A story is told in my family about my grandfather, a lover of old time gospel music and, in an era before paid music ministers, the song leader at his rural North Carolina Baptist church. Music was such an important part of his life, when he passed away back in 1993 our family saw fit to have the words “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord” engraved on his headstone. As a good and dedicated lay leader, he was one of the people who inspired me to follow Jesus.
Grandpa served his congregation faithfully, but there was one role in the church my grandfather never got to fill. He was never allowed to be a deacon. Why? Because he was on his second wife. A widower at 35, he remarried a few years after his first wife passed away from a childbirth-related illness. His fellow church members determined that, based on the counsel of I Timothy 3:12 — “Let deacons be husbands of only one wife” — he was ineligible for election.
Justin Joplin
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When my father tells me this story, I scratch my head in confusion. To my contemporary ears, the behavior of my Baptist forebears sounds quaint and even irrational. But they based their decision on their understanding of New Testament principles.
I call this odd bit of family history to mind whenever our Baptist family begins debating what the Bible might say to us about controversial issues like homosexuality. Grandpa’s story is a helpful reminder that, even if Baptists share the same scriptural roadmap, diverse understandings of Scripture find us drawing lines in different places.
That’s the attitude I and others brought into meetings of the Richmond Baptist Association’s recently convened ad hoc committee. Our committee was created to consider and craft an associational response to the recent ordination by Richmond’s Ginter Park Baptist Church of Scott McGuire, who is homosexual. As the junior member of the committee, I was eager to provide input and honored to serve alongside experienced ministers and lay leaders. We met with the understanding that our work could easily become the stuff of headlines. The recommendation we presented, which provides for continued fellowship between the RBA and Ginter Park, narrowly passed one week ago. Now the headlines have been being written.
One headline that caught my attention came from an article by Craig Sherouse, a fellow RBA pastor and committee member. Sherouse asks, “Are there membership boundaries for the Richmond Baptist Association?” His question is a testament to his thoughtful service to the committee. As one of very few members of the 11-person committee who could not affirm the committee’s recommendation, Sherouse provided a needed challenge for the team as we considered a course of action.
I didn’t always agree with what he had to say, but I recognized value in his questions and objections, and I usually wanted to hear more from him. Regrettably, unavoidable scheduling conflicts significantly limited his presence and participation with the committee. Sherouse’s answer to the question — that the committee never accepted that the RBA has a right to superintend its relationships — comes from a limited perspective of the work of the committee.
His opinion also hints at a conviction that if he and I draw different boundaries, I am somehow guilty of drawing no boundaries at all. This unfortunate fallacy isn’t new to the homosexuality debate, but it has certainly taken root there.
If a person supports marriage rights for same-sex couples, they may be asked if they likewise support marriage between a man and a horse. Supporting the ordination of a person like Scott McGuire will draw questions about whether one favors ordaining unashamed adulterers and polygamists. Keeping a church like Ginter Park in the family gives some the impression that it’s only a matter of time before the “B” in RBA comes to stand for “Buddhist” as much as Baptist.
While accusing others of an “anything goes” attitude is unhelpful, the question of how an association like the RBA should superintend its relationships is both valid and important. Contrary to Sherouse’s assertion, I fully believe RBA can and should draw boundaries around its relationships. I have no reason to doubt my fellow committee members share this conviction.
Rather than drawing no line at all, the committee proposed drawing the association’s line to the right of millions of brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Presbyterian Church (USA), Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, Alliance of Baptists and others. Rather that declaring that anything goes, the committee proposed drawing a line near to that of brothers and sisters of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which, though refusing to hire homosexual persons to serve as staff members or missionaries, maintains healthy relationships with its few member churches that have chosen to ordain homosexuals. When the votes were counted, the association affirmed the ad hoc committee in the location of our line.
For some RBA congregations, the challenge of joining with Ginter Park in efforts such as giving school supplies to needy children in Jesus’ name will be too great to overcome. For those who will remain committed to the association’s Christian mission, thoughtful dialogue about setting membership boundaries would be a welcome byproduct of the decision to keep Ginter Park in the family. I for one would appreciate the opportunity to craft a more thorough response to Sherouse’s question.
What if a congregation were found to discriminate against would-be members on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, social status or mental ability? What if a congregation became associated with a fringe religious movement that accepted a figure besides Jesus as Lord, or writings other than the Bible as Holy Scripture? What if a congregation became a hateful public spectacle like Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church or the Koran-burning Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Fla.? What if a congregation was discovered to have a long and systemic record of covering up sexual abuse? What if a congregation has long since given up participation in associational life? What if a congregation simply wants to leave?
In any of these scenarios, I would support drawing a boundary between my association and the offending congregation. I would also be interested in entering a conversation about conditions that could lead to reconciliation.
The day after the RBA voted to continue working with Ginter Park, I attended a gathering at another of the association’s churches, South Richmond’s Jahnke Road Baptist. At that gathering we heard a report from Wesley Garrett, RBA’s community missionary at its South Richmond Baptist Center. Garrett spoke about numerous issues related to poverty in the city, and bore witness to the transformations that are happening thanks to associational partnerships. As he spoke, he repeated, six wonderful words again and again: “But God was still at work.”
Less than 24 hours removed from the most packed and intense associational meeting I have ever attended, I needed to hear these words. I need to connect with folks from other Baptist congregations in the name of Jesus and in the spirit of his mission. We’re not all the same, but we share the conviction that we accomplish more together than we do alone. We don’t draw our lines in the same places, but God is still at work.
Justin Joplin ([email protected]) is pastor of Westover Baptist Church in Richmond.