andygoodliff

Whatever happened to the Baptist Assembly as an ecclesial body?

The following is from the 1994 report on The Nature of the Assembly and the Council of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (chaired by Paul Fiddes)

a national assembly must by nature be 'deliberative', seeking the to find the mind and purpose of Christ for the servant church (p.11) ... While it is right that the Assembly should be a time for inspiration and celebration as well as for deliberation, the balance seems to have swung too much away from the latter (p.25) ... [T]he concept of a 'Baptist Assembly' which incorporates the 'Annual Meetings of the Baptist Union and the Baptist Missionary Society' cannot be the same kind of meeting as an 'Assembly of the Baptist Union.' The result may be a loss of understanding among the churches as to what an ecclesial Assembly is ... (p.26) ... A major part of Assembly should be deliberative consideration of the work of Council, and discussion of large matters of policy, strategy and priorities.' (p.28)

Sadly the Assembly does little or no real deliberative work and is made up of 'set piece presentations' as one Baptist theologian recently described it.  Is this another example of a pragmatic Union that doesn't listen to its theologians? The Assembly is part of our Baptist eccleisology, but like the Church Meeting it seems to have waned in importance.  How can we recover it is a proper ecclesial body that gathers to seek the mind of Christ for the life and mission of the Union as well as being a prophetic voice to the nation?

Catholicity and Confessionalism

John Colwell's lecture was the fourth in a series of (at least ten according to Nigel Wright) annual George Beasley-Murray Memorial Lectures.  In the latter half of the twentieth century, the contribution of George Beasley-Murray towers over Baptist theology and this set of lectures is designed to reflect on different aspects of his thought. Colwell's lecture on Sunday was a response to Beasley-Murray's writings on unity. It will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Baptist Quarterly.

Colwell's argument was that Baptist distinctives are in jeopardy and that in Beasley-Murray we find someone who was committed to ecumenism and to the distinctive shape of Baptist ecclesiology.  Beasley-Murray was the chairman of the Baptist Union report 'Baptists and Unity' (1967) which argued for six Baptist distinctives:

1. baptism
2. authority of the local church
3. Lord's supper
4. episcopacy
5. use of creeds and confessions
6. relationship of church and state - baptists are dissenters

Colwell argued that the post-denominational context was muting Baptist identity, where youth work or worship style becomes the most important reason for belong to a church.  In the recent joint Baptist and Anglican report Pushing the Boundaries of Unity there was no mention of of Baptists being dissenters as a problem in unity with the Church of England.  The impact of Restorationism has seen many Baptists flirting with Presbyterian style church government, which alongside has seen a loss of confidence in the church meeting and perhaps council and assembly as ecclesial bodies. So in Assembly we find set-piece presentations, rather than any real discerning of the mind of Christ. 

Colwell argued for a visible unity which celebrated distinctives and not their impoverishment or suppression.

He ended the paper by calling for review of the Declaration of Principle (which denies catholicity) and that instead of needing to write a confession, he asked how can Baptists confess differently? To which he suggested we don't need a distinctive confession, but a distinctive manner or practice of confessing. 

Underlying this paper was Colwell's concern (shared by others) that the Baptist Union is lacking a strong enough theology and that the agenda (?) is being pushed by good people, but practical people, who are arguably more interested in practical responses than theological ones.

This was an excellent paper (and this summary doesn't do it justice) and one in which I hope people engage and respond to.  Along with Paul Fiddes, John Colwell is our most important theological voice in the Baptist Union. I'm concerned that they don't get listened to enough. We sorely need good theologians (and also historians) to help us shape and articulate our life and witness.

Baptists Stuck on Ministry Questions

Kez has been blogging on yesterday's discussion at BU Council, which I'm also at. Council was discussing whether children's workers should be 'recognised' in a similar way to youth specialists and evangelists. The difference being that they would not be accredited ministers, but recognised in a similar way to 'lay pastors.' The language here can get very confusing - as we discovered - and ultimately the Council decided against going forward (at the moment) with recognising children worker's in this way, although they wanted to affirm the valuable ministry of children's workers and to finding ways to appropriately supporting and encouraging them. It would be interesting to see what would have happened, as Kez suggests, if a children's worker had been present and shared their perspective. What also the discussion raised was the deep disagreement on what 'accredited ministry' is. The discussion also reflected the difficulties in having a complex theological discussion once you start including the different Greek words and terms like 'priesthood of all believers.' I think it highlighted also perhaps the questions of whether youth specialists or evangelists should be accredited as ministers. An order or doctrine of ministry remains a difficult questions for Baptists - I would want to follow the recent work of Paul Fiddes and John Colwell.

