Thoughts following actions of the Southern Baptist Convention barring churches that employ women as pastors

It will probably surprise many external observers of Southern Baptists--and probably many contemporary internal participants in Southern Baptist life as well--to learn that while there are no liberals in the SBC today (contrary to what the ultra-conservative faction of today's SBC alleges), once upon a time there was a genuinely progressive stream of Southern Baptist life before it was expunged in a two-decade-long effort than began in earnest in 1979 to wrest control of the SBC away from those whose Baptist respect for the freedom of congregations and consciences had made space for a variety of ways of being Baptist to coexist and cooperate in a common commitment to participating in the mission of God in the world. This genuinely progressive stream was never a majority, but it fully participated in the denominational life of the SBC. It embraced critical approaches to the interpretation of Scripture when others shunned them. It worked for racial justice when others defended segregation in both society and church. It ordained women to the ministry and called them to serve as pastors when others did not. This stream may have been diverted from the SBC, but it did not dry up. It continues to flow elsewhere--in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (my own Baptist communion), in the Alliance of Baptists, in the American Baptist Churches USA, and in denominational traditions beyond Baptist life that have received refugee Southern Baptist members and ministers as ecumenical gifts to their own church life. I am grateful that I have been able to serve as a theological educator in partner institutions of theological education associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in which that stream continues to flow. And I am proud of the many women I have had the privilege of teaching in those institutions who are now serving as faithful ministers. May God continue to bless their ministries!

New book--Seeds of the Church: Towards an Ecumenical Baptist Ecclesiology

My new co-edited book Seeds of the Church: Towards an Ecumenical Baptist Ecclesiology, co-edited with Teun van der Leer, Henk Bakker, and Elizabeth Newman, is available from Cascade Books. Here's a description of the book from the publisher's site:

The landmark World Council of Churches convergence text, The Church: Towards a Common Vision (2012), which has the potential to become this generation's Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982), invites the churches to envision how their own distinctive visions of the church might have a place in the global church's imagination of the ecumenical future. Seeds of the Church: Towards an Ecumenical Baptist Ecclesiology is a collaborative effort by members of the Baptist World Alliance Commission on Baptist Doctrine and Christian Unity to respond to this invitation. This book contends that the distinctive Baptist ecclesial vision is best embodied in twelve core practices of Baptist churches and their interrelationship: covenanting, discerning, gathering, befriending, proclaiming, equipping, baptizing, discipling, caring, theologizing, scattering, and remembering. Seeds of the Church opens a window on what is possible when Baptists engage with people of other Christian traditions in the exploration of the common heritage of people belonging to the one household of faith. The global Baptist theological voices represented in this volume offer it as a reading of an ecumenical text in a Baptist key that paves the way for ecclesiological renewal--among Baptists and in the whole church to which they belong.

Here is the book's Table of Contents:

Foreword

Neville Callam

Preface

Teun van der Leer, Henk Bakker, Steven R. Harmon, and Elizabeth Newman

Chapter

1 A Response to The Church: Towards a Common Vision

Baptist World Alliance Commission on Baptist Doctrine and Christian Unity

2 The Baptistic Ecclesial Voice

Teun van der Leer

3 Covenanting Churches

Paul S. Fiddes

4 Discerning Churches

Henk Bakker

5 Gathering Churches

Jan Martijn Abrahams

6 Befriending Churches

Lina Toth-Andronoviene

7 Proclaiming Churches

Ruth Gouldbourne

8 Equipping Churches

Uwe Swarat

9 Baptizing Churches

Anthony R. Cross

10 Discipling Churches

Marion L. S. Carson

11 Caring Churches

Frank Rees

12 Theologizing Churches

Amy L. Chilton

13 Scattering Churches

Daniël Dros

14 Remembering Churches

Elizabeth Newman

Endorsements for Seeds of the Church:

“Seeds of the Church provides ample evidence that Baptists understand themselves best as they engage in relationship and dialogue with others in the worldwide Christian church. But this is no theoretical exercise. The strength of this book lies in its critical reflection on various actual practices of Baptist ecclesiology and how these can contribute to, and be enriched by, a growing ecumenical consensus around the rich concept of the church as koinonia. I warmly commend it.”
—Anthony Peck, general secretary, European Baptist Federation

“This fine collection of essays represents an intriguing Baptist contribution to ecumenical dialogue, namely, beginning with a recent ecumenical convergence text and following its emphases through the lens of traditional Baptist commitments. The beauty of this collection lies largely in its consistently receptive and generous tone and a posture geared toward giving and receiving as opposed to merely comparing and contrasting. Those of us from neighboring free-church traditions have much to learn from these thought provoking and inspiring essays.”
—Jeff Cary, Lubbock Christian University

Seeds of the Church may be ordered from Wipf and Stock/Cascade Books or via Amazon.

