Baptists: Present and Future

1. Baptists: Present and Future

2. Baptists: Present and Future • Introduction A. Content B. Difficulties C. A Word of Warning

3. Marty E. Marty “Working in the historical mode as an historian I have nothing, nothing at all to say about the future . . . in the historical mode I cannot predict or foretell.”

4. Baptists: Present and Future • Baptist Statistics A. Baptists in the U.S.A. B. Baptists World- wide

5. Pamela R. DursoStatistics on Baptists in the U.S.A. 1. Free Will Baptists: 2,458 churches, 199,000 members in 2003 2. Primitive Baptists: about 75,000 adherents 3. Seventh Day Baptists: 98 churches, approximately 4,899 members 4. American Koren Baptists: more than 750 churches 5. Hispanic Baptists: 2005 in Texas, about 1,200 churches—North Carolina 2010 over 120 churches 6. African-American Baptists: more than 14 million members in several national bodies plus 47% of the membership of the American Baptist Churches in the USA 7. American Baptist Convention: 2005 about 5,800 congregations with 1.5 million members 9. Southern Baptist Convention: about 43,000 churches with 16 million members 9. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship: 2005 over 1,800 churches

6. Albert W. WardinFigures on Baptist Growth 1750 a bit over 5,000 Baptists in America in 100 churches 1852 a bit over 1,100,000 world-wide with 900,000 in USA—4.5% lived outside of the USA and Great Britain 1904 over 6,000,000 world-wide with 5.5% living outside of the USA and Great Britain 1995 over 37 million world-wide, over 23% outside of USA and Great Britain—Baptists found in about 180 countries

7. Top Ten Baptist Populations1998 USA 33,175,526 India 1,544,203 Brazil 1,102,000 Nigeria 1,040,667 Zaire 720,159 Korea 660,000 Myannar 555,063 Rwanda 310,756 Philippines 212,643 Kenya 210,000

8. Bill J. Leonard “While comprehensive membership statastics are difficult to calculate, by the year 2000 there were upwards of 45 million Baptists spread throughout the world, with over 30 million of that number located in the United States. Outside the U.S., only in India and Brazil do Baptists claim a million or more members. In Africa and certain areas of Asia, however, growth seems steady and substantial. Nonetheless, in most countries Baptists remain a small part of the overall population.”

9. Baptist World Alliance2010 Has 214 Baptist conventions and unions, more than 47 million baptized believers, and a community of 150 million (no explanation of what this means) in more than 200 countries

10. Baptists: Present and Future • Baptists in the Present (with glances into the future) A. Review of Concluding Points B. Baptist Success C. Baptist Diversity and Ecumenism D. Baptists in a Pluralistic World E. Baptists and Equality F. Baptists on the Nature and Mission of the Church G. Baptists on Biblical Truth H. Baptists and Missions I. Baptists and Higher Education

11. A Selection of Issues Success Diversity and Ecumenism A Pluralistic World Equality The Nature and Mission of the Church The Nature of Biblical Truth Missions Higher Education

12. Baptists and SuccessPamela R. Durso “Our history tells us that we as Baptists have often been at our best in times and places when we have not been in the majority. . . . Today, we as Baptists are at our best when we hold fast to the religious freedom tradition of our Baptist fathers and mothers and when we work hard to make such freedom a reality for all people throughout the world.”

13. Baptists and SuccessCharles W. Deweese One of the issues is “widespread rejection of historic Baptist views of church-state separation.” The early Baptists took simple positions: “coerced faith driven by directives of the state was meaningless, but free faith driven by liberty of conscience and sheer voluntarism was the pattern taught and practiced by Christ.” “Perhaps the time has come to listen up to these Baptist heroes of religious freedom.”

14. Baptists and SuccessBill Salyers “Our ‘non-Baptist’ Baptists need to know Baptist distinctives and why they matter. Proclaiming the Baptist vision from the pulpit provides an important context for understanding what gets lost when ‘Baptist’ leaders subvert Baptist principles.”

