History is Watching: Texas Baptists and the Future
By:Bill Leonard,
Dean, Wake Forest University

Excerpts from a speech, due to length, given at the TBC banquet in Houston, June 25.

In the Spring of 1837, a group of "Texican Baptists" met near Washington-on-the Brazos to organize a church. Z. N. Morrell, its pastor, wrote of that event:

"We determined, let come what might, to organize a church. The day was appointed, and eight Baptists assembled to keep house for God....Thus sprung into existence the first church, according to my information, that was ever organized in Texas on strictly gospel principles, having the ordinances and officers of ancient order, and with no anti-missionary element in its body."

History now views this as a pioneer moment in Texas. Stories of early Baptists illustrate that little attention was paid to this rag-tag group of religious rabble rousers, who organized eccentric little "peoples’ churches" in England and America.

Little attention was paid in 1616 when an imprisoned British Baptist named Thomas Helwys, founder London’s First Baptist Church, wrote A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, but it was the first statement of absolute religious liberty to be written in English. Anticipating the future in ways even he did not imagine, Helwys determined that non-Christian and unbelievers alike were free to follow their consciences, writing: "Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews, or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure." Few noticed when Helwys died in prison, but his ideas could not be silenced.

More notice was given when Roger Williams, America’s quintessential dissenter, arrived in the New World in 1631 and immediately began promoting what the Puritans called "dangerous and erroneous" ideas, suggesting that Native Americans were the real owners of the land and should be paid accordingly. He also declared that civil magistrates "hath no access to divinity."

Baptist identity spread and flourished on the American frontier. Baptists organized their first mission society in 1814, taking note 30 years later as Baptists north and south split over issues of missions, slavery, biblical authority and political sectionalism. In 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention, a new denomination born of schism and racism, was founded. The convention thrived, becoming the largest non-Catholic denomination in the nation, but its constituents were, in historian Walter Shurden’s words, "not a silent people," ever feuding over issues large and small almost as readily as they cooperated in mission and ministry.

Southern Baptists have claimed headlines since 1979 as a people who fought "holy wars," and went "for the jugular," while also claiming to be "God’s last and only hope for the salvation of the world according to New Testament principles."

Twenty years of controversy have produced huge changes in the structure of the old SBC with national agencies firmly controlled by a faction known variously as fundamentalist, conservative, inerrantist, right-wing and submissives. Other factions, known variously as moderates, mainstreams, liberals and Texans have developed new alignments inside and outside the old system.

Perhaps the two most significant realignments have come from changes in governance enacted by many of the Baptist colleges and universities, and by the actions of state conventions in Virginia and Texas. Virginia produced the first official schism in the controversy, with that state convention now split between two separate organizations, both recognized by the national SBC. A second schism looms in Texas, should actions to change the convention’s bylaws receive final approval in 1998, and if Southern Baptists of Texas secure SBC recognition as a second state convention.

Actions by Virginia and Texas Baptists are monumental but not surprising since Baptists in those two states have long viewed their identity more regionally than nationally. Virginia Baptists relish their heritage as revolutionary believers who promoted religious liberty long before the SBC was founded. Texas Baptists are Texans. That explains almost everything.

The Texas action is significant for several reasons. First, because of the numbers involved. Texas Baptists number almost 3 million persons, roughly one fifth of the SBC itself. The BGCT could be the ninth largest denomination in the U.S. Second, these changes reflect a general trend among American religious groups to promote regionalism and localism ahead of national denominational alignments. Third, actions come at a time when American religion itself is in a state of permanent transition. While denominations will not vanish from the scene, they are increasingly only one of numerous options for structuring religious communities. We often say that toward the new century fewer and fewer religious Americans think of their primary religious identity in terms of denominational identity.

IDENTITY

Articulating an identity is a formidable task in these days. Historically, denominations provided a sense of identity for religious persons in a pluralistic culture. Southern Baptist denominationalism fostered a sense of identity so deep that many cannot relinquish it, no matter how much the convention changes or what actions its current leaders may take.

And what an identity it was. Sundays meant racing to church armed with the three great symbols of Southern Baptist faith: a King James version of the Bible, zipper edition; a Sunday School "Quarterly" using a common series of lessons studied on the same Sunday by Baptists from Richmond to El Paso; and an offering envelope in which one placed the weekly tithe and checked off one’s Christian devotion in a six-point system that included: studied lesson, staying for church, attendance, on time, Bible brought and offering. Only years later did I realize that this was a simple way of monitoring our Baptist Spiritual Formation.

At FBC of Decatur, I learned the Bible in summer Vacation Bible Schools, youth camps and Sunday School classes with teachers who nurtured us toward faith in Christ. Such nurture and admonitions anchored Baptist identity deep inside me and gave me faith, gave me life, and gave me guilt. I felt guilty about playing cards. I never learned to dance and for a long time I was convinced that mixed swimming was how girls got pregnant. I was baptized when I was a junior in a borrowed baptistry with a Jordan river scene painted on the front wall.

