On March 24 I out up a post titled Will the Real ____ where I asked who gets to define a term or tradition. I touched on my tradition - the Baptists - and I want to revisit that part of the discussion.
One of my Facebook friends recently made a number of comments about Christians in general and Baptists in particular in a thread about compassion that I want to address without further hijacking that thread. In a first comment he mentioned Westboro Baptist as an example of Baptist "compassion." When I complained about that, he told a story of some very negative experiences with Southern Baptist churches and wondered why Southern Baptists don't speak out about Westboro.
I am not a Southern Baptist. Never have been. Wouldn't be. Couldn't be. Can't speak for them. As I hinted in the earlier thread, I'm not sure they deserve to be called Baptist at all... but that too is another discussion.
So... let me address my friend's statements from my perspective.
I belong to the American Baptist denomination. Pre civil war days, there was basically one large, loosely connected, Baptist group in the US which split over slavery into the Southern Baptist Convention and the group that became the American Baptist Churches, USA. Since that time there have been multiple split offs and new configurations of Baptists. A few years ago I was told that there were 49 Baptist bodies in the United States alone and there are thousands more "independent Baptist" churches that do not formally relate to any larger groupings. Theologically, most are conservative but not all. Some groups, like the Alliance of Baptists, fall solidly in the progressive/liberal camp. Most of the Black Baptist groups are a mix of liberal on issues of economics and race and conservative on sexuality and theology. Many groups are wildly diverse. My denomination, ABCUSA, has no racial group comprising over 50% of the denomination, includes churches that would proudly call themselves fundamentalist and others that are dually aligned with the Unitarian Universalist Association, has had ordained women leaders since the 1800's and many congregations that do not allow women leaders of any kind... you get the picture. Worldwide, there are 218 groups that are members of the Baptist World Alliance.
Some prominent names in Baptist history illustrate that diversity - Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Walter Rauschenbusch, Fred Phelps, Albert Mohler Jr, Jerry Falwell, and Roger Williams.
Early Baptist commitments were summarized by Walter Shurden in his book The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms where he identifies four core commitments that define the Baptist movement - soul freedom, church autonomy, freedom of the scripture to speak for itself, and separation of church and state.
All of that is to show that the Southern Baptist Convention is by no means representative of the entire tradition, and indeed, I would argue that they have strayed so far from the main stream of the tradition that they are no longer Baptists at all.
As to the second question - why don't Baptists speak out against Westboro Baptist and its actions? They do. The last time Westboro was making national news the General Secretary of the ABCUSA had a press conference and sent news releases everywhere condemning Westboro's actions and telling everyone that Westboro is not related to ABCUSA. I don't know whether other Baptist groups did the same but I would expect they did. The actions of a denomination condemning Westboro Baptist doesn't have nearly the sex appeal of their despicable actions and so didn't make the news anywhere. It happened, you just didn't hear about it. Blame the media for that, not the Baptists. As far as I know, Westboro Baptist Church is an independent church and is not affiliated with any larger Baptist body and I'm sure they couldn't care less what the ABCUSA has to say to them. Indeed, they likely see the ABCUSA condemnation as a mark of honor.
Showing posts with label Baptists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baptists. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Will the real....
_______ please stand up?
Back in my childhood, I remember watching the television show, To Tell the Truth. An individual with an unusual occupation or experience would be joined by two impostors and a panel of celebrities would question them and try to decide who was the real person. For some time I've struggled with the question, Would the real Baptists please stand up? or, Would the real Christians please stand up? And recently, Would the real Muslims please stand up? How do we decide who is the real thing? Who gets to define the term?
Let me give some examples. Early Baptists had four commitments that distinguished them from other Christian groups. They believed in soul liberty (an individual is responsible for his or her own faith), church freedom (no outside body can tell a church what its ministry must look like), freedom of the Bible (the scriptures speak for themselves and nobody can assign an official interpretation), and the separation of church and state(much more complicated than many people think, but that is another post). Those four commitments led to a wide variety of theological stances from fundamentalist to Unitarian but all stood within the tradition. Few Baptists today are willing to live with the implications of that freedom - think especially of the Southern Baptist Convention. Are they still Baptists?
