Give The Baptist A Break

[Steve Wilcox]

This article was in our local paper yesterday and it referenced this conference.

The author remembers the shameful times in the SBC, but give them some credit near the end.

It is summed up in the last sentence and I agree.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/s ... 2446.shtml

[Norm]

This article was in our local paper yesterday and it referenced this conference.

The author remembers the shameful times in the SBC, but give them some credit near the end.

It is summed up in the last sentence and I agree.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/s ... 2446.shtml

From the article: I wonder, though, why Carter's group is considered moderate and the Southern Baptists are considered conservatives. Why aren't the Southern Baptists the moderates and Carter's group the liberals?

Perhaps he should wonder a bit more.

[Tim Dahl]

From the article: I wonder, though, why Carter's group is considered moderate and the Southern Baptists are considered conservatives. Why aren't the Southern Baptists the moderates and Carter's group the liberals?

I've actually wondered the very opposite. I've understood "Conservatism" to be about conserving one's history and tradition, finding great value in both. However, when the Fundamentalists took over, they drastically changed the course of the SBC; disregarding its history and foundational traditions. Going from a confessional people, to a creedal people is just part of it. Now I'm afraid that our basic identity as a grass roots people is going the way of the dinosaur. The leadership is becoming more corrupt, not listening to the churches, and preempting the churches authority (like in the IMB).

I would see the Fundamentalists as the liberals, and the Conservatives are the ones that fought for our historic Baptist traditions (but lost in the end.

Tim Dahl

[Norm]

From the article: I wonder, though, why Carter's group is considered moderate and the Southern Baptists are considered conservatives. Why aren't the Southern Baptists the moderates and Carter's group the liberals?

I've actually wondered the very opposite. I've understood "Conservatism" to be about conserving one's history and tradition, finding great value in both. However, when the Fundamentalists took over, they drastically changed the course of the SBC; disregarding its history and foundational traditions. Going from a confessional people, to a creedal people is just part of it. Now I'm afraid that our basic identity as a grass roots people is going the way of the dinosaur. The leadership is becoming more corrupt, not listening to the churches, and preempting the churches authority (like in the IMB).

I would see the Fundamentalists as the liberals, and the Conservatives are the ones that fought for our historic Baptist traditions (but lost in the end.

Tim Dahl

You make a good point, Tim; I, too, think that the "Carter people" are more the conservators of the baptist tradition. I would surmise the groupings cited by the author signal the term conservative is now something that some wish to distance themselves from, as they did the older, preferred term fundamentalist. By nature, the baptist tradition is a progressive movement, one that challenges the status quo and other structures that attenuate the freedom of consciousness and personal responsibility before God, for such was very much used against our early baptist forebearers, and recently from within the baptist ranks the latter was used, unfortunately, to marginalize other baptists. For all its problems, the Enlightenment, also had its advantages, for it brought autonomy to the believer and freed him or her from the heteronomy of religious structures, and said autonomy, subject to the Spirit of God (and matters divine), is what vitalizes and revitalizes faith. While it is important to embrace the tradition, the tradition, as Brugegemann would assert, should also be traditioning, that is, it should be generative. Any faith statement of baptist making is always about the past, and is best used as a "launching-pad" for the subsequent being of the faithful. Ideally such would be a document designed to ultimately free us for a deeper understanding of the mystery of God rather than constrain us, thus attenuating our freedom in Christ. If we are to be a people that the peoples of the earth could look to for practical guidance in how to live, and especially if we believe people desire to be free, it behooves us to be a free people open to others in love and humility.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: Good Words Norm! And Tim D. When you say I would see the Fundamentalists as the liberals, and the Conservatives are the ones that fought for our historic Baptist traditions (but lost in the end.

I agree that the first part of the statement has validity but a I do not see that we have reached the end and b Although we lost some of the old mechanisms we have gained valuable insight and have discovered new and improved mechanisms and prayerfully ways to evaluate and adapt as we move on as a people of God.

[Haruo]

I would see the Fundamentalists as the liberals,…

You would?

As one who was brought up proud to be a liberal, I find that a very strange clause.

Haruo

[Tim Dahl]

You guys shame me in my myopic view. I'm afraid that I have sinned, the sin of pride and arrogance in particular. You see, when I said that "we lost in the end," I was talking about the SBC prior to the fundamentalis takeover. That is prideful and arrogant because it negates all other Baptist traditions. I am sorry for implying that 1) the SBC is/was all that it means to be Baptist and 2) that the other Baptist denominations have lost what it means to be truly Baptist.

Also, to those that lovingly claim the term "liberal" for themselves, I did not mean to slight you with linking you to the Fundamentalists of the SBC. I was framing the "progress" of the current SBC in a negative light and calling that "liberal." I'm sorry Haruo. I know of some (self-identified as liberals) people that would find the clause not only strange, but might refer to it as "fightin' words."

Be Well,

Tim