A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE:
Tradition is very important to me
By David R. Currie,
Coordinator

On Wednesday, June 7, 1995, I had the tremendous honor of conducting the funeral service for my Uncle Floy, my Uncle David Floy Currie. I was named after him. He was my Dad’s identical twin brother. Uncle Floy was named after his grandfather, David Currie, who came to Paint Rock (30 miles from San Angelo) in 1879.

The name David is a part of Currie tradition. My oldest son is named David Lance. Tradition is very important to me.

I worked hard preparing my message for Uncle Floy’s funeral. I spoke of the reunion in heaven with Daddy, Uncle Bill, Uncle Herbert, Uncle Willard, Aunt Ruby, Aunt Mary, and on and on. I mentioned that Daddy had probably already introduced Uncle Floy to Don Drysdale, Roy Campanella, Billy Martin and many other baseball players. (And now they are with Mickey Mantle, whose picture is on my office wall, and who was the greatest of them all, much sooner than my heart was ready to accept. But it is wonderful how God healed and touched Mickey before his death and the honesty with which he shared his journey over the last year.)

I spoke of Uncle Floy’s life of grace. I mentioned his continuing water pistol fight with the postman (up until his death at 87 years of age), of his driving through the bank deposit window backwards, and of his always keeping candy in his pickup to give children.

I mentioned his contentment of living in the same town all his life, of he and Aunt Lois’s 63 year marriage, of their living in the same home all those years, of his over 50 years of service as Sunday School secretary and of the Currie family’s involvement in the church. In looking at the church’s history, there are many years when the treasurer, training union director, WMU director, and Sunday School secretary were all kin to me. Tradition is very important to me.

I did not prepare any remarks for the cemetery. Yet when I stood at the head of his casket, I could not help but think and remark about how meaningful it was to me that Uncle Floy was being buried in the same cemetery as his grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, and on the same row with his brothers and sisters. Tradition is very important to me.

Shortly after Uncle Floy’s funeral, I got up in the middle of the night thinking about how important my Baptist heritage is to me. I went and reread the history of First Baptist Church, Paint Rock. I pulled a “Currie History” file I had and read again about my great-great-grandfather Robert M. Currie.

He was the first Currie to come to Texas in 1856. He settled on the Cibolo Creek, Wilson County. He was a Southern Baptist preacher. According to the Texas History Collection at Baylor University, he served the Cibolo church thirty years. He also served Stockdale, Marsalina, Sardis and Salem churches.

He was a charter member of the San Antonio Baptist Association and was elected its first Moderator, and “continued to be elected at every term at which he was eligible, until his bearings failed him.” ( I know, some of you think my bearings have already failed me!)

Reading about him reminded me that my Baptist tradition is very important to me.

Being a Baptist is very important to me. I am always sad when I hear of another young pastor who has become a Methodist or Presbyterian minister (it is happening more than many realize) because they are so tired of the SBC controversy.

Baptist traditions are important to me. To this day, my voice breaks and tears well in my eyes when I read about our Baptist founders and the price they paid for religious liberty and soul freedom. The Baptist traditions about the priesthood of all believers and local church autonomy are very special to me.

The Bible is the inspired, authoritative Word of God for me and no one better tell me otherwise or tell me how I have to interpret it.

I share all this personal history to say this: for all of us who value our family traditions and our Baptist traditions, what has happened in the Southern Baptist Convention is very painful. My guess is many of you reading this are struggling with these same mixed feelings.

Being able to live 26 miles from my Mothers house; being able to still walk the land where my father, grandfather, and greatgrandfather walked and worked; still banking at the bank my other grandfather served as president of over 30 years — these things are important to me, and important for me to share with my children.

Being a Baptist is just as important to me. I could not, and will never be, anything but a Baptist!

If you are like me, tradition is important to you; being a Baptist is important to you. Therefore it is truly painful and difficult to deal with the realities we currently face.

The problem for me is this: I am finding that for me to be faithful to my Baptist traditions I cannot remain faithful to the Southern Baptist Convention. I cannot send my money to the seminaries where Al Mohler and Paige Patterson are president and feel that I am being faithful to my Baptist roots. I cannot send my money to the SBC Christian Life Commission where I used to serve on staff, without feeling that I am showing disrespect for all the courage shown by Roger Williams, John Leland, George Truett, and other Baptist giants of religious liberty.

The Southern Baptist Convention has rejected my treasured Baptist traditions. My “traditions have all been messed up.” If I am faithful to the name Southern Baptist with my tithes and offerings, I feel I am being unfaithful to my Baptist traditions!

For me, I have finally had to come to the following decision. My commitment to Jesus Christ and being a Baptist means that I am going to remain loyal to my historic Baptist principles and practices, i.e., traditions. I cannot be loyal to the Southern Baptist Convention because to do so is to be disloyal to the principles of the Bible as I interpret it, and to the principles my greatgreat- grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and their wives, and my aunts and uncles, believed in.

I have signed a form at my church (whose regular giving plan supports SBC causes and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship causes about 50–50), indicating I want none of my Cooperative Program gifts to go to any Southern Baptist Convention agency. The portion of my gifts that goes beyond my local church and the BGCT now goes to CBF. I give my mission offering to the BGCT or CBF.

It was not an easy thing for me to do. When I was a youth minister, the pastor I served with is now on the foreign mission field with the SBC Foreign Mission Board. I have other friends serving with the SBC Foreign Mission Board as well.

For all of you reading this and struggling with the same issue, I pray for your wisdom, courage, and a sense of God’s peace.

I have made my decision. It is my decision, not a position of Texas Baptists Committed. I am at peace after a long struggle. I will always be a Baptist, but please do not call me a Southern Baptist anymore.

Tradition, (the authority of scripture, the priesthood of all believers, local church autonomy, religious liberty and soul freedom,) is too important to me.

August/September 1995