Baptists are at it again, and once again, autonomy of the local church is being deployed in an effort to settle the dispute.

Autonomy of the local church is the historic Baptist principle—a core value—that holds each congregation governs itself with no outside interference. As a core principle held for hundreds of years and propagated around the globe, it makes sense for Southern Baptists to swing with it in their current fight over women in ministry.

There is a problem, however, that the principle can’t solve, because the principle creates the problem. The problem is that the independence provided the local church by local autonomy collides with the independence of every other local church, association or convention—each of which also is autonomous—when they try to work together.

For Baptists to continue working together without giving up the principle of local autonomy, I see one way forward.

Autonomy a historic Baptist principle

Before describing the way forward, a look at the historic understanding of autonomy of the local church is warranted.

E.Y. Mullins, one of Southern Baptists preeminent thinkers and president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, published Baptist Beliefs in 1912. In the section on “The Church,” he describes autonomy of the local church as follows, starting with a reference to religious liberty. I will quote him at length because it’s that important.

[The church] must not form alliances of any kind with the state so that it surrenders any of its own functions or assumes any of the functions of civil government. Its government is democratic and autonomous. Each church is free and independent. No church or group of churches has any authority over any other church.

Co-operation in Christian work, however, is one of the highest duties and privileges of the churches of Jesus Christ. Yet in so doing they do not form or constitute an ecclesiasticism with functions and powers to be authoritatively exercised over the local bodies.

The voluntary principle is the heart of the Scripture teaching as to the individual and as to local churches. … [T]he organization and government of the local church proceeds on the principle of the voluntary association of free individuals in obedience to Christ and for purposes set forth by him.

Church discipline is simply the group protecting itself against the individual. The church has no power of coercion in the religious life of the individual. … The right of the church, however, to protect itself against the disorderly individual is an unalienable right in Christ.

Mullins then applies the principle to the relationship between local churches and “general bodies,” which he explains “are not composed of churches but of individuals.” Set aside that Mullins seems to equivocate on the composition of churches when he refers to how they relate to “general bodies.”

In all such co-operation or refusal to co-operate … the church neither assumes authority over the general body, nor submits to the authority of that body. The relation is voluntary on both sides.

Where a church is out of harmony with a general body it cannot legislate the general body into harmony with itself but it can withdraw if necessary without the consent of the general body.

… General bodies are themselves autonomous. No Baptist general body has authority over another. … Each body is self determining …

There are certain necessities which arise out of these principles of Baptist organization. 1. The necessity for clear thinking in order to avoid confusion in ideals and collision in the practical work of the Kingdom. 2. The necessity for well defined limits of function and aim in the general body to avoid the assumption of church functions. 3. The necessity for courtesy and respect as between Baptist general bodies (pgs. 64-67).

It is noteworthy that Mullins’ explanation of Baptist beliefs is predicated on the New Hampshire Declaration of Faith—a decidedly Calvinist document—which he notes was “adopted by the Landmark Convention and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary” prior to publication of his book (p. 84).

Recent skirmishes over autonomy

In the interest of “clear thinking” and “courtesy and respect,” Baptists—particularly Southern—need to reexamine their understanding and use of autonomy of the local church.

I raised this issue in a June 2019 editorial about boundaries. Then as now, I was concerned about what appears to be differing understandings of autonomy of the local church. The example I cited was the debate surrounding whether churches who affirm same-sex marriage should and could be excluded from the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Those who favored the inclusion of affirming churches argued the BGCT should not impinge on the decisions of a local church by excluding affirming churches. Ultimately, the BGCT messengers exercised their autonomy by voting in 2016 to exclude affirming churches.

Given Mullins’ description of the principle, one could ask, “Whose autonomy carried the day—the messengers or the local churches who remained affirming?” Some argue both retained their autonomy, but only up to a point. The affirming churches’ autonomy did not grant them authority to remain in the BGCT against the will of the majority.

The prior summer in a July 2018 editorial, I described the issue in relation to Southern Baptists being at odds over how to hold their churches and leaders accountable for sexual misconduct and abuse.

SBC denominational leaders insisted autonomy of the local church meant they could not hold local churches accountable. Many grassroots Southern Baptists weren’t buying that defense. Ultimately, the messengers overruled the convention’s top leadership in 2021 and called for a third-party investigation and the establishment of accountability measures.

A local church has the autonomy to employ a minister convicted of sexual abuse or assault, and SBC messengers have the autonomy to exclude that church from membership in the convention. Here again, the two spheres of autonomy seem to collide at the point of cooperation.

Present dispute over autonomy

The presenting issue for the 2023 SBC annual meeting is the denomination’s position on women in ministry. Specifically, messengers will decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment proposed by Virginia pastor Mike Law that would exclude churches from the SBC who “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

Messengers also will vote whether to approve Saddleback Church’s appeal and reinstate the church to fellowship with the SBC. The SBC Executive Committee voted in February to disfellowship Saddleback for “having a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor.”

Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback, released an open letter and a series of videos in response to what he characterizes as some SBC leaders’ denial of decline in favor of “in-fighting over secondary issues, like what you call your staff.”

In the first video of the series, Warren contends “the SBC has been ‘creeping toward a centralization where the local churches are losing their independence and autonomy, and we are increasingly controlled by our institutions and bureaucracies who have been systematically increasing their power to enforce uniformity.’”

