The Christian Science Monitor today notes the beginning of the meeting of the New Baptist Covenant, convened by President Carter in Atlanta this week. The stated goal of the covenant is to bring Baptists together - the theme is "Unity in Christ" - to work on spreading the gospel and supporting social justice projects.
Politics is strictly prohibited at the meeting, although I find it a little difficult to view this meeting as purely apolitical. Any group headlined by two Presidents (Carter and Clinton) and two Senators (Graham and Grassley) is not apolitical. After all, if this meeting were purely about theological and denominational unity, it could be composed entirely without the help of these politicians who are - excepting perhaps Carter - not really leaders within their denomination.
Moreover, the topics chosen for discussion, chiefly peace and poverty, are acutely political. Even suggesting that they should be the main issues for discussion at a Baptist meeting is a political statement (although, in better times, it would not be.) There's a reason Southern Baptist Convention leaders have chosen to stay away from the meeting - they know it is an unsubtle swipe at their intensive focus on conservative orthodoxy, their focus on theological issues which align neatly with political social conservatism.
Carter is leading a deliberate effort to "re-brand" Baptism as a religion focused on social justice as well as evangelism, and that means that he doesn't want it to be a religion focused on evangelism and social conservatism. Fine, I applaud that. But what will the New Baptist Covenant need to do, in pragmatic terms, to actually wrest control of the Baptist identity out of the SBC's hands? Meetings, as prominent SBC leader Albert Mohler notes, are not enough.
My reading of intra-Baptist denominational politics is extremely fuzzy, so I don't have a particularly good answer to offer. But my guess is that, despite reform efforts within the SBC, the conservative "resurgence" within the convention is not getting much weaker anytime soon, and that the upper echelons of the SBC leadership won't be joining the New Baptists in the near future. Instead, the New Baptist Covenant will have to offer a clear alternative to the grassroots of the SBC, at both an individual and a congregational level. They will probably want to offer some kind of formal affiliation program to individual SBC congregations. SBC congregations do, after all, have a high degree of autonomy. If the New Baptist Covenant were willing to provide a certification program under which any Baptist congregation were free to apply for, let's say, a "Unity in Christ" certificate, individual SBC congregations should be free to do so without interference from the larger convention.
The result would be a patchwork of Baptist denominations and congregations, all theoretically united in a common theological vision of evangelism and social justice, who might be able to speak and organize in a cohesive voice, thereby undermining the conservative orthodoxy of the SBC. Moreover, such a program would give aspiring Baptist preachers who are interested in social justice an idea of where to seek their calling. It would also allow socially-minded Baptists an opportunity to find a home congregation which matches their own theological vision. At the end of the day, it would give the social justice voices within the SBC something to rally around.
In light of the extreme unpopularity of the war in Iraq, and the newfound popularity of social justice work in evangelical circles of late, this should not be an extremely difficult sell. It will take a bit of legwork and, I think, some aggressive marketing, but it is eminently feasible. Indeed, such a program might actually be a lifeline for many congregations, SBC and non-SBC alike. After all, as Bill Leonard points out in the Monitor article, nondenominational churches (which overlap a good deal with, but are not strictly the same as, the well-known megachurches) are offering Baptist congregations pretty stiff competition. A new focus on social justice work might be a way to build cohesion among Baptists, or to attract new congregants from nondenominational churches.
It'll be interesting to see what Carter and the New Baptists come up with. The challenge to the conservative orthodoxy of SBC leadership must come both from within and without.
Update: You can follow news from the covenant meeting at Baptist reform blog Mainstream Baptist, or the more conservative SBC Outpost. So far, from early reports, there have been nice speeches and references to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of racial unity, but no action plans. (h/t Melissa Rogers)
Update 2: With a tip of the hat to Melissa Rogers again, don't hold your breath for the New Baptist Covenant to aggressively compete with the SBC. From the Dalls Morning News:
At a Friday news conference, Mr. Carter said he and other organizers of the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant will be meeting in the next few weeks to consider how best to follow up.
No new organization is foreseen. But Jimmy Allen, coordinator of the event, said another mass meeting is likely "in two or three years," and meanwhile, ways will be explored to help foster collaborations by the groups that came together this time.
We'll find out more in a couple of months, I guess.
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