The recent meeting of the Mainstream Baptist Network was the predictable celebration of “freedom” as the cornerstone of what it means to be Baptist. I will note only in passing the irony of a group that describes itself as “mainstream” celebrating he autonomy of the individual. Surely if “mainstream” means anything it means that everyone is like everyone else. If you're in the mainstream, how do you know whether you're being yourself or just being swept along by the current?
But to speak frankly, I have a more personal interest at stake. During the convocation, President Bill Underwood of Mercer University took the occasion to lift up the signatories of the so-called “Baptist Manifesto” as among those who view this supposed hallmark of “freedom” as being out of fashion. I am one of the six original co-authors of the “Baptifesto.” (I told you I had a personal interest.) According to President Underwood, “It is right to suggest we exist in community and have a responsibility to the community, but it is wrong to insist the community can declare orthodoxy. It is wrong to deny a place for the individual in community.”
The “Baptifesto” in fact states that a faithful ecclesial reading of Scripture “will exclude no light from any source.” Here we are merely standing on the shoulders of our forebear John Robinson, regarded as one of the founders of the congregational church, who in 1620 said to the Pilgrims preparing to leave Europe for the New World, “God has yet more light and truth to break forth out of his holy Word.” Robinson rightly saw that God's Spirit continues to speak to the body of Christ and to members of that body in order to bring forth more fully God's holy wisdom. Such light, of course, is never only for an isolated individual but, like all of God's gifts, is given for the building up of the whole body.
Another participant at the conference is quoted as saying, “A group of individuals will have its own character.” This is certainly true. The philosophical mistake by many celebrants of freedom is the assumption that we can talk about what it means to be an “individual” apart from a “community,” or that we can talk about “community” apart from the individuals who make it up. This is simply impossible. It would be like trying to understand the word “finger” apart from the word “hand.” As individuals, as persons, we are always shaped by some prior community. The deeper question is which communities are in fact forming us so that we can become more faithful disciples?
As we know, not all communities are good. Some can malform. Our biological families can do this. Our ethnic identities can do this (witness Rwanda). Our national identities can do this, as when allegiance to country trumps allegiance to God.
The challenge that this Mainstream Baptist meeting puts before us, from my perspective, is “can the church malform us?” Some would jump to an immediate, “Yes!” Look at all the wounds that have resulted from the conflict between moderates and conservatives. We can all probably think of particular situations within particular congregations where we see “malformation.” I certainly would not deny these.
And yet the solution is not to resort to a thin individualism or an anemic soul competency, both of which give pride of place to the individual over against the church. The solution is to both live and understand that we are part of a drama and people called church much larger than a particular congregation or even denomination. We gain “leverage,” so to speak, on our own malformation by allowing ourselves to be more deeply formed by the body of Christ, understood as a body or communion that began with Jesus and that today transcends geographical limitations.
As an example of a fuller formation, I was recently reading how most Protestants today tend to regard Easter as a single day (filled rightly with all the celebration that goes along with the Resurrection). In the early church, however, Easter was a season, not just a day, lasting for 50 days until Pentecost. Is this important? Does it make any difference in our formation? How we live out the time of the now-and-not-yet of God's kingdom makes all the difference in the world.
Take, for example, Clarence Jordan, founder of the interracial Koinonia Farm in 1942 in Americus, Ga. I've always loved the well-known story about Clarence Jordan and his brother, Robert Jordan, who refused to represent Koinonia Farm legally because of his aspirations to be governor of Georgia. As Clarence Jordan records the conversation:
“Clarence, I can't do that. You know my political aspirations.… I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point.”
“Could that point by any chance be the cross?”
“That's right. I follow him to the cross but not on the cross. I'm not getting myself crucified.”
“Then I don't believe you're a disciple. You're an admirer of Jesus but not a disciple of his. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to and tell them you're an admirer, not a disciple.”
“Well now, if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn't have a church, would we?”
“The question,” Clarence said, “is, 'Do you have a church?'”
Clarence Jordan calls on his brother to submit himself to the authority of a truthful community. We are not free, nor is it wise, to imagine that we can learn what it means faithfully to live out our discipleship apart from the discipline that the word itself implies.
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— Beth Newman is Professor of Theology and Ethics at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. [email protected]
Read more:
Mainstream Baptist leaders credit ‘freedom' for keeping them Baptist
Mercer president-elect decries 'spiritual masters' who limit freedom (1/24/2006)