Baptist Theology: Ministry (a reading list)

The question I continue to wrestle with since beginning at Regent's is the question of ministry and leadership. See posts here and here. I posted back in 2006 some of the recent discussion between functional and ontological understandings on ministry here. I'm currently working on an essay on baptist ecclesiology and have been tracing some of the discussion around ministry in the 20th century.

The first major texts are Arthur Dakin's The Baptist View of the Church and Ministry (London: Baptist Union, 1944) and Ernest Payne's The Fellowship of Believers: Baptist Thought and Practice Yesterday and Today (The Kingsgate Press, 1944, 2nd ed. 1952) The former sets out a purely functional understanding of ministry and is limited only to those in pastorate of a local church - ruling our all college tutors (which included himself), regional ministers (then known as superintendents), BU staff and those involved in sector-type ministeries (i.e. chaplins). The latter was in part a reply to Dakin, arguing for a higher understanding of ministry that saw the minster as a representative of the wider church (so more ontological than functional).

The Baptist Union produced three reports on ministry during the middle of the century, which can all be found in Roger Hayden (ed.), Baptist Union Documents, 1948-1977: The Meaning and Practice of Oridination Among Baptists (1957), The Doctrine of Ministry (1961), Ministry Tomorrow (1969)

In more recent times contributions have been made by Nigel Wright in a Baptist Quarterly article: 'Inclusive Representation: towards a theology of baptist ministry’ (2001); Paul Fiddes in A Leading Question (BU, 1983, similar arguments are made in chapter 4 of Tracks and Traces, 2003): John Colwell in his book Promise and Presence (Paternoster, 2005) and Steve Holmes in his contribution to Baptist Sacramentalism,  ‘Towards a Baptist Theology of Ordained Ministry’  (Paternoster, 2003). The differences between these theologians is summed up neatly by Holmes in a report on the theology of sector ministry:

On the one hand, Colwell and Fiddes stress a single order of ministry, with the local pastorate as the normative form, which nonetheless can be faithfully discharged in other roles, including sector ministries. Wright and Holmes, whilst not opposing this position, invite an alternative account based on the pluriform nature of New Testament ministry, under which sector ministry would be seen as a different calling from the local pastorate, but equally a part of the variegated ministry God has been pleased to give to his Church.

A more functional view of ministry can also be found in Paul Beasley-Murray's 'The Ministry of All and the Leadership of Some' in Anyone for Ordination?, edited by Beasley-Murray (1993)

The most recent and important report on ministry was in 1994 called Forms of Ministry among Baptists. Towards an Understanding of Spiritual Leadership and is strongly shaped by its chairman Paul Fiddes.

The other specific debate is the nature of translocal ministry - can one be a minister outside of the local church and is there a place for 'bishop' or 'apostle' type role. Nigel Wright firstly in (chapter 7, 1991), but also in later works Challenge to ChangeFree Church, Free State (chapter 9, 2005) wants to argue yes to both questions. A collection of essays edited by Stuart Murray was published in 2004 called Translocal Ministry (BU, 2004).

Another related New Testament contribution can be found in Alistair Campbell's The Elders: Seniority within Earliest Christianity (T & T Clark, 1994)

Steve Holmes is blogging

Steve Holmes, Baptist minister and theologian, lecturers at St Andrews, is blogging. He will be well worth keeping an eye on. I really enjoy Steve's writings and am looking forward to his thoughts. He already has a post on Bruce McCormack's SJT lectures from earlier this month. Visit his blog here.

Should Baptists do away with Elders?

This post arises out of conversations amongst ministerial students here at Regent's as we discussed the Pastoral Epistles. (The views reflect are my own and cannot not be attributed to others). It takes us back to the discussion at the beginning of the term about church leadership. As Paul Fiddes points out in Tracks and Traces, 'the appointment of multiple elders by the local congregation is a relatively recent phenomenon' (2003, 92).  Traditionally Baptists have operated with a minister/s and deacons. It seems to me that more and more that the role of elders is supplanting that of deacon. Deacons have become more marginalized and limited to specific tasks (secretary, treasurer, fabric, health & safety, and so on), while eldership teams are growing bigger and bigger and becoming authoriative.  The concern here is that we are moving further away from our baptist tradition which believes 'that authority finally lies with the rule of the risen Jesus Christ, who is present in the local congregation (Fiddes, 2003, 85). Fiddes goes on to say, 'This rule is not shared in the sense of being delegated to other individuals from above. There is no chain of command, no pyramid of power. Christ alone rules, and the task of the local church gathered in covenant community together is to find the mind of Christ. It must find his purpose for it as it comes together in church meeting' (85-86). Leadership emerges from the church as it gathers together, not from an individual or individuals. Elsewhere I put it like this:

For Baptist Christians we practice a non-hierarchal view of church. The ministry and mission of the church belongs to each local church. Baptists recognise that some are called to leadership and ministry, but power and privilege is given not to them, but to the church as a whole as it meets together. I like that. What makes me a Baptist is partly the conviction that as a whole church, as the priesthood of believers in this place, we discern together the mission and ministry of the church.

