has the equal, if opposite, connotations of ‘fundamentalist.’ A better conversation here would perhaps be over exactly what defines someone as a ‘moderate’ versus a ‘liberal.’”
I went on from here to use the debate over homosexuality as an example. The very public embrace of homosexuality by the CBF’s theologian-in-residence, Dr. David Gushee (meaning that on at least this issue he has located himself on what is widely recognized as the theological left), has no doubt given some in the association pause regarding their overall direction and perhaps prompted Dr. Olson’s comments. I don’t know that with anything resembling certainty, but the connection is easy to imagine. In any event, I closed my comment with this observation: “The organization [CBF] will have a hard time maintaining a ‘moderate’ tone in our increasingly polarized culture. It is a good challenge, but a steep one. Yet when you have groups headed in two different directions, labels like ‘moderate’ and ‘liberal’will become important to give clarity to the rest of the association.”
This all prompted a comment pointing out my assumption “that ‘moderate’ is a label for the content of one’s beliefs rather than the way in which they are held and expressed.” The comment was helpful for me and I really appreciated the chance to engage further on this. I agree with him and replied that I made this assumption because Dr. Olson had in his interview. His comment got me thinking, though: What exactly is a moderately held and expressed belief? What would that look like? What would be the alternative? Are there any beliefs that should be held immoderately? Surely Augustine was right to advise charity in the nonessentials while maintaining the need for unity in those which are essential. From everything I’ve seen, this notion was at the heart of the formation of the CBF.
Still, though, this led to another question in my mind: which beliefs are counted as essential in the CBF? Furthermore, how would one hold an essential belief moderately? It occurs to me that if a belief is considered essential to salvation then there isn’t much room for the kind of moderation that the commenter seemed to have in mind. For instance, we can and should be gracious about the Lordship of Christ (1 Peter 3:15), but we cannot be moderate about it (Acts 4:12). To be moderate on that point would seem to suggest that something other than Christ could be Lord. But, if something other than Christ is Lord then He is not Lord and why bother doing the whole Christian thing?
Thinking along these lines, it seems that one of the differences between the SBC and the CBF is that the former considers more beliefs to be essential than the latter and furthermore is pretty clear on what those things are. They don’t expect everybody to believe like them, but they think they are right and are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. What’s more, if a church does not believe like them it is not heading in the same direction (or if it is heading in the same general direction it is not taking the same path to get there). If a church is not heading in the same direction as the SBC, why bother being a part of the convention? The SBC’s abundance of clarity (too much some might argue) on what it considers to be essential does not mean the CBF doesn’t have its own essentials as well. Some of these overlap (from my observation missions work is important to both organizations), but many don’t. What’s more, when it comes to the beliefs the most committed CBF churches do hold as essential, the kinds of reactions I’ve witnessed on this site when they are crossed suggests they don’t hold to these moderately.
Pushing this point of departure just a bit further, though, the CBF tends to not be very clear regarding what its essentials are (for example, there is no “what we believe” page on the CBF website). And indeed, given the kind of moderation that the comment to me suggested was foundational to the CBF’s formation, it cannot define these clearly or expect member churches to hold to them. The challenge here, though, is that — as Dr. Olson argued — such a lack of definition naturally invites those who hold a very wide range of essential beliefs, some more conservative in content, others much more liberal. For example, I cannot find any reason that Westboro Baptist Church in Wichita, Kan., could not join the CBF if they began giving to it and made their membership formal and in writing. Neither would a Unitarian Universalist Church be turned away if they changed their name to Baptist and started giving. Now, there are those who consider this breadth of theological diversity a value unto itself (which is an unstated essential). But, this breadth of theology cannot be allowed to expand infinitely lest it exceed its depth and the organization ceases to be exclusively or even recognizably Christian. At that point, why bother? If people can believe anything they will eventually believe nothing. This is part of what has led to such a precipitous decline in the various mainline denominations. Surely the CBF doesn’t want to go that route.
Without greater definition of what its essentials are, the very looseness that was part of the CBF’s foundation will lead to its demise, drowning in a sea of diversity. The pressing questions here are again: which beliefs should be held moderately, which immoderately, what does that even mean, and who decides which are which? The CBF prizes itself on having a great spirit of charity in the nonessentials. This is praiseworthy to be sure. But, contrary to the fear of some, adding greater definition on what the essentials are need not jeopardize the charity. It will only add clarity. And in a world awash in confusion, adding a little more clarity to the conversation would seem to be a worthy thing.
The hard reality is that someone has to do it or the current and growing controversy between more moderate-in-content beliefs and liberal-in-content beliefs (and perhaps the occasional conservative-in-content belief, too) will cause some real headaches down the road.