By David Gushee
I am just back from Prague, Czech Republic, having had the privilege of attending the Baptist World Alliance annual gathering and then a meeting of Baptist theological educators from around the world.
It was good to be back in international Baptist circles after a long absence. Dialoguing with Baptists from every continent, I was heartened to see both the deep piety and serious scholarship of so many Baptist brothers and sisters. In every corner of the world there is evidence that Baptist ways of life still have the power to attract and transform lives. It was good to see that God is not finished with us yet.
The absence of official participation by the Southern Baptist Convention shadowed these two meetings. The withdrawal of the SBC from the Baptist World Alliance happened several years ago, but this was my first BWA meeting since that SBC decision. In Prague, I was keenly aware of the absence of the largest Baptist denomination in the world from meetings where scores of other Baptist bodies were represented.
I remember the tensions that characterized BWA Ethics Commission gatherings when the SBC was still involved with BWA. I experienced several of those meetings. Top SBC representatives tended toward a posture in which defense of right doctrine was their primary agenda. Representatives from other Baptist groups did not take the same approach. It made for a difficult environment for conversation.
In that sense it was refreshing to participate in dialogues at the BWA and theological-educators’ meetings in which no one felt the need to enforce theological correctness (even though everyone I heard sounded quite theologically correct). A shared biblical commitment was obvious, as was a love for Jesus Christ. But fresh winds of theological reflection are clearly blowing, in which important intellectual currents and moral problems are having an impact on Baptist leaders and thinkers around the world.
It seems sad to me that Southern Baptists chose to withdraw from this kind of conversation. In fact, conversations with Baptists from around the world continually reminded me that Southern Baptist retrenchment in areas of missions and especially global theological education is still keenly grieved around the Baptist world. I cannot tell you how many times sentences began with words like, “The Southern Baptists were once involved with us here, but they withdrew…”
The fracturing of the unity of the Baptist family continues to take its toll. As Christians, anytime we fail to maintain fellowship with one another it marks a failure of Christian love. As we lose patience with each other, become angry with each other, keep record of each other’s wrongs, fail to trust, fail to hope, and fail to persevere, we fail at the love which is the great commandment (1 Cor. 13; Mt. 22:36-40). The collapse of Baptist unity in the late 20th century still represents a tragic and terrible counter-witness to the love and the power of Jesus Christ.
I hope it is clear that I am sad rather than angry about the SBC split from the BWA, and — for that matter — the split between the conservatives who now firmly control the SBC and the moderates and progressives who have largely left it. Most of the time (but not always) I heard sadness rather than anger when the SBC was mentioned in Prague. There were a few presentations still characterized by what felt to me like active hostility toward the SBC.
These all came from Americans, mainly aggrieved former Southern Baptists. I wonder when the anger, hurt, and grief that so many still feel about the SBC will finally run its course. My sad fear is that a generation of wounded “exes” will never get there, and that only their retirement will end their public airing of the hurt and anger that resulted from the SBC controversy.
It would be nice if Baptists could (re)learn a radical commitment to Christian forgiveness — which would mean not that some of us weren’t hurt, but that all of us know that Jesus demands that we forgive.
I call on the Southern Baptist Convention to rejoin the world Baptist family, on humbler terms.
I call on wounded ex-Southern Baptists to renounce SBC bashing, and to seek the Spirit’s power to forgive.