New book—Baptists, Catholics, and the Whole Church

My new book Baptists, Catholics, and the Whole Church: Partners in the Pilgrimage to Unity has been released by New City Press. Here's the book description from the publisher:

Within the whole church, Baptists and Catholics might seem to be ecclesiological and liturgical polar opposites. The two traditions are arguably more dissimilar from one another than each is from almost any other Christian tradition. Yet as veteran Baptist ecumenist Steven R. Harmon demonstrates in this book, they share much in common that can enable them to travel together as fellow pilgrims on the journey toward a more visibly united church. Baptists, Catholics, and the Whole Church: Reflections on the Pilgrimage to Unity challenges Baptists, Catholics, and other Christians to envision their own patterns of faith and practice as included in the convergences it presents and to dedicate themselves to deeper involvement in the quest for the unity Jesus prayed his followers would manifest.

And here's the table of contents:

Acknowledgements

Foreword (Fr. John Crossin, OSFS)

Introduction

1. From Anti-Catholicism to Fellow Pilgrims

2. What Do Baptists and Catholics Have in Common?

3. How Baptists Receive Gifts of Catholic (and catholic) Christianity

4. Ecumenical Healing of Ecclesial Memories

5. The Cruciformity of Communion

6. Unity as Christ’s Victory and Our Task

Appendices

1. Envisioning the Whole Church

2. Moral Discernment with the Whole Church

Bibliography

Index of Names and Subjects

If you're interested in ordering the book, here are some sources:

New City Press: https://www.newcitypress.com/baptists-catholics-and-the-whole-church.html

Amazon (USA): https://www.amazon.com/Baptists-Catholics-Whole-Church-Pilgrimage/dp/1565484975/

Amazon (Canada): https://www.amazon.ca/Baptists-Catholics-Whole-Church-Pilgrimage/dp/1565484975/

Parasource (Canada): https://www.parasource.com/baptists-catholics-and-the-whole-church-9781565484979

Amazon (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baptists-Catholics-Whole-Church-Pilgrimage/dp/1565484975/

The Book Depository (UK and much of Europe): https://www.bookdepository.com/Baptists-Catholics-Whole-Church-Steven-Harmon/9781565484979

Amazon (Australia): https://www.amazon.com.au/Baptists-Catholics-Whole-Church-Pilgrimage/dp/1565484975/

Booktopia (Australia): https://www.booktopia.com.au/baptists-catholics-and-the-whole-church-steven-harmon/book/9781565484979.html

Theological reflections on the U.S. presidential inauguration

 