I remained convinced that language remains something that needs to be used and defined carefully. We must prize the language of 'deacon' and 'minister' with its roots in the Greek word for 'servant'. We should avoid if at all possible language of 'leader' unless we use it reference to Christ or the Spirit. We should rediscover and embrace our baptist history. 'Baptist history and principles' is vital to the future of baptist life and not something we disregard or treat indifferently. We should value the church meeting highly and be expectant that Christ will be present in our gathered conversations and deliberations.

Ten Indisepensable Books on Baptism

1. Baptism in the New Testament by George Beasley-Murray (Eerdmans, 1962)

2.Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Faith and Order Paper 111; World Council of Churches, 1982)

3. Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R. E. O. White edited by Anthony Cross and Stanley Porter (Sheffield Academic Press, 1999)

4. Dimensions of Baptism: Biblical and Theological Studies edited by Anthony Cross and Stanley Porter (Sheffield Academic Press, 2002)

5. What has Infant Baptism done to Baptism? An Enquiry at the End of Christendom. The 2003 Didsbury Lectures (Paternoster, 2005)

6. Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective: Collected Studies by David F. Wright (Paternoster, 2007)

7. Reflections on the Water: Understanding God and the World Through the Baptism of Believers edited by Paul Fiddes (Smyth and Helwys, 1996)

8. The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation by Aidan Kavanaugh (Pueblo, 1978)

9. Christian Initiation by Hugh M. Riley (1974)

10. Baptism and the Baptists: Theology and Practice in Twentieth-Century Britain by Anthony Cross (Paternoster, 2000)

what do uk and us baptists share in common?

A while back I posted about a possible transatlantic baptist conversation and I started wondering where are the points on which UK and US baptists agree and disagree? Or to put it another way what is common between UK and US baptists and what is uncommon? I know that the southern baptist left the BWA, but not really why.

If UK baptists to have 9 distinctives:

the lordship of christ, the authority of the bible, baptism for believers, a believers church, the priesthood of all believers, church members and church meetings, interdependence, sharing the faith and religious freedom

What are the distinctives of US baptists? Of course I recognise that not all US baptists are Southern baptists.

Can any american baptist bloggers or any uk baptist bloggers (more learned than me) shed some light on these questions?
 

baptists, the sacraments and sacramentalism

One of the recent important topics within baptist theology has been baptist attitudes towards the sacraments and the recovery of baptism and communion as sacramental rather than mere symbol.

1. Promise and Presence: An Exploration of Sacramental Theology by John Colwell (2005, Paternoster)

2. Baptist Sacramentalism edited by Anthony Cross and Philip Thompson (2003, Paternoster)

3. More Than A Symbol: The British Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism by Stanley Fowler (2002, Paternoster, reprinted 2006, Wipf and Stock)

4. Baptism and the Baptists: Theology and Practice in Twentieth-Century Britain by Anthony Cross (2000, Paternoster)

5. Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology by Paul Fiddes, chapters 6 & 8 (2003, Paternoster)

6. Reflections on the Water: Understanding God and the World through the Baptism of Believers edited by Paul Fiddes, chapters 2 & 3 (1996, Smyth & Helwys)

7. Baptist Sacramentalism 2 edited by Anthony Cross and Philip Thompson (forthcoming, Paternoster) 

catholic-minded baptists: a transatlantic conversation?

Curtis Freeman, research professor of theology and baptist studies, duke divinity school posted a comment last week saying hello. Curtis is part of a growing group among US baptists who are becomming more catholic-minded. You can find some of curtis' papers here. He's put me in touch with one blog run by some of his students called mere faith, which looks good and also a website/blog called Summa Aesthetica. Let me encourage you british baptists to check them out and see what transatlantic conversations we can have.

Others in the catholic-minded baptists are steve harmon, elizabeth newman and philip thompson. See especially Steve Harmon's Towards Baptist Catholicity (2006).  Elizabeth  Newman has just published Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers, which sounds really good.

In the UK, with John Colwell describing himself as a 'catholic' baptist and others like Steve Holmes, Nigel Wright, Chris Ellis and Paul Fiddes probably not adverse to it either ... this all bodes well for the future of baptist theology and life.