How about Christianity in general? All Christians would presumably say they are trying to follow Jesus but their understanding of who Jesus is would differ to the point that, at least in some cases, they clearly are not talking about the same person. Let me give an example that is close to my heart and about which I'm willing to live with significant differences... but it is a real difference. The early Christians were pacifists. They followed the teachings of Jesus and understood the things he said about enemies as absolutely prohibiting participation in the military or acting in violence under any circumstances. Rather than take up arms against enemies, they chose to watch as loved ones were tortured and killed and to endure the same. Most in the Anabaptist traditions in the Church continue to understand the teachings of Jesus that way. Beginning with Constantine, Christianity began to identify more and more with the empire of the day and military service was seen as a appropriate way to express one's faith. There are movements in the US military today that absolutely identify themselves as followers of Jesus even as they launch missiles against Libya or attack enemies in Afghanistan. It is difficult to imagine a more different understanding of how to follow Jesus. Are they both Christian? Who decides and how? What does the term mean?
More recently there has been a great deal of discussions about the nature of Islam. We often hear statements like, "For Muhammad, religion and politics were one and the same so any Muslim is automatically against separation of religion and government and is out to impose Sharia law on the entire world. Convert or kill is the mandate." Whether or not that was Muhammad's original understanding is another discussion but it clearly is the understanding of some visible Muslims today. It also clearly is not the understanding of the overwhelming majority. Indeed, all of the Muslims I know are absolutely committed to freedom of religion and to a more peaceful expression of their faith. So, who gets to define the term?
I don't have any good answers. I find myself wanting to define the terms as I prefer they be used. Of course, that may or may not coincide with how you prefer they be defined or how the general population understands them. A good friend of mine was involved in a Black Muslim organization back in the 60's where they had a saying - "he who talks loudest gets over." Often these terms are defined by the most visible or most vocal groups... Do we allow the crazies (or at least the folk who don't think like us as they might define me as a crazy) to own the terms or do we keep trying to re-frame the discussions and redefine the terms? I have to admit that I'm growing tired of those battles... but they still feel worthwhile to me.
Back in my childhood, I remember watching the television show, To Tell the Truth. An individual with an unusual occupation or experience would be joined by two impostors and a panel of celebrities would question them and try to decide who was the real person. For some time I've struggled with the question, Would the real Baptists please stand up? or, Would the real Christians please stand up? And recently, Would the real Muslims please stand up? How do we decide who is the real thing? Who gets to define the term?
Let me give some examples. Early Baptists had four commitments that distinguished them from other Christian groups. They believed in soul liberty (an individual is responsible for his or her own faith), church freedom (no outside body can tell a church what its ministry must look like), freedom of the Bible (the scriptures speak for themselves and nobody can assign an official interpretation), and the separation of church and state(much more complicated than many people think, but that is another post). Those four commitments led to a wide variety of theological stances from fundamentalist to Unitarian but all stood within the tradition. Few Baptists today are willing to live with the implications of that freedom - think especially of the Southern Baptist Convention. Are they still Baptists?
How about Christianity in general? All Christians would presumably say they are trying to follow Jesus but their understanding of who Jesus is would differ to the point that, at least in some cases, they clearly are not talking about the same person. Let me give an example that is close to my heart and about which I'm willing to live with significant differences... but it is a real difference. The early Christians were pacifists. They followed the teachings of Jesus and understood the things he said about enemies as absolutely prohibiting participation in the military or acting in violence under any circumstances. Rather than take up arms against enemies, they chose to watch as loved ones were tortured and killed and to endure the same. Most in the Anabaptist traditions in the Church continue to understand the teachings of Jesus that way. Beginning with Constantine, Christianity began to identify more and more with the empire of the day and military service was seen as a appropriate way to express one's faith. There are movements in the US military today that absolutely identify themselves as followers of Jesus even as they launch missiles against Libya or attack enemies in Afghanistan. It is difficult to imagine a more different understanding of how to follow Jesus. Are they both Christian? Who decides and how? What does the term mean?
More recently there has been a great deal of discussions about the nature of Islam. We often hear statements like, "For Muhammad, religion and politics were one and the same so any Muslim is automatically against separation of religion and government and is out to impose Sharia law on the entire world. Convert or kill is the mandate." Whether or not that was Muhammad's original understanding is another discussion but it clearly is the understanding of some visible Muslims today. It also clearly is not the understanding of the overwhelming majority. Indeed, all of the Muslims I know are absolutely committed to freedom of religion and to a more peaceful expression of their faith. So, who gets to define the term?
I don't have any good answers. I find myself wanting to define the terms as I prefer they be used. Of course, that may or may not coincide with how you prefer they be defined or how the general population understands them. A good friend of mine was involved in a Black Muslim organization back in the 60's where they had a saying - "he who talks loudest gets over." Often these terms are defined by the most visible or most vocal groups... Do we allow the crazies (or at least the folk who don't think like us as they might define me as a crazy) to own the terms or do we keep trying to re-frame the discussions and redefine the terms? I have to admit that I'm growing tired of those battles... but they still feel worthwhile to me.
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