The Baptist Union Debate and some Comments on Words

The conversation about the Baptist Union currently shows no sign of slowing down. Some further comments to add, which are hopefully helpful or at least open up the conversation in new directions.

1. First, this is still a relatively small conversation currently between a group of mostly Baptist ministers who are largely talking to one another ... our influence is not that influential

2. As the debate goes wider and more people become aware of what is happening, we will see more voices coming out of the woodwork who suddenly care about being Baptist ... like the church members who never come to meetings until they discover that the pews might disappear or the such like ... too many Baptists are baptist with a very very small 'b'.

3. We would do well to explore and be attuned to issues of theology, church and power - so Baptist theologian Roy Kearsley's Church, Community and Power (Ashgate, 2008) and Stephen Sykes' Power and Christian Theology (Continuum, 2006), amongst others, should be on our reading lists. Where does power and authority lie? We cannot escape that some voices can hold much influence, but here Kearsley wants us to see that this should be used not as 'power over', but as 'power to' and 'power with' others and 'power through' vulnerabilty and weakness. Power lies not in any one place or person.

3. There seems to a possible opening divide between those who think that missiology should be in the driving seat and those who are more ecclesially minded. The mission group think the ecclesial lot are not missionary enough, the ecclesial lot think the mission group have no concept of the church. Here I believe we must work hard not to become oppositional and recognise that the Declaration of Principle reminds us that Jesus Christ is the one in the driving seat.

4. Personally I think we need to hold on to the language that Rowan Williams coined of 'mixed economy', to which I take to mean we need churches that have long histories and churches that have short histories; we need churches that push the edges and churches that care for the centre ... and we need a Union (a way of being and partnering together) that values, nurtures, and encourages both.

5. Therefore I am hesitant about some use of words like 'pioneer', 'movement', 'institution' - especially where the former are used positively, the latter negatively - which seem to encourage the telling of the Baptist story as one in which a group of pioneers broke away (separated) from the institutions of the day (the established CofE) to form a movement, and now the 'Baptist Union' has become a new institution, and so we need new pioneers and a new movement. My fear is this is possibly too simple and seems to join the voices of postmodernism that decry insitutions as bad. I would want to offer that yes we need renewal, yes we need a reconnecting with the grassroots, yes we need innovation and imagination, but at the same time we should perhaps heed the words of John Colwell where he writes 'it is entirely understandable ... where the Church's faith is either dismissed or maginalized, that the Church should be fearful concerning its future effectiveness - but too often the proposed 'remedy' is more deadly than the pain' (Living the Christian Story, 2001, p.164). We must ask ourselves whose story are we telling and for what purpose? Where actually are the margins - where we claim marginal status, or claim to speak for those who are, are we in fact more 'centre' than we realize? Who gets to be a pioneer - is pioneering cool (hipster Christianity), while the rest is old, boring and outdated?

6. We would do well to consider again why we are the Baptist Union and not the Baptist family (despite its popularity in usage), or the Baptist Movement or the Baptist Network. Here the 1996 and 1997 short studies Something to Declare and On the Way of Trust, by the Baptist Principals at the time (of the four English Colleges) should be set texts in our thinking and talking. (See also A Call to Mind: Baptist Essays Towards a Theology of Commitment and Bound to Love: The Covenant Basis of Baptist Life and Mission).

Comments

[Rowena Wilding]

Andy, thanks for your continued thoughts on this, I think it's a really important conversation to have. I completely agree that we must be careful not to fall into the trap of "hipster Christianity" (despite the fact I love the concept), but I think it is important that we begin to talk about what church looks like/ what church should look like. A couple of weeks ago I went to an NWBA day on Messy Church, to be told that Messy Church definitely isn't church, it's something that leads people to church. I've recently opened a tea room in which people have faith conversations based on what they are reading in their newspapers. My congregation are adamant that this isn't church. I wonder if this is why I can't help but have a negative reaction to the word "institution". Has a particular structure become so embedded in us that we can't see past the end of our own noses? Perhaps institution doesn't have to be a bad thing, but I feel there needs to be room within it for churches to look different, and support for those churches who don't follow the structure. Perhaps we could learn from the mistakes of he fresh expressions "movement" and work at mutual support?

[Andy Goodliff]

Rowena thanks for this. My response to this I think is something along the lines of what I've been reading in a little book 7 sacred spaces http://andygoodliff.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/10/seven-sacred-spaces.html ... which wants to hold a broad view of church (church is made up of 7 spaces), which pushes against those who want to reduce membership to just turning up to a worship service (usually on a sunday), but I think also wants to say that membership (which I take to mean a desire to follow Jesus with others) is more than just a coffee morning or messy church session ... we need an understanding of church that doesn't reduce it to attendance anyone meeting, whether in a traditional expression or a 'fresh' one ... that is then a challenge to both traditional and emerging church to say that neither of us are the answer. So I need the likes of church from scratch, a local church plant that doesn't look like the rest of us to challenge me, in the same way I hope they recognise they might need the likes of me in my more traditional set up to challenge them. My fear expressed in this post, is we become oppositional rather than seeking as Union to walk together in our mixed economy.

