In church Sunday at First Baptist Asheville, the pastoral resident, Will Arledge, quoted a hymn from my childhood, closing a prayer with, “Let them ‘know we are Christians by our love.’”
I was a child in the 1970s when this hymn became popular, so it instantly took up as an ear worm for me when he reminded me of it. Then, it apparently crawled through my ear and up into my brain because, since Sunday morning, the lyrics to that hymn have become a bit of a brain worm. I know of no other hymn that can feel less true today than this one.
I came home and immediately looked up the history of the song. It was written after Vatican II by Father Peter Scholtes. He wrote it in 1966 when he was working with young people in Chicago. The lyrics spoke directly to the Civil Rights issues defining that era.
Paula Garrett
Of course, I didn’t know any of this when I learned the song in a Southern Baptist church where my father was pastor. Although my father was considered a “moderate” by the 1980s and ’90s, he probably would be considered a flaming liberal by today’s Baptist standards because he worked with female deacons, hired women as ministers and preached much more about the love of Jesus than about the threat of damnation.
Still, when I think about the church of my youth, I think of it as being mainstream Baptist. Many of us who grew up in that church remember fondly the youth group, the booming choir, and what seemed like the endless number of families who built lives together. We shared meals, played sports, had picnics and, truly, created what to me is the picture of the New Testament church. In short, we loved each other.
I’m sure there were people who voted differently, believed differently. And it would not have been church without squabbles over new seating, types of music and so forth. But we sang old high-church hymns alongside newer hymns with evangelical fervor. We sang “Pass It On” and “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love,” and, through my young eyes, at least, it sure seemed like we meant it.
“I find myself wondering if we could even sing it anymore without choking on the irony.”
I haven’t heard that folk hymn in church in years. And I find myself wondering if we could even sing it anymore without choking on the irony.
As Southern Baptists fight over litmus tests never even heard of in the 1970s, indeed, as “Christians” argue over whether empathy is a virtue or a vice, I am fairly certain people of other faiths and of no faith absolutely do not know us by our love. Judgment, yes. Vitriol, absolutely. In-fighting, you bet. But love?
I started seminary in the fall, and I’m supported by the Baptist House of Study at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology. When I tell friends this, I almost always follow it with something like, “not those Baptists.” But I’m getting tired of having to explain.
This week in my Baptist history and polity class taught by George Mason, we were joined by Amanda Tyler from Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. As I listened to her recount a proud history of Baptist freedoms and as she told us of the work of the BJC against Christian nationalism, I started humming the tune again.
This is how they will know us by our love. There has not been a more important moment in my lifetime to stand on the side of love.
With our rich history in the fight for religious freedom, Baptists can stand up to and speak out against a redefining of our faith by authoritarians who would dare claim that inclusion, empathy and freedom are not Christian values.
If we do not stand up, what will we be known for?
Paula Garrett serves as professor of English at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., is a master of divinity student at Perkins School of Theology and serves as director of communications at Neighborhood Economics.
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