15. Baptists and SuccessWalter B. Shurden Questions for Baptists to consider: “How do we feed the fire of beginnings?” “What causes the fire to die down in any religious movement, even to go out?” “Is it too much to hope that the fire can be kept alive?”

16. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismAlbert W. Wardin, Jr. “Baptist life includes many points of diversity. These relate to theology, culture and ethnicity, means, and successionism.” Wardin briefly examines each of these points and concludes “most Baptists would still consider themselves part of one Baptist denomination, accepting in some historic Baptist principles” and usually accepting each other’s members.

17. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismCharles W. Deweese ‘Persistent fragmentation’ “started in the early 1600s, and it has never stopped.” Out of our diversity some of us have been able to “rediscover more accurate biblical perspectives of what it means to be Baptist.” “Respect for the rights of private interpretation of Scripture is paramount. Congregational self-determination is important. . . The best Baptist principles are biblically-based and positive; they rise above negativity. They recommend aggressive efforts to be in the world, but not of it; they urge appropriate contributions to church and state, but not a marriage between the two; they make bold calls for justice by editors and preachers, not pathetic departures from the prophetic call; they offer opportunities for conversations and joint actions among Baptist groups, not endorsements of continuing segregation and relational breakdowns; and they endorse liberty of conscience and authentic voluntarism, not the control orientation of fundamentalism.”

18. Baptist Diversity and Ecumenism The Baptist Manifesto 1997 New Baptist Covenant 2008, 2009

19. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismEphesians 4.5-6 (NIV) “one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who over all and through all and in all.”

20. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismWalter B. Shurden Called for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to “go beyond Baptist ecumenism and engage in serious conversations with other Christians. . . . It could be a point of spiritual renewal for us to link arms with other Christians. . . . We should not live in isolation from our other Christian brothers and sisters anymore than we should live in isolation from each other.”

21. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismJ. Brent Walker “We are free, in the words of the great commandment, to love God and love one another.” Walter B. Shurden “Baptists have never shouted freedom to escape the will of God; they have treasured freedom so they could obey the will of God.”

22. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismWalter B. Shurden For too long we have used immersion baptism in the same manner as early Jewish Christians used circumcision, “as a litmus test to exclude.”

23. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismJames Leo Garrett “Truth and unity need to be kept in balance. We should indeed seek more extensive Christian unity but not at the price of the compromise of truth . . . .”

24. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismA Baptist Manifesto “Baptist theology ought not to be against the church. Baptist theology needs to be for the church and the gospel in a hostile world.”

25. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismBill J. Leonard “If baptism is essential to Baptist identity . . then churches that centered in the idea of believers’ baptism must revisit their baptismal theology and practices with some regularity.” Baptists “would do well to reconsider baptism as the outward sacrament/ordinance that links regenerate church membership, conscience, and Christian commitment as the central witness of Baptist identity in the world.”

26. Baptist Diversity and Ecumenism Baptist Union of Great Britain“Believing and Being Baptized” “In particular, we make a plea for Baptists to think more seriously about the place of children in the church; we urge that the act of ‘presentation and blessing of infants’ among Baptists be understood more clearly as a part of a journey of growing relationship with God.”

27. Baptist Diversity and EcumenismWilliam Brackney “Baptists need to engage ecumenical and interfaith conversations at every level. Stop the halting witness in these circles . . . It’s a matter of being taken seriously in a post-Christian world.”

28. A Pluralistic WorldMark Heim “. . . pluralism in a true sense means that we live with each other and accept each other though we see clearly that we are not the same. . . . True pluralism does not mean coming to terms with my Buddhist neighbor by affirming that underneath it all we believe exactly the same thing. If that is so, we are not really distinct and plural. Pluralism means living with real distinctions, conflicting answers about what is most determinative for our lives”

29. Baptists in a Pluralistic WorldAlan Neely “Given the fact that this country--as most countries in the West--is becoming increasingly multicultural and multi-religious, how we Christians relate to non-Christians will determine whether we are able to live together in a truly pluralistic society or whether we will become a tangle of competing, mutually suspicious, antagonistic neighbors.”