I know now that much of that Baptist identity was immersed in Texas culture, Texas piety and Texas tribalism. I learned the heroes of the Alamo long before the 12 apostles. By grace it was gospel identity as well--faith, hope and love struck down in me too deep for words, too profound to relinquish.

Today that Baptist system that nurtured many of us is going, going, gone. The question looms large: What Baptist identity will be passed on to new generations?

While recent actions by the BGCT represent an attempt to re-shape Texas Baptist identity in response to the changes in the SBC and the larger culture, the convention cannot maintain the old traditions, structure and forms of piety. On the edge of a new century, can we be as creative as those Texans who responded to their rural, farming and cattle communities, planning revivals before seed time and after harvest; holding services at 11 and 7 on the one Sunday a month when the quarter time preachers came to town, founding churches and linking them for fellowship, mission and witness?

What makes us Baptist? Is it belief? Practice? History? Name?

Some churches now minimize the name Baptist in order to reach people who run from that label like the plague. Others wonder if our beliefs represent a faith for inviting people in or for throwing people out. Increasingly our public battles undermine our positive ministries. If history is indeed watching, can Texas Baptists help us understand something of our identity anew?

What does it mean to be Baptist? My ever developing list includes these affirmations, but I’ll sign nothing:

1. We Baptists are an unruly lot who believe audaciously that people can be trusted individually and communally, in matters of faith, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

2. We are a people who value the Bible enough to debate its contents and teachings, even when it divides us.

3. We are a theologically and politically diverse family with many sisters and brothers, cousins and second cousins, and a few very weird aunts and uncles.

4. We are obsessed with Jesus, who he is, what he means, and where he leads us.

5. We are a symbol-celebrating people--in the water, at the table, in common meals, in common prayer, and in fellowship.

6. We love liberty, even when we cannot agree on its radical implications, and we often hesitate to go where it takes us.

7. We are governed by a congregational polity which insures order and disorder, democracy and conflict, unity and schism in our common mission.

POLITY

An important element of the Texas reformation involves Baptist polity, what it means to be together in specific Christian community. The Texas Plan, if one may call it that, illustrates modifications in polity, and a return to the older societal method of church cooperation. These societies, organized by those who mistrusted hierarchies, allowed Baptists to unite for particular ministries and missions while avoiding an elaborate connectional structure. Societies were task specific including mission, publishing, education and evangelism. They were subscribed to by individuals, associations or local churches.

These days a de facto society method is apparent throughout Baptist life. The Texas action allows for society options in funding and missionary participation. Churches may decide to fund and participate in the SBC, the state convention, the CBF, the BWA and other entities. Texas, thus, has a grand opportunity to model these changes in polity, a case study in Baptist reorganization and realignment toward the new century.

Our polity allows for great diversity and offers new possibilities for creative new configurations. It also calls us to find ways to talk together about theology.

THEOLOGY

Some would think that theological discussion is the last things we should pursue. In the midst of the debates and derision of the past two decades, little serious theological dialogue has occurred. Theological discussion is messy, abrasive, exciting, dangerous and absolutely necessary. What will it mean in Texas? Can we pursue theological conversation without the accusation, character assassination and diatribe that has characterized the past 20 years?

The Texas Plan begins with a renewed emphasis on theological education for the laity, a most admirable proposal. How can we do it? A few illustrations must suffice.

First, wouldn’t it be wonderful to talk about the Bible again? Can we ever again get beyond theories about the text and find our way to the text itself? It is life changing, disturbing and unsettling.

Second, we might talk also about Calvinism. The renewed emphasis on Calvinism opens doors to talk about election, free will, the atonement and the destiny of non-elect infants that calls us to confront our basic theological orientations on the way to the 21st century.

Third, we must revisit the question of conversion. We are a people who insist on what is called a regenerate church membership, but what do we mean by that? How do people come to faith? What is the nature of justification, entering into faith and sanctification, going on in grace? What does the rebaptism of church members, rampant in many segments of the Baptist family, say about our understanding of conversion? If we are going to baptize children, how will we nurture them to faith so that they do not race to rebaptism at every life crisis?

Fourth, what about baptism itself? How can we recognize the significance of Christian baptisms while also acknowledging the presence of diverse theological and methodological approaches to the sacramental event? Can we accept diversity while refusing to make baptism an incidental, almost negotiable, experience?

Debates over the meaning of baptism should not obscure its powerful gift of grace and identity given at the Jordan river and passed on to us. We are Baptists, after all, gathering at the river--or its fiberglass equivalent-- to celebrate new life in Christ as profoundly as did the earliest Christians.

CONCLUSION

For those early Texican believers, as for us, personal faith had communal implications. Sociologists Roof and McKinley write of contemporary religions that "membership stability is not a matter simply of liberal or conservative theology." Rather, "stability appeared to be more a reflection of communal belonging." We end where we began, then, with a group of Texas Baptists reshaping Baptist community in order to retain its energy, its ethos, its integrity and its heart.

As an expatriate Texan, let me say that the courage of early pioneers is still present among Texas Baptists. In recent and historic actions they have shown a courage, a daring and a willingness to confront their times as did our forbearers. On the threshold of a new century, Texans are setting a new course in an old tradition and that should make our hearts glad.

September 1998