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Note: This essay first appeared in the
June 2007 Baptist Studies Bulletin.
For better or for worse, the month of June defines Baptists in the
eyes of America. June is when the Southern Baptist Convention holds
its annual meeting, and the controversies in SBC life of the past 28
years have led religious journalists in America to train their pens
and word processors on the world of Southern Baptists for a few short
days. The result has been reporting and analysis that reveal the
hypocrisy and problematic stances taken by messengers at the SBC
meeting, and has rarely been favorable to Baptists, as many outsiders
view the SBC as representative of Baptists as a whole (for example,
note how many newspaper stories regarding this year's SBC meeting
placed the word "Baptists" in the title, rather than "Southern
Baptists").
As usual, this year's SBC annual meeting was dutifully
covered by religious reporters, who in turn will pay little attention
to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly at the end of
this month. Yet this year's SBC meeting proved to be a bit different,
witnessing the second year in a row internal dissent within the
convention. In short, a loyalist moderating voice, empowered by the
information-leveling advent of blogging, has emerged within the SBC in
response to a host of issues confronting the denomination, including
charismatic practices, financial scandals, mission field policies,
clergy sex-abuse and Calvinism. The jury is out on whether or not
the new faction in SBC life will ultimately be able to rein in the
fundamentalist power structures and reverse, or simply stem, long-term
statistical declines within the denomination. However, all Baptists
in America should welcome the moderating voice emerging in SBC life,
as public perception of all Baptists in the nation largely hinges on
what happens during June at the SBC annual meeting.
At the same time, the larger Baptist family is America is
facing an opportunity to more clearly redefine how the public views
Baptists. On January 30, 2008 as many as 20,000 Baptists,
representing some 20 million Baptists in America, will gather in
Atlanta under the umbrella of a
New Baptist Covenant in a public demonstration of
living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ by focusing on the
very issues that were most important to Jesus. To a public accustomed
to Baptists misappropriating the Bible to build their own kingdoms,
condemning those with whom they disagree, fighting for their own
rights rather than the rights of others, and enforcing their own
political agendas, the demonstration of Gospel unity in January may
well seem revolutionary. And perhaps the New Baptist Covenant will
remove the June spotlight that has so long stigmatized Baptists in
America.
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