A Baptist is like...?
What does a Baptist look like? If you had to picture a stereotypical or representative figure in your head, how would that person look and what would he say? Those of us who have grown up in the South (especially those like me who are Baptist) may conjure a very specific avatar. Obviously Mr. Baptist will be holding a fat, leather-bound study Bible stuffed at one end with a few old church bulletins. If he's older he listens to Ray Boltz or the Gaithers. If he's younger he listens to Chris Tomlin or Todd Agnew. You know the church he attends with its typical neo-classical design featuring a steeple on top, brick walls and, if it's big enough, a frontal pediment supported by columns. Since I am thinking of the South, then more than likely Mr. Baptist is of the – lo and behold – Southern Baptist variety. Sunday School and other study sessions may center on work by Charles Stanley, Beth Moore, Lee Strobel or Rick Warren. The pastor wears a suit, has put on at least a few pounds from potluck dinners and dining at members' homes, and has either a part or a solid combover in his hair. Mr. Baptist and his fellow devout congregants, unlike the Christmas and Easter Christians, are Republican-voting, socially conservative culture warriors who love God and country and see no paradox in that, wonder why a Congressman could take an oath on the Qu'ran, and pray regularly in services for the lost – that is, the vast majority of this planet's population.
This is of course a flat picture – it is after all a stereotype – but it is one that some may consider fairly representative. After all, of all the Christians in the world who identify themselves as Baptists, three out of four live in the United States, and of those half are Southern Baptists. Thus a typical impression is set: white, middle class, conservative, and proud to be an American. But then the picture gets complicated. Within this country several million African-American Baptists do not fit neatly within the frame set by this image. Martin Luther King was a Baptist. Other white Baptists vote Democratic (or on principle don't vote at all), listen to Paul Simon or Radiohead, and their pastor might even wear a stole. They may follow the church year, read Barbara Brown Taylor, and believe in absolute nonviolence. Wacky liberals, right?
Well, what does a Baptist look like when we consider many small and vibrant communities outside North America? It is only when we take a global view that we may recognize the incredible diversity of practices, styles, and theologies within a broad tradition defined principally by its ecclesiology and little else. A great example comes from the most recent issue of Baptists Today, a moderate periodical published in Macon, Georgia. The Georgia chapter of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship may be forming a burgeoning partnership with the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia (the country, not the state). Already the name of the latter group strikes a distinct note among fellow Baptists, who are typically averse to naming their translocal organizational structures “churches” but instead prefer terms like convention, association, fellowship, or conference. This is due to the fact that Baptist ecclesiology typically emphasizes the independence and competence, under Christ, of the local congregation. Although the name for this union of Baptists as “Church” could be challenged as un-Baptistic, the Georgians have outdone themselves...by appointing a bishop! That's right, the leader of the Evangelical Baptist Church is not called moderator, coordinator, president or executive director – but that old-fashioned, hierarchical, “popish” title of bishop! This isn't really a problem in my opinion, but the article states how Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili must explain to his American Georgian brethren that the office provides a symbol of unity and is not meant to replace the interdependence of the congregations with an exclusively top-down, authoritarian structure.
Not only does Malkhaz hold a title not typically approved among American Baptists, but he also dresses like the bishops of the predominant Georgian Orthodox Church in his country. The pictures on the church web site show a man with a very Orthodox-like long beard wearing a long, flowing robe, a big bishop's cross and a round hat with a cross emblem stitched into its front. He even carries a staff!
The Georgian Baptists are also fairly unusual by American standards in other ways besides their cross-wearing, staff-holding, beard-growing bishop. They have founded two religious orders – the Sisters of St. Nino, who focus on preaching and healing, and the New Desert Brothers, who promote fasting, contemplative prayer, and other facets of ancient desert spirituality. I cannot tell whether these orders are reserved for clergy or are intended for everyone. Yet the EBC also operates a retreat campus called the Beteli Center and a ministers' continuing education program called the School of Elijah that brings together Eastern and Western Christians for training, prayer and dialogue.
Yet despite taking on some fairly traditional, “catholic” accoutrements such as contemplative spirituality, religious orders, and a bishopric, the Georgian Baptists have made a step often regarded as unconventional or nontraditional: they ordain women to ministry leadership. All in all, the 103 churches and missions and the 15,000 members of this tiny Baptist communion are doing much to blow away the stereotypes and the hackneyed liberal-conservative conceptual spectrums that have made our categorizations so easy here in America. I could hardly be more happy!
www.ebcgeorgia.org
Labels: Baptist Catholicity, Baptists
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