THE PAST IS NEVER PAST IN BAPTIST POLITY
J. Michael Robertson,
pastor Sharon Baptist Church, Rice, VA

The day I had to choose between churches for my first pastorate, the decision was made for me. I had only one year of seminary behind me, so the learning curve that stretched before me was a long one. The hiring process was one case in point. I had narrowed the field to two churches, one with long history behind it but that paid less, the other larger, newer, and a better salary. That day I spoke to a deacon from the second church that finally asked “the question.”

“I guess I have to ask,” he said, his manner betraying some apathy. Being a novice myself, I had not pushed the issue as aggressively as I might now, but still I could not understand what had taken him at least two conversations to get to this point. The way he posed the question raised my apprehension. “I guess I have to ask you where you stand on this conservative-moderate split.” I had an answer ready, but he then made it unnecessary. “Some people might care, but it really doesn’t matter to me.”

I made my decision.

That deacon had not hesitated; the subject simply was not important to him.

To many of us, though, the issue does matter, and we find it difficult to understand how other people, whether lay or clergy, fail to find it as important as we do.

We have probably failed in letting our congregations know just how important the issues are. When former President Jimmy Carter wrote an open letter in October 2000 severing his ties to the Southern Baptist Convention after 65 years, he spoke for many laypersons and pastors alike when he wrote that “I had never been involved in the political struggle for control of the SBC, and have no desire to do so.”

I am aware of pastors who seek to take a middle road between the warring factions, as if they were above the fray. Others would like to simply move on, and act as though the issues of the takeover are mere “history,” as if by relegating those events to the past, they will no longer have a grip on us.

Yet recent events remind us of the sparkling insight of William Faulkner: In the South, the past is not even past, and particularly so in southern Baptist life. The autonomy of local and state entities and of the individual’s responsibility to God alone—soul liberty—were the main issues in the SBC takeover.

Creeds were the main tools in “going for the jugular,” in the words of one Southern Baptist revolutionary. Whatever claims the SBC might make about “inerrancy” were scotched when they failed to make it part of the Baptist Faith & Message revision of 2000; even the most credulous among us would have to recognize that now.

Instead, Baptist polity, the way we run our churches and our organizations, and the heritage of the “free church” tradition that spawned us, is once again under attack. Moreover, the repercussions matter.

Let us examine the pertinent issues, two originating in familiar Baptist battlegrounds, Texas and Virginia, the others in areas that show some slippage in the SBC’s solid vanguard:

Texas

In Texas, the SBC’s running feud with the Baptist General Convention of Texas continues. Morris Chapman of the SBC’s Executive Board sent a letter to Texas churches asking them to favor the SBC’s proxy, the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Texas, over the BGCT, which has long acted as the clearinghouse for giving by Texas churches.

The SBC sent out pro-SBCT publicity materials paid for by Cooperative Program funds that, ironically, come from all BGCT churches, including some that might not ordinarily support SBC causes.

The Texas chapter of the Women’s Missionary Union responded by sending a letter to three SBC agency heads asking them to halt their efforts to influence individual churches. The Virginia WMU sent a similar letter to the same three agencies that widened those charges to include hostility to female chaplains and to attacks on missionaries’ soul freedom in the name of a human creed.

Further widening the chasm in Texas, former SBC President Jerry Vines has announced that the Convention “very likely” will nominate for president at their annual convention in St. Louis this summer Jack Graham. Pastor of a mega-church in Plano, Texas, Graham has been a vigorous supporter of the SBCT and a critic of the state convention.

Virginia

In Richmond, the International Missions Board of the SBC sent another letter, this time to missionaries, that subtly underscored that signing the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message “protects you [from] charges of heresy behind your back while you are overseas and cannot defend yourself.”

The letter offered no word on where such charges might come from. However, state Baptist newspaper editors asked IMB President Jerry Rankin what might happen to those who failed to sign. He replied, “We may have to deal with that in the future.” To place the matter in context, one regional IMB leader already had been forced to resign for failing to sign, and North American Missions Board chaplains have been told that failure to sign would lead to loss of their endorsements. Creedalism once again triumphs over soul liberty and Baptist tradition.

Missouri

In Missouri, the Missouri Baptist Convention recently split, with a moderate offshoot of more than one hundred churches forming a rival convention. The new Baptist General Convention of Missouri nevertheless tried to give money to the SBC, but they were rebuffed. Chapman explained that the SBC could not accept money from rivals to the MBC, which describes itself on its website as “traditional Southern Baptist” in orientation and affiliated solely with the SBC. Chapman’s explanation appears aimed less at Missouri than at more recalcitrant state conventions, like those of Texas and Virginia, which have rival state conventions affiliated only with the SBC already in place. The SBC has had no trouble accepting money from those organizations.

