Ethics Daily has posted Bill Wilson's speech on "Why Stay Baptist?"
Bill was supposed to deliver the speech at Ethics Daily's 15th Anniversary Luncheon on Thursday, but graciously gave up his time when the program went over schedule.
Bill answers a question that every moderate, mainstream Baptist has wrestled with at one time or another.
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I think those of us who tangle themselves up with the CBF should have given up the name "baptist" 15 years ago. The fundmentalists won control of the denomination and are now the cultural reference point for what it is to be Baptist. Ack! So when I tell run-of-the-mill people that I am a Baptist minister, I am embarrased. And usually they get glassy eyed if I try to give them even the most succinct history that would distinguish me from the "other."
This is a question we progressive Baptists have to answer, too. My answer is much like Wilson's. At the height of the SBC controversy in the '90s, I became so frustrated that I started the process to become ordained in the United Church of Christ. I stopped the process. I couldn't bring myself to the idea of baptizing babies and the clergy/laity split in the UCC's traditions offended my strong belief in the priesthood (and prophethood!) of all believers.
I considered strongly becoming Mennonite or Church of the Brethren or Quaker, as so many Baptist pacifists have, including some close friends. But, unlike the Quakers, I really believe in baptism and the Lord's Supper and think that their over-spiritualization amounts to a tacit denial of incarnation. And, while Quaker spirituality has long informed my private devotions, I like music and preaching in corporate worship. I'm just too loud to be a Quaker.
It was a closer call with the Mennonites and Church of the Brethren: Both groups hold to believers baptism, to believer priesthood, to congregational polity, to liberty of conscience and religious liberty. The COB are even more anti-creedal than most mainstream or progressive Baptists, insisting that the New Testament is sufficient for faith and practice and no confessions of faith are needed.
But too many Mennonites (by no means all) take church-state separation in an apolitical direction that makes me glad for the Puritan influence on Baptist beginnings as well as the Anabaptist. Baptists have seldom been tempted to withdrawal ethics.
So, after careful consideration, like Wilson, I decided to remain Baptist in order to preserve the radical heritage--the radical heritage which is not "moderate" for Baptists. Wrestling with real alternatives can make one realize reasons for staying Baptist. So, as Will Campbell likes to say, I remain a Baptist from the South, but not a Southern Baptist.
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