For those interested, here are the remarks I delivered for today's pre-inauguration panel discussion "Making Sense of Rhetoric and Reality on American Democracy's Big Day" at Gardner-Webb University. I’ve been introduced as a theology professor. I define my discipline this way: theology is thinking with intentionality about God and that with which God is in relationship—which is everything in the universe. There’s nothing that doesn’t have some relationship to God and God’s intentions for the world, and that includes the political order. And since God created us in the image of God as social creatures, created for relationship in community, and politics has to do with the ordering of our relationships in community, politics merits special attention in the task of doing theology. So, let’s do some theological reflection on this momentous occasion for the American expression of the political order. When Christian theologians think intentionally about God and God’s world, they do so in light of the Bible and the Christian tradition. I offer for our consideration a word from each of those authoritative sources for Christian theology. From the Bible, the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah’s words to the people of God living in exile in Babylon. Jeremiah 29:7: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” From the early Christian tradition, the Epistle to Diognetus written sometime in the 2nd century AD: “[Christians] live in their respective countries, but only as resident aliens; they participate in all things as citizens, and they endure all things as foreigners. Every foreign territory is a homeland for them, every homeland foreign territory.” Both Jeremiah and the Epistle to Diognetus portray the people of God as a community in exile. This suggests to me a few things about my participation in the political order as a Christian. It means that I’m living in exile not only when I think the political order opposes Christian values, but also when I think the political order is more consistent with Christian values. I have opinions about expressions of the political order I believe are more consistent with the way of Jesus Christ. I’ve voted for candidates and donated to their campaigns; I’ve served as a precinct representative to the county convention of a particular political party. But it is not my political home. My political home is the kingdom of God, the community toward which God is transforming the world. If I’m always living in exile in the midst of a particular expression of the political order, it means that I should be a patriot in the sense of seeking the welfare of my country. But it also means that I cannot be a nationalist in the sense of not seeking just as intently the welfare of other countries, which are also places where the people of God are living in exile. “Every foreign territory is a homeland, every homeland foreign territory.” Now some theological reflection on terms in our panel topic, starting with “rhetoric.” We often associate “rhetoric” with heated rhetoric. We’ve certainly had lots of that. But in its more positive sense, rhetoric is simply the means of persuasion. The present political moment is an opportunity for persuasion of a nation instead of power through populist authoritarianism. We’ve elected a politically centrist president with a long track record of working across the aisle. We have an evenly divided Senate and a closely divided House. This state of affairs can invite persuasion toward consensus and power-sharing, involving everyone in finding mutually agreeable solutions instead of a majority dominating and a minority losing out. What does this have to do with theology? The gospel is about persuasion rather than coercion; it persuades rather than coerces people to join God in what God is doing in the world, which is God’s work of persuading the world toward the realization of God’s creative purposes, and it seeks to involve everyone willingly in this work. If this new chapter in the American political order ushers in a politics dependent on persuasion, Christians can celebrate it as something analogous to the persuasion of the gospel. “Reality.” While the intent behind the wording of the panel theme may have been to contrast reality with what is merely rhetorical, the term “reality” is theologically significant in more than one way. Christian faith believes in a reality that is more than meets the eye. There’s more than meets the eye about any expression of the political order. But while Christians believe that ultimate reality is disclosed by Jesus Christ—a belief that requires trust in what cannot be seen or proven with rational certainty—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus at the center of Christian faith happened within “reality” in the sense of what does meet the eye. It happened within the created material order, and it happened in history. This means that Christians of all people should prize the science that helps us understand more fully the workings of the world God created. It means that Christians of all people should earnestly desire to learn from history in all its painful complexity. In the midst of a global pandemic, an ecological emergency, and a racial reckoning, Christians can have common cause with an administration that seems willing to be guided by rigorous science and to acknowledge both the shame and the successes of the American story. “American Democracy.” I’m a Baptist theologian, and Gardner-Webb has Baptist roots. In these connections I note that there are aspects of democracy in the way Baptist churches ideally approach the task of discerning how to be a faithful community of followers of Jesus Christ in a particular time and place, with every member having a voice in this discernment. That may be among the reasons Baptists have tended to flourish under democracies earlier in their history. In the American experiment, Baptists like Roger Williams made significant contributions to shaping a democracy committed to maintaining freedom of religion through a religiously neutral civil order. American democracy has been threatened recently, but it has proven resilient. I hope the new administration will strengthen it. As a Baptist ecumenical theologian involved especially in ecumenical dialogue between Baptists and Catholics, I close by noting that we will have a Catholic President and a Baptist Vice President. President Biden is likely to be the most active churchgoer among presidents of recent decades, and Vice President Harris has a story that includes becoming a Baptist by choice. I hope and pray that their Christian faith will guide their administration.

Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology contents

Here's what's inside Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology, ed. Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon, which releases from Mercer University Press on May 1. 

Read about and order the book at https://www.mupress.org/Sources-of-Light-Resources-for-Baptist-Churches-Practicing-Theology-P1052.aspx.

1          Introduction: Imagining Radical Baptist Practices of Local Church Theology

            Steven R. Harmon and Amy L. Chilton

Part I

LIGHT FROM OUR LIFE-IN-CONTEXT

2          Light from Liberative Theologies

            Amy L. Chilton

3          Light from Black Theologies

            Noel Leo Erskine

4          Light from Hispanic/Latin@ Theologies

Nora O. Lozano

5          Light from Asian Theologies

            Atola Longkumer

6          Mistaking White for Light: Awakening to a Truthful Search for the Light

Mikael N. Broadway

7          Light from Modern and Contemporary Women’s Religious Experiences

Courtney Pace

8          Light from Feminist Theologies

Susan M. Shaw

9          Light from Womanist Theologies

Khalia J. Williams

10         Light from LGBTQ+ Lives

Cody J. Sanders

11         Light from Refugee and Immigrant Perspectives

May May Latt

12         Light from People with Disabilities

Jason D. Whitt

13         Light from Interreligious Sources

Raimundo C. Barreto, Jr.