District of Columbia

In the District of Columbia, the D.C. Baptist Convention has been affiliated with the NAMB for 125 years, and is heavily dependent upon NAMB funds that make up roughly one-third of its $1.5 million budget.

DCBC has nevertheless worked cooperatively with two other Baptist entities. In the fall of 2001, NAMB President Robert Reccord took steps to try to force the D.C.Convention to give the SBC unprecedented control over the way it spends its money. Reccord demanded that a NAMB employee be in charge of dispersal of much of the money; that criticism of the SBC in The Capital Baptist, the D.C. Convention’s newspaper, be halted; and that the SBC’s “theological tenets” prevail through DCBC speakers at public events, despite the District’s triple alignment. Yet as coercive as these steps appear, considering the relatively small budget (in SBC terms) in question, Reccord’s efforts appear aimed less at the District of Columbia, than at larger, less cooperative state conventions.

What can we make of these steps?

First, there is a common thread running throughout these events. They are symptomatic of an erosion of Baptist polity, including the autonomy of the local church, the freedom of associations at all levels, and the shattering of soul liberty. There are possibly several different reasons for these developments occurring at roughly the same time. They could be the results of an effort to further centralize the Southern Baptist Convention and rid it of troublesome elements. The course of the past two decades would validate this power-grab theory.

On the other hand, they could also be a response to fear of tiny but growing cracks in the SBC monolith. Over those two decades, the road for those who engineered the takeover of the convention has been relatively smooth. The most vocal moderates have left, leaving few pockets of resistance.

Yet, events in Missouri in the fragmentation of the SBC-aligned convention there, and fear of pluralism among missionaries, might be indications of a chink in the armor. The example of Missouri is a particularly troubling precedent for the SBC. Stridency in attempting to marginalize the traditionalists in the BGCT shows less optimism than fear of a Texas-sized burr under their saddle. Under this interpretation, these are evidences of turmoil within the convention.

Second, whatever the reason, they amount to a rejection of the compromise that governed Baptist life for nearly 150 years.

Until the late 1970s, Baptists in the South had always accepted that they were different. Institutions were designed to paper over doctrinal differences. Individuals always held the higher good of the convention above their interests. All that changed when the party of power moved to consolidate control of the convention beginning in 1979. Now, the grounds for accommodation of differences are gone.

Finally, part of the result of the smashing of the mechanisms of accommodation has been an erosion of the understanding of Baptist polity.

There is a danger in the abuse of practices of 400 years’ standing. By now that is evident to Baptists who remain concerned about the degradation of the way we order our churches. The problem has been that those who remain conservative increasingly reflect the opinions of that oblivious deacon. Over time, those conservators will grow fewer and fewer in number.

In my own church—Anglican when it was founded in 1761, Baptist since 1827—we have tried to preserve Baptist principles. Its first Baptist minister, Daniel Witt, was a messenger to the first meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Augusta, Georgia, in 1845. The church maintained that relationship for 155 years, ending it a few months after I became pastor. Older church members, still able to remember what soul liberty was, initiated the effort to end the relationship. The younger generation was unsure of the issues. They were not likely to lead a move to break with tradition.

Yet, people want to know what the issues are. In speaking to larger collectives, I have used history to point to traditions we should treasure and preserve. I received positive response. People said they craved these experiences because history had never been presented to them.

I frequently use Sunday sermons to address issues that crop up, or preach historically oriented sermons to remind everyone what we are trying to conserve. On Wednesday nights, we study Baptist history with an eye to learning just what has been lost from Baptist life over the past years.

Two things are clear about all of this. One is that people sitting in our pews will open up to the issues that have driven Baptist controversies in recent years. They simply lack the leadership and the teaching to know just what is at stake.

Second, people will continue to view the controversies as merely disagreements among preachers until the preachers actually take the lead and inform them what the stakes are.

Fundamentalism has grown in part because its purveyors have not failed to take advantage of the opportunities presented them in their churches. We cannot afford to miss these chances.

However, opportunities to change all this may be at hand. Uncharacteristic of America, Chinese thought views chaos not just as confusion or turmoil, but also as opportunity. Mainstream Baptists, conservator Baptists, should take heed.

June 2002