FLOWING WITH THE KINGDOM
by Dan Williams

One day in a graduate preaching seminar at the old Southern Seminary, Ken Chafin reflected on Martin Luther King’s life by saying: “Sometimes we get to choose the dragons we fight in life and ministry; other times the dragons choose us. The dragons of prejudice and the oppression of persons of color chose Martin King. King responded to the dragons of that day, time and place, as they called him by name.”

A dragon that has recently chosen Southern Baptists is similar in that it springs from prejudice and oppression. It is the dragon that feasts on power and that wipes out the memory of its own history with flames of fear and control. Those who have sought to resist these dragons have been confronted by a legion of others including the dragon of selfredefinition. Now that the dragon has taken over the castle, where do we live and how do we redefine ourselves?

Madeleine L’Engle recently remarked at Laity Lodge that there are two main problems in religion today. They are problems with the “fundalits” and with the “permissivists.” The former see the world in black and white, cut and dried axioms that are so rigid as to become stale and oppressive. These constantly seek a box in which to contain and control others. The latter disregard any home bases of truth and thus at times wander aimlessly. They so avoid and reject orthodoxy that they struggle to affirm who they are and where they live.

I asked L’Engle, “If the problem of the fundalits is they put everything and everyone in a box, could the permissivists problem be described in ‘boxlessness?’” Her answer was intriguing. She said, “There can be no river without the banks.” Without the banks the river spreads out beyond definition and becomes a shallow lake, without strength, without direction, without action.

L’Engles words may well help churches and pastors who struggle with the new and exclusive Southern Baptist Convention. Her observation could help us name one of our tormenting dragons. Those who are not willing to be lock-step with the SBC’s trickle down spiritual leaders are challenged at defining the banks of a new river. Is CBF a new denomination? Are we still Southern Baptists if we cooperate for missions beyond the Foreign Mission Board and Lottie Moon? What if, in Texas’ case, some of our churches get “Cooperative Program” credit for missions beyond the SBC?

Several realities can help us challenge this dragon and determine new banks. First, we need to remember the dragon that changed the Southern Baptist Convention has called us by name. None of us woke up one morning and decided to take sword in hand and go looking for a fight. Secondly, the river is out of its banks already. As the new leaders gut the institutions, amass more centralized power in the Executive Committee, and systematically erase and rewrite our history, we need to be honest about the fact that the old river bed no longer exists. Our “fundalits” too have taken a new course. And finally, we must explore new ways of reaching the world with the good news of Christ. This will mean redefining ourselves cooperatively and with intentionality. Some of our old identity may help us affirm again who we are. We will certainly want to retain principles such as the priesthood of the believer, local church autonomy, and the “rope of sand” which cooperatively unites us in missions and education.

And yet, the old way included several dragons which needed slaying also. Perhaps we had become too denominationally institutional, bowing too low and too often at the throne of “SBC only” literature, offerings, and alliances. Maybe we began to trust more in being Baptist than in being Christian. And possibly we had denied ourselves and others locally and globally a chance to work with us in feeding, teaching, reaching, and baptizing in Jesus’ name. It helps to remember that some of our traditions created a river that may have been difficult to cross on the way to the kingdom.

It might be helpful to end with a quotable quote from Madeleine L’Engle:

Each time an unexpected discovery is made in the world of knowledge, it shakes the religious establishment of the day. Now, we are often taught that it is unfaithful to question traditional religious beliefs, but I believe that we must question them continually-not God, not Christ, who are at the center of our lives as believers and creators-but what human beings say about God and about Christ; otherwise, like those of the church establishment of Galileo’s day, we truly become God’s frozen people. Galileo’s discoveries did nothing whatsoever to change the nature of God; they threatened only man’s rigid ideas of the nature of God. We must constantly be open to new revelation, which is another way of hearing God, with loving obedience.

As educator Edward Fiske wrote in Smart Schools, Smart Kids, “It is now time to put both hand wringing and wishful thinking behind us… No more prizes for predicting rain; prizes only for building parks.” Or, using L’Engle’s terminology, “No more prizes for diverting the river. Prizes only for flowing with the kingdom and redefining the banks.”

(Dan Williams is pastor, Southland Baptist Church, San Angelo, and treasurer of Texas Baptists Committed)

June/July 1995