By Laura Rector
“Why did you go to Southern Baptist Convention schools when they don’t support women in ministry, Laura?” That’s the refrain I often hear, as I’ve moved into more moderate circles in recent years. It’s usually followed by the underlying assumption that being conservative means not allowing people to think for themselves.
“Yes, why?” I’m tempted to ask myself, thinking of painful experiences I’ve had. But, sometimes when moderate friends ask such things, I think they are the ones trying to think for me.
We Christians often become so passionate in our views that we start assuming anyone who loves Jesus should think like us. Certainly, this happens in SBC life, but it also happens in progressive Baptist groups.
I’d like to tell both “sides” that Jesus loved a lot of people — and not all of them were clones of one another.
Yes, there are institutional practices — painful practices — currently embedded in SBC life that mean anyone who doesn’t follow the leadership’s views should get out. There are those who elevate their own beliefs above all others, often with painful results for women called to ministry like me. So, why did I stay as long as I did?
I stayed because I was loved. I stayed because those folks aren’t the whole picture. Beneath the institutional façade there are also a lot of kind-hearted people, representing an entire spectrum of beliefs — although the group dynamics push toward conservatism.
I was loved in the SBC by people like Paul Jackson. I met him when I was a 17-year-old kid visiting Union University and trying out college for the first time. By the time I graduated, I had taken nine courses he taught. He strengthened my love for Jesus and taught me to love learning, to think critically and to explore all angles of issues.
Years later, when I went independently to the mission field and experienced sexual harassment, it was Dr. Jackson I called from across the world.
Now, as a Ph.D. candidate, it’s his training I remember when stuck on a writing project. “The first step is always prayer. In fact, prayer goes into all the steps,” he said.
I was loved in the SBC by people like Ina Cain, who led the Woman’s Missionary Union at Valley View Baptist Church in Vine Grove, Ky., for many years. When God was calling me to career missions, Ms. Cain knew before I did. Her phone call to ask me deep questions was one of the first signs that God was pointing me in that direction.
I was loved in the SBC by people like my mom, Alice Rector — who doesn’t always agree with the SBC, particularly about her daughter’s call to ministry, but who has supported a small Baptist church for years because it seems to be her only option. She taught me about Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, took me on G.A. service projects, and taught me more about following Jesus than all my seminary professors put together.
I was loved in the SBC by people like Heather Bump, my very first friend at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She helped me hang in there until graduation, even though our worldviews are often worlds apart on issues. Heather still prays for me to this day, and it’s hard to imagine doing God’s work without such encouragement.
When I was adrift after doing my M.Div. work at Southern, not knowing how to be a missionary once it became a requirement to sign the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 to do so, Heather helped me find a job and encouraged me as I moved into my first apartment.
I was loved in the SBC by friends like Robert Thomas, Jeremy Blythe, James Santos, Eldridge Smith, and Matthew DiCapua. They taught me about evangelism, prayed for me when I was overseas and there were bombings and hung in there with me when a teenager from my youth group died or when I was visiting an abused child in the hospital.
I’d be dishonest to say I wasn’t hurt by the denomination or some of my experiences in their schools and churches. But, it is this diverse group of people I met in SBC life — and many others I don’t have the space to name here — who encourage me to “follow Jesus no matter what,” even when it’s scary, and to do “what God wants me to do.” That can hardly be termed “thinking for me.”
I love them, too. That’s why I stayed as long as I did. This may not be the answer some people want me to admit. It’s the truthful one, though –not to mention one that’s nice to remember in a Baptist world of conflict, pain and competing ideologies.