I mentioned in an earlier post today about my longtime fascination, adoration, and indebtedness to the life and works of Martin Luther King. He is among the names I reel off when I talk about some of the most influential people on my journey. I mentioned how I did a Chruch history paper in Seminary, at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It explored the reactions and views of the various Southern Baptist groups to Martin Luther King. I often compared and contrasted the writings of two State SBC paper editors from Alabama and some other state (I think it was Maryland, but I don’t recall— it was the more sympathetic and affrirming).
It seems to me that in the “old SBC” (that SBC prior to the “house cleaning” done bythe present “administration”), there would have been a group assigned to the developing of resources and studies in things like Civil Disobedience, Race Relations, and the theologial contribtions of Martin Luther King, Jr. But not today. Things like Civil Disobedience have been moved to the “troublemaker” column, just as they were in the old South, when people called the Civil Rights movement “a bunch of outside agitators”. The Christian Life Commission of the “old SBC” used to be an agency that did such things, and would resource the community on these things, when such “leftist” and “anti-American” things were not only permissable, but encouraged by a portion of the SBC community.
In those days, the existing “left wing” of the SBC was not calling for the ouster and the “tar and feathering” of the right wing. The ones who believed in the importance of things like “inerrancy” and “doctrinal purity” (of the Christian Right variety) were NOT being asked to leave , or removed from the mission field, or pressured to sign documents. But that has certainly been the strategy and the “accomplishments” of the “new SBC”, which is really a turning back of the clock to the days of slavery, when the SBC , along with many other mainline denominations, were held sway by the Cultural Mores rather than the message of the Scriptures.
Actually, that might be unfair to the SBC of the Civil War days. They actually represent a Church body that eventually was able to nurture dissent and produce the likes of Clarence Jordan and Gordon Cosby (the founding pastor of The Church of the Saviour in Washington , D.C.) Of course, this “evolution” of a denomination that grew into the largest mainline Protestant denomination is the same diverse group thatAl Mohler (the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President today) “blames” for producing Bill Clinton’s moral failures.
The point here, is that there was a tolerance of diversity and suffcient “openness” to the Spirit that provided for a “buffer zone” (however small) in which people could “hear” alternative possibilities; to be awakened to matters where the voice of the Church was being “neutered” by the prevailing mores of the surrounding culture. This is always going to be possible, however detrimental and “apostate” the climate has become, but the responsibility of a Church body or denomination to nurture an environment where certain questions can be heard and explored is crucial to a healthy spirituality. The present day SBC leadership is turnig this task into a “police matter” (and the “police” are appointed and cahrged with the task of seeking out the “theological offenders”). The task of “seeing beyond” and “seeing through” the manipulations and deceptions rampant in our culture is failing miserably as the leadership pulls the SBC Churches deeper and deeper into an unconscious alliance with the Republican Party (not that I believe the Democrats have a rigteous platfrom either…I do NOT). It’s gotten so that if a person is aware of my Christian beliefs, they ASSUME I endorse and venerate the chosen “MOral Candidate” which is assumed to come from the Republican party.