The Richmond Baptist Association voted March 19 to maintain fellowship with Ginter Park Baptist Church, a church that recently ordained an openly gay man to the ministry.
The vote was close — very close — but it was enough to establish a simple majority and settle the question, at least for that night: Ginter Park can stay in the RBA family. How the churches of the association will respond to that news remains to be seen.
Jim Somerville
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But here’s what I find myself wanting to say: Baptists and Buddhists can work together if the cause is just and the mission is clear.
When Superstorm Sandy pounded the coast a few months ago, for example, Baptists from Virginia were among those who raced north to provide relief. But they weren’t the only ones. People of different faiths and people of no faith at all were working alongside them to provide food, clothing and shelter for people whose homes had been lost in the storm. They didn’t have to agree on every point of doctrine in order to work together, just on that point that insists that people who are hungry and cold need some help.
I remember my own experience with disaster relief after Hurricane Fran hit the North Carolina coast in 1996. I jumped in a car with a few other Baptist men and drove to Wilmington, where I ended up washing out empty food containers after hot meals had been delivered. I worked side by side with a delightful older couple whose views were almost completely opposite of mine. If we had been in a Baptist meeting, we would have voted differently on every issue.
But we weren’t.
We were in a disaster-stricken area trying to provide relief to people who had almost nothing left in the world. We didn’t have to agree on everything to agree that what we were doing was both urgent and important.
I think Sterling Severns, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church, helped us see that at the RBA meeting. He said that when he came to Richmond as a pastor nine years ago he asked his new church why they supported the Richmond Baptist Association. “Because of Camp Alkulana,” they said. Because every year the RBA takes busloads of boys and girls from inner city Richmond to spend a week at camp — breathing fresh air, hiking, camping, swimming, and learning about the love of Jesus in a beautiful natural setting. For those kids, for that week, heaven really does come to earth. That’s one of the best reasons why Sterling’s church, and my church, and Ginter Park Baptist Church give money to the Richmond Baptist Association — so those kids can go to camp. We don’t have to agree with each other on everything to agree that that’s a good thing, and something worth doing.
So, in spite of all our discussion about homosexuality, and about what the Bible says, and about what we believe, in the end we voted to keep on working together on what we agree is important — those kids who go to Camp Alkulana, for instance. And if the Buddhists decide they want to send us a check?
We’ll take it.
Jim Somerville (somerville@fbcrichmond.org) is pastor of First Baptist Church in Richmond. He blogs at http://jimsomerville.wordpress.com, where this article originally appeared.