30. Baptists in a Pluralistic WorldBill J. Leonard “Religion has specificity and offers a place to stand from which to relate to other movements and ideas in the religious marketplace of global pluralism.”

31. Baptists in a Pluralistic WorldCharles W. Deweese “I am 100 percent convinced that the foremost contributions of Baptists to world civilization lie in the realm of defending freedom in faith for everyone.” “God placed Baptists in history in the early 1600s for at least one reason: to inject new liberty thrusts into the Christian experience and, more broadly, into the human experience. That is Baptists’ essential gift to human civilization.”

32. Baptists and EqualityGender Equality Walter B. Shurder Gender equality: a moral problem “The State of Women in Baptist Life—2005” “Baptist women (and men) committed to the equality of all God’s people have helped reshape and re-envision the church generally, and Baptist churches in particular, as more inclusive, more creative places of worship, spiritual formation, and service.”

33. Baptists and EqualityEquality of the Laity Walter B. Shurden “The Priesthood is universal; it belongs to all believers.” “Each believer has equality with other believers. The clergy cannot pull rank on the laity. The old cannot pull rank on the young. Whites cannot pull rank on blacks. Men cannot pull rank on women.”

34. Baptists and the Nature and Mission of the ChurchWalter B. Shurden “The Kingdom of God is not solely about handing out tracts or personal witnessing, but it is certainly about some of that; but the Kingdom of God also has to do with the struggle for justice and mercy and peacemaking as part of the mission of the church.” “One of the premier challenges for Baptists in this new century is to understand that the Great Commission includes word and deed, speaking/preaching and living/doing, evangelism and social justice.”

35. Baptists and the Nature and Mission of the ChurchBill J. Leonard “If Baptist identity is to be passed on into a new century, congregations across the theological spectrum will be compelled to reexamine the nature of their church polity, distinguishing business methods and bylaws from the theological methods of covenant community.”

36. Baptists and the Nature of Biblical Truth Walter B. Shurden reminds us that Baptists must avoid a view that says of the nature of scripture, “We have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

37. Baptists and the Nature of Biblical Truth A reminder: Baptists, while strongly speaking for the individual, have also stressed that individuals should share their biblical interpretations with their brothers and sisters in Christ. Together the congregation agrees upon that to which the Spirit leads them. Is this a problem today? Consider the following statement from the prominent, influential Protestant theologian, Stanley Hauerwas: “No task is more important than for the Church to take the Bible out of the hands of individual Christians in America.” Hauerwas goes on to say that the Church should rely on “spiritual masters” to help it have the “right” reading of Scripture; he does not believe that each person in the Church is given the right to interpret Scripture.

38. Baptists and the Nature of Biblical Truth The central issue is how do we balance individual freedom with communal responsibility? I refer you to C. Douglas Weaver, “Baptists and Denomination Identity and the Turn toward Creedalism: 2000,” Turning Points in Baptist History, 288ff. Note especially the section “Twenty-first Century,” 299ff. Note the footnotes that refer to different responses to the “Baptist Manifesto” issued in 1997.

39. Baptists and the Nature of Biblical TruthBill J. Leonard “Divisions over the nature of biblical authority, theories of biblical inspiration, and the role of hermeneutics show no signs of dissipating in Baptist life.” The question, then, is, “How will Baptists rediscover the wonder of the biblical text amid the continuing debates over the nature of biblical authority?”

40. Baptists and MissionsBonny Resu “No more ‘secret agent’ approach of bypassing local churches in a second country, to do their own ‘mission.’”

41. Baptists and Higher EducationWilliam Brackney “Theological education will be different, part-time, non-resident, diverse students working on shorter qualification programs. Seminaries that emphasize old stuff and narrow theology are doomed.”

42. Baptists and Higher EducationDonald D. Schmeltekoph The Future of Baptist Higher Education, Donald D. Schmeltekoph and Dianna M. Vitanza, eds. A problem faced by higher education in America: “. . . the dominance of the market-driven tendencies in American higher education today, including in our religious schools. The idea is to give students what they want ‘now’—preparation for jobs and careers—which often means an abandonment of the long-term benefits of a liberal arts curriculum or of the more mission-driven aspects of a Christian institution.”

43. Baptists and Higher EducationWilliam D. Underwood The Summit at Mercer University: 19-20 January 2006, Three Addresses, by R. Kirby Godsey, Walter B. Shurden, and William D. Underwood The summit was called in response to the Georgia Baptist Convention voting to sever ties with Mercer. Over 150 church leaders were called together “to explore ways to maintain and broaden Mercer’s identity as a free Baptist institution serving Baptists not only in Georgia but around the world.”

44. Baptists: Present and Future • Baptists in the Future A. Some Questions B. Walter B. Shurden: Six Points C. Daniel Carro: “Where should Baptists go?” D. Mahatma Gandhi E. R. Kirby Godsey: a Closing Word

45. Baptists and the Future Some questions: • 1. Will we reach a day when Baptist women do not have to wear shirts saying “This is what a preacher looks like”? • 2. In a world that appears to be increasingly less concerned about denominational labels can Baptists maintain the distinctives that set us apart from other Christian groups? • 3. Similarly, if we do become more ecumenical in our vision of the Church, will we be able to maintain the distinctive that set us apart from the very people with whom we seek to develop relations? • 4. In a world that is increasingly secular can Baptists maintain doctrinal purity without turning to creedalism?

46. Walter B. Shurden • 1. Baptists need to affirm their surname (Christian) as well as their given name (Baptist). That is, we are Christians who choose to express our Christianity through Baptist churches. • 2. Baptists must maintain a believer’s church. • 3. Baptists face a challenge of living up to believer equality. • 4. Baptists face the challenge of balancing a congregational polity and being a part of the larger Body of Christ. • 5. Baptist passion for religious liberty and the separation of church and state must be kept. • 6. Baptists are challenged to continue being a Great Commission people.

47. Daniel Carro • 1. learn your story [history] and your doctrine: Know who you are, who your parents in the faith were and know what you believe. • 2. envision new dreams: Live an eschatological life, always hoping for a better tomorrow and learning new things that will connect you to your future. • 3. keep it simple: Do the basics: read your Bible, pray, go to church, tell your testimony, get involved in ministry, give, live for others and reach for the sublime. • 4. keep it small: Much of what made Baptists great can only be achieved in small communities. • 5. keep it open: Welcome new ideas and people. • 6. be discerning: Be as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove. • 7. keep it meaningful: If something is boring for you it will be boring for others. • 8. be honest: Be honest to God, to your inner being, to your faith community, and to all others. • 9. don’t do it alone: The Baptist way of being the church is communal so relinquish your ego to the will of the community and find the will of God for your personal life. • 10. be intentional and authentic: Be deliberate, plan, mediate on what you are going to do and, once in prayer you have decided what to do, keep it consistent and keep it coming.

48. Mahatma Gandhi “First, I would suggest that all of you Christians--missionaries and all--must begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Second, practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down. Third, emphasize love and make it your working force, for love is central in Christianity. Fourth, study the non-Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good that is within them, in order to have a more sympathetic approach to the people."

49. R. Kirby GodseyA Closing Word “. . . it would be self-centered to lose heart. Baptists are not, after all, the hope of the world. God’s universe is not somehow waiting silently to see what happens to Baptists. . . . Baptists have never been the source of all truth and we have not become the center of God’s universe. Our only reason for being is to serve as instruments of hope and grace. More simply put, Baptists were not called to become one more corporate giant in neon lights. Baptists were called to be simple priests, bearers of light, a family of the living out of the reality of God’s presence in the world.”