It’s no use trying to herd Baptists
by Paul Harral,
Editorial Director Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Reading about the Texas Baptists meeting in El Paso, I was reminded of a favorite Will Rogers quote: “I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.”

Sometimes I feel that way: I belong to no organized denomination. I am a Baptist.

I like it like that.

A favorite joke among those few who actually worry about things like the Texas Constitution is that after Reconstruction, Texans distrusted government so much that they deliberately designed one that wouldn’t work. The framers could have been taking their cues from the Baptists, especially Southern Baptists.

If you think I overstate, please consider the most recent flap among Southern Baptists.

In 1963, the Southern Baptist Commission adopted the Baptist Faith and Message Statement. The statement outlines the basic set of beliefs that Baptists hold and is similar to those of many other denominations. The Baptist statement says Jesus was born of a virgin, died for our sins and was bodily resurrected and that the Bible is an infallible guide.

Some would say that the Southern Baptist Convention is locked in a fundamentalist- vs.-liberal fight. That’s not true. There are no liberal Baptists, at least religiously.

The most you can be is moderate, and most moderates in the convention easily supported the 1963 statement. But when the convention amended it in 1998 to ask Christian wives “to submit graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands,” controversy erupted.

The amendment begins: “The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image … A husband is to love his wife even as Christ loved the church.”

So far, so good. But then the amendment said: “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits itself to the headship of Christ.”

As is usual in religious arguments, people on all sides of this issue quote Scripture to support their positions.

But there is more at work here. The Rev. Charles Wade of Arlington said that the El Paso decision to stick with the 1963 wording without the amendment dealing with the role of wives sends a message that Texas Baptists do not want to see radical changes in the central statement of Southern Baptist beliefs. The national convention recently appointed a committee to rewrite the entire Baptist statement of faith.

Reaction to the decision in Texas — somewhat of a maverick state convention among Southern Baptists these days — was immediate from the more conservative leaders of the convention.

So what’s a poor Baptist to do when faced with obviously conflicting opinions among the leaders of the denomination?

The same thing that Baptists have done for most of their history. They are supposed to figure it out for themselves.

A treasured Baptist belief is in the “priesthood of the believer,” the concept that every Baptist everywhere is ultimately responsible for his or her relationship with God.

Baptists are to read the Scripture, educate themselves about the issues, and listen to their scholars and their pastors. And after prayer, they are supposed to make their own decisions.

One of the wonders of being a Baptist is that there is no national or worldwide organization — only cooperative associations. The power in Baptist circles is vested in the local church and, beyond that, in the individual believer.

People commenting on the difficulty of getting a group of independent thinkers to do anything together sometimes say it’s like trying to herd cats. You could substitute “herd Baptists” and have the same image.

So, in the end, it doesn’t much matter what the Southern Baptist Convention does — or, for that matter, the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

What Baptists believe is going to be settled in local churches and by individuals.

If I had to bet, I’d bet on Baptist women. They already do most of the church work anyway. To which we men usually graciously submit.

Copyright 1999, Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Reprinted by permission.

December 1999