Following the previous post on Baptist identity and my preferred disposition of persuasive humility, Chris asked a fundamental question with which I have great sympathy. From what I know of Chris (only from her blog, we haven't met yet, though I hope we can do that one of these days), she is an ecumenical enthusiast, and impatient of the barriers that seem to get in the way of Christian unity and a mutual recognition of each other as fellow travelers on the road with Christ. She always writes (here) with a generosity of mind to others, but also with sharp and critical awareness – so as a retired teacher herself, she knows when someone is writing, thinking or speaking tosh!
So when Chris asks her question she does so as one whose complaint I share. There are too many artificial barriers; more than enough personally invested agendas; a surplus of piously defended principles that have little purchase in the contemporary world; too many long memories of bitter divisions, and toxic after-lives of forgotten disputes; too much proud defensiveness about one's own precious if growingly obsolete traditions. And so on. And just to say, my reply presupposes my complete agreement about the unacceptable face of anti-ecumenism.
Here is the comment and question Chris
offers, followed by my reply:
Chris: When I
read this, and the post that precedes it, and in fact great chunks of
your blog, it keeps hitting me that it's absurd that you call yourself a
Baptist and I call myself an Episcopalian. There is far too much we
share – and I'm going beyond the basic tenets of faith here – for us to
be described as different. "Our sad divisions" are just that – and in
this time they are also absurd. Aren't they?
Jim: Hello
again Chris. I'd like to respond to your questions more fully in a post
but I'll at least hint at what a response might be. Ecumenical is for me
a good word, a generous word, a hospitable word. Diversity likewise
reflects something of the fecundity and variegation of created life,
human culture and faith expression. Neither term necessitates that
difference become sad division. But both safeguard the freedom, identity
and integrity of the many Christian traditions that make up the Church,
the Body of Christ. Baptist, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian
and a wheen more are for me the names by which we recognise each other,
not slogans by which we disenfranchise, diminish or oppose each other.
My being a Baptist can never justify me breaking fellowship with other
Christians – indeed as you suggest, it says as much about what is shared
between us. But it does allow for my own faith story to be heard,
coming as it does within a different tradition; and it requires of me to
hear your faith story, and value and learn from it. Absurd – division
is always absurd in a faith based on the Gospel of reconciliation. But
diversity is not absurd, it is the context within which conciliation,
peacemaking, fellowship and mutual recognition are worked out. Or so it
seems to this Baptist, seeking to witness with persuasive humility to
another valid way of being the Church.
Chris: I'll be fascinated in a further exploration of this – though if this is a
hint it's a generous one! I knew when I posted the comment that I
wouldn't want to lose the lovely things that I associate with my church –
which were vital components of my conversion, actually – and of course
if you call it "diversity" you cast our differences in a much more
benign light. Maybe I'm affected by the book I'm reading about the
dissolution of the monasteries – such cruelty in the name of religion!
I'll await further developments …
When Chris says there is far too much we share for us to be described as different, my whole self, (mind, heart and affections), affirms the truth of what she says. A thoughtful, outspoken, Episcopalian, hillwalking chorister peacemaker, who has spent a lifetime teaching, and a thoughtful, outspoken, Baptist preacher, teacher, academic and tapestry worker, for all the other differences, do indeed have a deep and durable affinity. And it's this. To be in Christ, to be incorporated into the Body of Christ which is the Church, in all its variegated glory, Baptist and Episcopalian and all the rest of them / us! That is the fundamental truth that renders other differences relative, but not irrelevant. I think it does matter that we remain true to those stories and traditions that have shaped us. But part of that being true to our own tradition is, I passionately believe, to value difference not as division but as diversity, not as threat but as opportunity, not as opposition but as co-operation, and not as obstacle but as tepping stone to deeper, richer understanding of a Gospel far too gloriously complex and far too redolent of new possibility, for any one tradition to constrain let alone contain it.
All that said. I still lean heavily towards Chris's sense that difference made excuse for division is sad, and absurd, in a church for which Christ himself prayed, that we may be one even as Christ and the father and Spirit are one.
And Chris's second comment about cruelty and brutality in the name of religion is a reminder to ecumenically generous people that the forces let loose by religion, politics and power, are never neutral, and often malign. In that sense the irony of a divided Christianity is itself an impetus to a recovery of a lived Gospel of reconciliation, peace-making, just relations and forgiveness. I am so tired of offensive behaviour, sullen doctrinal judgmentalism, partisan Christianity, rationalised dislike or worse of those who differ in their experience of God in Christ. And yes, when such over-againstness is given the twin engines of religion and political interest, as in Tudor England, then the Gospel of peace becomes an instrument of power, and the Prince of Peace is betrayed for the one Machiavelli called The Prince.
Because whatever else I stand for as a Baptist, I stand in the tradition of the persecuted, not the persecutor, and a tradition that rejects the coalition of church and state, and of political will with the mission of the Church of Jesus Christ. So I'm no ecumenical idealist unaware of the realities of division, divisiveness and a divided church; but I am one who believes Jesus' prayer was not a waste of words or time – "that they may be one." And where there is celebrated diversity, and humbly persuasive wearing of the amazing technicolour dream-coat of the Church (I know, exegetical daftness but it's just a bit of fun!), then at least we can argue we are trying to walk together after Christ, and glad of the company of each other.
Chris, we must meet for that coffee.
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On another note: A brief report of the recent Baptist Union Council, along with downloads of two of the papers, can be found at the Scottish Baptist College Blog here
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