Although it is often messier than our present and at times even more uncertain than our future, the past must never be forgotten. Where would we be today without such champions of Baptist life as Roger Williams, Walter Rauschenbusch and Martin Luther King Jr? Surely there were times they were tempted, as are many Baptists today, to shed the baggage of a name marked with so much ambiguity and controversy. We should all thank God they did not. Just imagine a history book absent of voices for religious liberty and justice! It was their Baptist identity, passed down to them from previous generations, that inspired their movements and changed the world as they knew it.
In this quest to rediscover or revitalize Baptist identity in a way that better reflects life in the 21st century, our first steps down a path not yet traveled are always dependent upon where we have already been.
Alex Gallimore
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This is not to say that there are not moments we wish to forget or those for which we must make amends, but any future identity worthy of bearing the name Baptist must find continuity with its past. Such ambition is nothing new but is distinctly Baptist, since from our beginning we have sought our future in the past.
As second-generation reformers, Baptists have always been “ancient-future” Christians, seeking to discover their peculiar identity out of their desire to be linked to the earliest Christians. Our founders looked back to the Bible and hoped to become in their own time the truest representation of the New Testament church. In cultivating an ancient-future identity for today that captures what has been historically and essentially Baptist and revitalizes this identity for the present, it is important to note that such a worthy endeavor is fundamentally Baptist.
As good Baptists, our quest into the past always begins with the Bible. We must always look at the biblical tradition and ask how we may embody those narratives in our own era. Jesus is just as active today as he was then and we must, with those texts as our guide, begin to do in our own day what Jesus did in his. Through this our churches will be known not only as proclaimers of the Kingdom of God but also those who are actively participating in its existence.
Likewise, the Baptist tradition continues to speak to us today. As this fringe movement of 17th-century dissenters looked to their own past, they discovered and covenanted around such timeless principles as soul freedom, biblical authority, church autonomy and religious liberty. As those responsible with continuing this tradition, we must find new ways to interpret these principles for post-modern audiences.
Finally, as we cultivate our new identity by looking to the past, in many cases we need not look much further than the histories of our own congregations and communities. Often these local narratives, as heirs in their own time to our rich collective heritage, possess a remarkable power in guiding us to where we ought to be going.
This has been my experience in the congregation I serve. Our church, since its founding in the late 1890s, has always been known as a friendly, welcoming church, the kind of simple, down home people who are quick to do for others much more than they would ever think of doing for themselves. Throughout the decades our small community has organized several “missional” programs geared solely at helping to make the lives of our neighbors just a little bit better.
Today, many Baptists call the type of missions of which I speak ministries of hospitality and we, like many Baptist churches I have visited recently, have participated in these ministries for more than 100 years. Our greater community has changed much since our first cornerstone was laid and this change has brought many new types of neighbors and issues. As a church, we have decided to look back to our congregation’s witness in our neighborhood so that we may build on that heritage and meet our new neighbors with the spirit of true Christian hospitality.
Sometimes we must move backwards before we can move forward. For that reason, may we never forget our past as it is our most direct path into our future. Let us then join our great cloud of witnesses and live with the same passion for innovation and hope for the future as those who have gone before us. May we do in our on way and time what they did in their own.
Alex Gallimore ([email protected]) is associate pastor for youth at Piney Grove Baptist Church in Mount Airy, N.C., and is in his final year at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity.