Baptist identity - is it what we take ownership of, or what we give ourselves to?

The past couple of days I have been with the Baptist Union Council sharing in a residential conference, and trying to practice what we say we believe about a Baptist way of being the church. Communal discernment is all very fine in theory, can be strongly defended biblically, can be shown to be good practice in a community impatient with hierarchy but staying this side of anarchy. But it's hard. And what makes it hard is the ingrained bias of our default habits of thought.

For example, Scottish Baptists are just not comfortable with silence, as if it suggests no one has anything worthwhile to say. Well, actually that might indeed be what it suggests, and in that case silence is the more creative option. Then there's the question of agendas, time constraint and the safety felt in a followed programme, so that departing from what was planned seems radical and risky- what might be radical and risky is to abandon any programme that imposes control, and trust the Holy Spirit to push, persuade, pull and prepare us to see what at present we can't see, to hear what we are too busy to listen to, to think what we previously thought unthinkable, to feel more deeply than we have for years, to reach out to each other in the fellowship of the One who washes feet, breaks bread, shares wine, and walks beside us on the way.

 My own contribution, for what it is worth, and it is worth something I think, was to ask that we choose our vocabulary more carefully. No one was swearing! But some words we use seem to suggest mechanism rather than organism. For example to say we should have a sense of ownership, requires of us a more self-centred and self conscious taking to ourselves of something, denomination, church whatever. I prefer the word belonging, in which the driver is not what I own, but what I give myself to. And indeed the most important form of ownership of Baptist identity isn't to own the principles and practices, but to give ourselves to them. To present our bodies as living sacrifices to Christ, living out his teaching, expressing his risen life within and amongst us, embodying his presence in a world hungry for bread, desolate of light, and where for all our claims to grown up cultural maturity, the church encounters a world frightened of its own shadow side.

I'm not sure where Scottish Baptists will be in a decade. But wherever it is, I would want us to be Christian in our vocabulary. So, why is it we have bought into the word "risk", as if risk was good for its own sake. My own understanding of Christian discipleship is that to follow Jesus is a decision high in risk, offset by trust. Do I trust this One who says, Come and follow me, take up your cross and come.... Radical is a word so overused now it refers mainly to things that might be thought or done slightly differently. I see it as a disruptive word, referring to definite discontinuity with status quo, a word itself redolent with risk, inviting to ways that are different, daring a new way of thinking that is only ever confirmed when practised.

If baptists are radical believers, and if we are people who give ourselves to what we believe, then maybe we need to find radical, risky, costly, personally disruptive ways of being together, thinking and praying together, walking with Jesus together. 

The statue is the magnificent Thorvaldsen's "Christus", in Copenhagen. The artist's intention was that " you only see his face when you kneel at his feet". Maybe that is where communal discernment begins.....

Comments

[Catriona]

I suspect, as someone who uses the word 'ownership' quite a lot what we intend is 'participation in' rather an 'imposition of' which is probably tantmount to 'belonging.' So, when I want my congregation to 'own' a decision I expect them to participate in its formulation and implementation - as we've just done in relation to All Age worship and me working in Sunday School. Because the decision belongs to the people, then they also belong to it somehow. There may be a danger (risk?!) that 'belonging' and 'owning' get confused, but pondering what we mean when we use the words is definitely worthwhile. Whether I'll moderate my language is another matter ;-))

[andy goodliff]

Jim was this a BUGB council event ... I'd be interested to hear more ... was it invitees only?

[Robert Gordon Maccini]

Hi Jim--Here in US, there are several Baptist denominations, the Southern Baptists being the largest, with several African American ones, and mine, the American Baptist Churches USA (which the fifth largest). What I see happening in my own denomination is less and less interest in what we used to call "Baptist distinctives." When I was pastoring, people who joined the church rarely, if ever, did so because of it being Baptist. They identified preaching. music, fellowship, education programs, etc. as their reason for joining. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I put it out there as something for the discussion. In the US, it appears that the "mainline decline" continues. Cheers, Bob

[Jim Gordon]

Point taken Catriona, but I still think "ownership of" retains a possessive sense that "belonging to" doesn't. Take and give, give and take, I suppose the notion of giving oneself to seems more attractive than taking to oneself. But your point still taken,.
Bob Maccini -twice in a two days - glad you came by again - I recognise there are Baptist identities and that these vary enormously, particularly in the States. However the abandonment of distinctives need not mean the loss of a tradition and its identity. Indeed, it becomes a call to re-pristinate, to recover, to embody again that which has defined that tradition. The reasons you give for people joining are true enough - and deeply self-referring. What a tradition, or an identity confers, is something greater than, or at least capable of lifting us above, a self-chosen and consumer shaped choice in our Chistian expression