and giving up my seat on the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina's (BSC) General Board (now Board of Directors) in order to do so.A highlight of my truncated term on the General Board had been an assignment to serve on the Council on Christian Life and Public Affairs (CCLPA), admirably led by Doug Cole. I was delighted to learn that the BR editor was considered an ex officio member of the CCLPA, so I continued to participate in some measure for the next nine years.
One of the things I quickly learned -- and appreciated -- was the ground rule understanding that the CCLPA did not presume to speak for North Carolina Baptists. Instead, the council's role was to investigate matters of ethical, social, church-state, and environmental concern, and speak to the Convention as a voice of conscience.
CCLPA leaders were assigned the task of relating to the legislature, working with other Christian groups and focusing mainly on social and humanitarian issues affecting the poor and disenfranchised. Representatives opposed easy access to alcohol, for example, and worked against government-sponsored gambling through the lottery, which adversely targets the poor. Long before environmentalism was widespread, the council urged N.C. Baptists to be good stewards of the earth: I often bag my own groceries in an "Earth Stewards" bag distributed years ago by the CCLPA.
The CCLPA also served as a clearinghouse for hunger funds contributed through the BSC, processing applications from Baptist-related soup kitchens or food pantries and distributing available money to them.
In the years I spent on the CCLPA, a number of changes took place. Cole's position was "downsized" in a restructuring of the BSC staff. He was replaced by fellow-staffer Steve Sumerel, who continued the work in the same spirit as before.
As council members became increasingly more conservative, however, meetings sometimes became fractious. It was evident that some members wanted the council to shift directions and become a moral watchdog rather than a social conscience. Sumerel eventually resigned from BSC work, in part because of the competing visions and the clear direction in which council membership was going. There is no longer a full-time staff person assigned to the work of the council.
The CCLPA page on the BSC Website still says (as of today) "The Convention stipulates that the Council will always speak to our people rather than for them," but that is apparently changing in a big way.
According to informative reporting by Norman Jameson of the Biblical Recorder, the CCLPA has engineered a complete about face in its approach. Roy Varner, pastor of Falling Creek Baptist Church in Goldsboro, recently spoke to the Board of Directors about the council's work, and said “it's just starting to get good.”
“We’re talking about a shift from just talking ‘to’ North Carolina Baptists, to talking ‘for’ North Carolina Baptists in the public forum,” Varner reported.
For example, the committee had discussed the issue of global warming, Varner said, and “the council wants the world to know that we never stop worshipping the creator and start worshipping mother earth.”
Next up, according to the Recorder's report, the council plans to publish a public statement that “will define and defend marriage according to scripture.” Beyond that, it plans to address racism in the Southern Baptist Convention, what British pastor Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) could teach 21st century Baptists about politics, and stem cell research.
Of all the transformative shifts in BSC life, this is one of the most troubling, because it is the least Baptist.
One Baptist does not speak for another. We may speak to each other, and even about each other, but it is not in the nature of authentic Baptists to speak for each other or instruct each other on matters of conscience.
There’s a reason why Baptists are numbered among the Protestants.
5 comments:
Tony,
You said: "moral watchdog rather than a social conscience."
So when a liberal expresses his opinions on ethics, he is a "social conscience." But when a Bible believer preaches what the Bible teaches about ethics he is a "moral watchdog."
LOL! I don't think you guys could quit being hypocrites if you tried.
Mark Osgatharp
Wynne, Arkansas
Tony,
Here is my take on it:
http://journal.biblicalrecorder.org/br/ej/entry/who_speaks_for_whom
We may ask who speaks for Baptists? The larger question may be, "Is anyone listening?"
I don't think the issue is specifically a conservative/moderate/liberal issue. A liberal can just as easily slip into the "moral watchdog" category as a conservative can act in the capacity of "social conscience" and vice versa.
The issue is the audience to which one is speaking more than anything else. The social conscience of a group (whether it be an entire denomination or a single church) should speak to that group, not the outside world, spurring the group itself to making changes where needed. Whether the group responds positively, negatively or not at all is up to the group.
The line is often blurred and I think that's part of the difficulty of the church being a prophetic voice in the world, but churches need groups like the one Dr. Cartledge described to help keep them accountable, not to the "council" itself or to the denomination, etc. but to what we profess is our mission as believers.
We're Baptists. No person, group, council or any other body of people should speak for us. If our churches are autonomous, each church needs to speak for itself. If not, as one preacher I know of used to say, we need to pull our flags down and not call ourselves Baptist anymore.
Back in my Jaycee years, the Greenville Jaycees internally debated some local issue followed by a motion that they go on record in support. The motion carried, 51 to 50. After the motion carried a motion was made that the Jaycees go on record as unanimously supporting the issue. That motion also carried .... 51 to 50!
"There are two basic theological beliefs which undergird every decision Southern Baptists have ever made in the field of polity. One is the priesthood of the believer. The second is the autonomy of the local congregation. Because we Baptists feel that these are clearly set forth in the Scriptures, we are forbidden ever to violate the conscience of an individual believer or to seek to coerce the members of an individual church. A person's conscience must never be violated ... Never can any [Baptist] agency, anywhere, take the place of a local church, nor should it attempt to do so."
The late James L. Sullivan was president of the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1953-1975 and he wrote those words in his 1983 book entitled Baptist Polity as I See It. It is because Baptists believe in the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local church that we send messengers to conventions rather than delegates. Delegates are given that title because they have delegated authority to speak and act on behalf of some other group. Furthermore a delegate's actions could obligate the body represented by that delegate in some way. Baptists said that they could not structure themselves that way because the priesthood of the beleiver or the autonomy of the local church would be imperiled through such a process. So we have uninstructed messengers who each vote their own conscience so as to speak and act on behalf of no other Baptist.
It is because of the principles set out by Sullivan that the CCPLA web page says that "the Convention stipulates that the Council will always speak to our people rather than for them." To do otherwise creates a structure in which a small group of Baptists might say something for other Baptists with which one or more of those other Baptists might disagree thereby violating the conscience of individuals. Furthermore, if the CCPLA speaks for Baptists then it usurps the role of a local congregation which, as Sullivan said, no Baptist agency must ever do.
With all due respect, the only thing hypocritical in this discussion is for a leader of a Baptist agency to dare to say that the agency will "shift from just talking ‘to’ North Carolina Baptists, to talking ‘for’ North Carolina Baptists in the public forum." It is hypocritical for a group that says it believes in the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local congregation to assume the authority to speak on behalf of a larger group of Baptists. The CCPLA can speak for itself if it so chooses and it can speak to Baptists but must NEVER presume to speak for Baptists. At least it cannot try to speak for Baptists and remain a true Baptist body.
And with this terrible reversal of Baptist polity in violation of the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local congregation we are told that "it's just starting to get good"?!! Unbelieveable.
Post a Comment