14         Light from Ecological Theologies

Rebecca Horner Shenton

Part II

LIGHT FROM OUR LIFE-IN-COMMUNITY

15         Light from Ancient Confessions of Faith

            Curtis W. Freeman

16         Light from Pre-Reformation Women’s Theological Contributions

Kate Hanch

17         Light from the Confessions of the European Reformations

Rady Roldán-Figueroa

18         Light from Baptist Confessions of Faith

            Stephen R. Holmes

19         Light from Catholic Magisterial Sources

Coleman Fannin

20         Light for Navigating Moral Disagreement

Myles Werntz

21         Light from Saintly Sources

Derek C. Hatch

22         Light from Traditional Liturgical Sources

Philip E. Thompson

23         Light from Contemporary Liturgical Sources

Jennifer W. Davidson

24         Light from/for Ecumenical Convergence

            Steven R. Harmon

25         Conclusion: Light from Converted Listening

            Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon

Nancy Bedford endorses Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology

Nancy E. Bedford, Georgia Harkness Professor of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, has offered the following words of praise for Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology, ed. Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon (Mercer University Press, 2020):

“The diverse voices in this book come together wonderfully to illuminate the value of taking specific communities of faith seriously as subjects of theology, even while challenging them to look beyond themselves to communities—both past and present—who both shed light and cast shadows on what it means to practice theology. The book is a splendid gift of love from Baptists to all those who care about the church, regardless of confessional leanings.”

Order Sources of Light from the Mercer University Press site (or call 478-301-2880) using coupon code MUPNEWS for a 20% discount and free shipping.

Bill Leonard endorses Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology

Bill J. Leonard, Founding Dean and Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Wake Forest University Divinity School, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has offered the following words of praise for Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology, ed. Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon (Mercer University Press, 2020):

"This well-organized, well-focused study brings together a diverse group of scholars who address Christian and Baptist identity as a guide for congregations and individuals. These insightful essays cover a wide range of topics and issues confronting the 21^st-century church…a timely contribution to Christian communities."

Order Sources of Light from the Mercer University Press site (or call 478-301-2880) using coupon code MUPNEWS for a 20% discount and free shipping.

Lina Toth endorses Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology

Lina Toth (Andronoviene), Assistant Principal and Lecturer in Practical Theology at Scottish Baptist College, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Scotland, has offered the following words of praise for Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology, ed. Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon (Mercer University Press, 2020):

“This book provides a stimulating introduction to a whole range of theological lenses, offering multiple starting points for an in-depth exploration as well as providing an overall ‘map’ of the diversity within Christ’s body. It offers models of healthy theological engagement from a Baptist perspective and will be of help to anyone engaged in guiding theological practice. Every reader (and community of readers) is bound to be surprised and challenged by some unexpected source of light presented here.” 

Order Sources of Light from the Mercer University Press site (or call 478-301-2880) using coupon code MUPNEWS for a 20% discount and free shipping.

Paul Baxley endorses Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology

Paul Baxley, Executive Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, has offered the following words of praise for Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology, ed. Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon (Mercer University Press, 2020):

“For those of us who believe that local congregations are uniquely equipped by the Holy Spirit and empowered by the Risen Jesus to offer a compelling witness to God’s love in this broken world, and who also know that individual congregations deeply need community with the global church in order to flourish through participation in the life of the Triune God, Sources of Light provides both a powerful challenge and significant resources. By inviting congregations and their leaders to a much more substantial theological practice through listening to voices and testimonies from all across Christ’s church, Amy Chilton and Steve Harmon have offered us a way to see difference not as an occasion for fear, but instead an opportunity for discernment, love, and greater faithfulness.”

Order Sources of Light from the Mercer University Press site (or call 478-301-2880) using coupon code MUPNEWS for a 20% discount and free shipping.

Jerusha Matsen Neal endorses Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology

Jerusha Matsen Neal, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Duke University Divinity School, has offered the following words of praise for Sources of Light: Resources for Baptist Churches Practicing Theology, ed. Amy L. Chilton and Steven R. Harmon (Mercer University Press, 2020):

“Sources of Light does more than celebrate the breadth and particularity of the Spirit's work in local congregations. It provides a tool box for robust practices of congregational discernment. The book is an invaluable resource for preachers who want to invite congregations past insular theological cul-de-sacs and into the broad expanse of God's faithful witness. Listening and responding to that witness is the challenge and joy of our Baptist inheritance.”

Order Sources of Light from the Mercer University Press site (or call 478-301-2880) using coupon code MUPNEWS for a 20% discount and free shipping.