Welcome to a blogswap on pomomusings. The guest author is Myles from Taking Off and Landing. We decided to write about why we are in the denominations we have chosen. My “On Being Presbyterian” post can be found on his blog here. But without further adieu, here is Myles with “On Being Baptist.”
In the middle of Texas, being Baptist is akin to breathing. Waco is affectionately known as "the Jerusalem on the Brazos" for a reason, having a greater number of churches per capita than nearly any city in America. And, understandably, given the independent spirit of the state, the majority of those churches are Baptist in one flavor or another.
I’ve been able to observe Baptist life with some level of curiosity, not being Baptist from the cradle, become acquainted with the whole thing as a teenager, disenchanted as a college student, and cautiously joined at the hip as an adult. Having grown up Methodist, I always saw the Baptists as a peculiar breed of Christian: lacking the ceremony of Catholicism, the creedal base of Methodism or the spirited nature of the Assemblies of God. Since high school, however, having attended a Baptist college, a Baptist seminary, and enrolling for PhD work at Baylor University, the marks are starting to set in, like it or not: the world will note me as a Baptist, regardless of what my heart says.
Theologically, I’m closer to Presbyterianism or Catholicism. But yet, I stay, having been nourished and rooted in this tradition despite its warts and infighting. This is the denomination notorious for its Disney boycotts, its opposition to gay marriage, its rampant heart disease; this is the denomination that famously butchers the concept of the priesthood of the believer, of soul autonomy, of religious liberty. This is the denomination, par excellence, that embodies what is independent and thus, misguided, about the American religious experience. So, the question then:
“Myles, why do you stay?”
Good question. I ask myself this nearly every week. And if not for the witness of my home church, which has single-handedly redeemed the name of baptists, I might have flown long ago. But, despite its faults, I’ve found the Baptists amiable for the following reasons:
1) Latitude. Once you get outside the constrictions of the Southern Baptist Convention, the elbow room gets better. Outside the SBC, you find whole worlds of Baptists working for equality in the church, justice in the world, and peace in the cosmos. Because of the relative autonomy of the Baptist churches, when common ground is achieved, the synergy is really remarkable. Because the unity comes at such a great effort, what emerges is not conformity to a higher authority, but commonality with other wayfarers and travelers.
2) Suspicion. The history of Baptists is laden with dissenters and outsiders, persecuted by the state. When opting for "believer’s baptism" instead of infant baptism, the price was political viability, effectively undoing the legitimacy of a church/state union by making the church a body that one joins apart from the state. Its legacy continues best in its Anabaptist strains, never fully comfortable with the state proliferation and controls in church workings.
3) Grassroots. Having no over-arching structures, local churches are able to respond more quickly to local needs. Though having no unified global voice in the vein of Catholicism, Baptists through their locality are able to adapt to circumstance, for better or for worse.
It’s an uneasy marriage, I’ll admit. But it is what it is.