[Ash]

Just a tentative and incomplete thought, but I wonder if sometimes 'institutions' get a bad press. A possible benefit of the 'institution' could be that it is ingrained and second-nature, it is established and relatively inflexible. This enables necessary work to happen but 'in the background' rather than distracting everyone who is engaged at the front-line/ grass-roots.

In other words, when an institution is strong (not necessarily big or powerful, but sure of itself and ingrained) it frees people up from constantly renegotiating the terms of their togetherness and enables them to take that for granted and move forward in other areas.

I think this utility of institution needs to be held in tension with the many problems it can bring (none of which I would deny or play-down).

[Rowena Wilding]

Yes I completely agree, what I pull away from is the temptation to say "our way is the most biblical way, this is the way we need to do it" which is something I hear surprisingly often. I think there is a general feeling that church, whatever day it meets on, whatever that meeting looks like, has been reduced to little more than a meeting - perhaps that's what Pete Rollins is getting at in "Insurrection"; that we are trapping ourselves in our own righteousness and painting ourselves into a corner of unquestioning obedience to "the way we've always done things". Yes. More mixed economy please.

[Rowena Wilding]

P.S. It turns out my Christian Hipster Quotient is 88 / 120. Do you think I need counselling?

[Neil Brighton]

Good thoughts Andy. I guess it depends what we mean by institution. If we mean a settled structure of relationships then part of what is happening, and is needed, is the remoulding of this structure. To the extent that institution implies a move away from relationships to administrative or process orientated ways of conducting our affairs then what maybe happening is a growing realisation that this 'thing' has become to remote from the churches, ministers etc which make it up. Again this is something which needs to change.

At this stage in the process I'm not worried about an over use of words like 'movement' or 'pioneer' because they are ways in which people articulate and model fresh ways of being.

That we have a divide between mission and ecclesiology is regretable, but indicative of the fact we struggle to understand either. To often we want to practice mission as if it is a branch of anthropology and separate ecclesiology and discipleship.

[Jon Stannard]

Good work Andy, all. I am all for revisiting what it means to be God's people together (institution, movement, union, etc). I am keen to see that the conversation be not just about solving the problem of finance and structure though. I also long to see a generation of people engaged in the conversation who will own the outcomes for the future along side those already engaged for one reason or another. I am not too worried about the potential divide between missiology and ecclesiology....yet! Keep up the good work.

[Jenny Few]

Andy, thanks for these continued and evolving thoughts. Am grateful for your word of caution on defining terms, and am aware how easy it is to polarise and simplify what is a complex and wonderful thing! I can't get the phrase 'Genius of Baptist Ecclsiology' out of my mind, having read 7 essays on it for RSC recently! Maybe part of its genius is that we don't need to think about it too much some of the time, like the unwritten constitution of the UK. I can remember a time when I felt it to be working gloriously - but not so much now.

[David Hughes]

Andy, your observations certainly resonate with my position.

As you say, however, the conversation is extremely limited at the moment, both because it is largely between Baptist ministers/leaders and because it is being conducted in the blogosphere and on twitter.

So, how can the debate be extended beyond the bloggers and twitterati, do you think? It seems that the Assembly in London next May will offer little opportunity for such discussion. Or, are we expecting the conversation to spread organically and, if so, would that be particularly productive?

I obviously don't have the answers to my own questions, but I wonder what others think.

[Blake Stevens]

Andy (and others) I don't suppose you'd be interested in joining baptistlife.com to share some reflections more in depth, would you? It's supposed to be a forum for Baptists to discuss all variety of Baptist issues, but at present it's mostly American Baptists (not the denomination though there are many of them around) discussing American politics and occasionally Baptist politics and inerrancy. It'd be nice to have some non-Americans to provide both contrasting and similar views on Baptist identity issues. Thanks for your consideration.

[Charles crosland]

Thanks for your hard work
I am delighted and relieved this conversation is happening at all- but how to extend it.?
From memory (and mine can be faulty!) I think in the eighties , Mainstream used to organise 2 day consultations often at Gorsley to which a wide variety of Baptists would be invited to listen to a paper and discuss an issue ( ,some of the participants were not in particular sympathy with Mainstream)
There were always officers of the BU present and adding to the discussion
I attended one or two and found them thought provoking and personally helpful
Is this one possible model ?

[John Smyth]

"So, how can the debate be extended beyond the bloggers and twitterati, do you think? It seems that the Assembly in London next May will offer little opportunity for such discussion. Or, are we expecting the conversation to spread organically and, if so, would that be particularly productive?"

Only when we orgainise ourselves into a movement for change. We need an open, democratic, inclusive and Christ seeking Union. Whether that need include Didcot is to my mind an open question #occupybugb

[Phil Jump]

Andy - re point 1, be assured that at least one of the Futures Steering Group is reading it. Please blog on.

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