In his open letter, Warren charges: “The current ruling of the Executive Committee … will open a Pandora’s box of unintended consequences unless we reject [the ruling]. It will fundamentally destroy FOUR historic Southern Baptist distinctives upon which the Convention was organized by our founders.

“It will: 1) change the basis of our cooperation 2) change the basis of our identity 3) centralize power in the Executive Committee and take away autonomy from the churches, and 4) turn our confession into a creed, which Baptists have always opposed.”

To defend Saddleback’s position on women in ministry alongside its continued relationship with the SBC, Warren deploys autonomy of the local church. As with the two examples cited above, the question will come down to whose autonomous assertion will carry the day.

Recent history shows two autonomous bodies cannot maintain their full autonomy—as each understands it—and still cooperate. Autonomy is not boundless.

The way forward with autonomy

I’ll say it again: In the interest of “clear thinking” and “courtesy and respect,” Baptists—particularly Southern—need to reexamine their understanding and use of autonomy of the local church.

Such a reexamination is necessary because what may have made perfect sense to Baptists in 1912—enough so for it to be championed by Baptist apologists at least since then—no longer is understood clearly.

What seems clear is if Baptists are to maintain cooperation among and beyond local churches, a moderated autonomy needs to be described. A moderated autonomy would spell out what essential agreements are necessary for local churches to cooperate in such things as associations and conventions. SBC President Bart Barber has advocated for as much.

The Baptist Faith and Message—all three versions of which were adopted after Mullins’ Baptist Beliefs was published—used to be enough of a reference point for cooperation. The divisions within Southern Baptist life over the last 40 years, however, make it clear the Baptist Faith and Message no longer is commonly understood, as Barber himself suggests.

To get to this moderated autonomy, Baptists need to ask such questions as: “Does local church autonomy supersede the autonomy of associations and conventions, or are those autonomies equally authoritative? How should the autonomy of those ‘general bodies’ be defined to allow for cooperation?”

If Baptists are to cease fracturing into ever-smaller groups, they will have to agree to a moderated autonomy that holds the collective as important as the individual. Unfortunately, such a position seems an increasingly harder sell, especially for Baptists in America—where polarization is strong and fewer people care about denominational peculiarities.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

With the recent release of GPT-4 and other artificial intelligence platforms, that assertion seems truer than ever.

The problem, however, isn’t that truth is strange but that we seem increasingly less able to know what is true.

We used to know truth by how well a thing matched our experience or our parents’ descriptions. We could trust our senses and know whether what we saw or heard was true.

But truth is getting harder and harder to discern. And that’s a problem we need to address.

Warnings about AI

Artificial intelligence is aggravating this problem, because all too often we lack the patience for discernment. Consider a recent example.

An image circulated May 22 of a supposed explosion at the Pentagon complex outside Washington, D.C. On May 23, fact checkers reported the image “had telltale signs of an AI-generated forgery.” But this correction didn’t arrive before stock markets reacted, however negligibly, to the initial report.

Geoffrey Hinton, a so-called “godfather of AI,” knew this and worse was coming. NBC News reported May 1 that he left Google, where he developed AI technology, so he could warn about the dangers of AI.

Then, this one sentence dropped yesterday, May 30: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

This chilling warning reported in the New York Times and elsewhere “was signed by more than 350 executives, researchers and engineers working in A.I.,” including Hinton. Among their concerns is that AI soon could “be used at scale to spread misinformation”—or falsehoods and distortions of the truth that purportedly come from trusted sources.

If such warnings by the very inventors of AI are correct, we may be approaching a time when our age-old ways of knowing the truth fail us. Anyone who wants to be believed and trusted—especially those proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ—ought to be concerned about this.

An AI experiment

As an experiment with truth, I asked a friend with a ChatGPT account to send me “a 100-word opinion in the style of Eric Black on autonomy of the local church.” He sent it to me, along with a second produced by Bard, another AI platform. Both are included at the end of this editorial.

The text of each opinion is generally as correct as one should expect from a 100-word summary of autonomy of the local church. The problem isn’t so much with the words.

The problem is neither opinion was written by me, nor do they sound like me. But you might not know that if you don’t know me or I didn’t tell you. And then, you might be suspicious about the truthfulness of my confession.

If truth is so easily distorted, how are we to convince anyone we are telling the truth?

‘Truth’ as a useful thing

Some would have us dispense with the notion of truth altogether, or at least the idea of a truth that is true for everyone. Truth is relative, so they say. This school of thought holds sway over much of our culture. I wonder if it’s ready for radical relativity.

Others contend a more cynical view of truth, arguing truth is a function of power. Michel Foucault (1926–1984), a French philosopher who radicalized Friedrich Nietzsche’s view of power, contended those with power determine what is true. In this way, they create “truth” and wield it as a tool of control.

If Foucault is right, is AI just another tool of the powerful, and how does it serve those in power? Our imaginations can run wild with these questions. The less imaginative can watch movies and read books about the possibilities.

Meanwhile, some of those who developed AI are telling us to forget these kinds of questions altogether, and in utterly stark terms, they are warning us to shut down the whole thing now. They believe AI is becoming more useful to its own soulless self than it is to any human in power.

What are we to do?

Most of us are not AI developers. Most of us are not in seats of power where we can turn it off, slow it down or try to direct its course. Most of us are watching it all unfold, still trying to understand yesterday’s news as today’s news arrives, wondering what—if any of it—is true.

Amid the alarm bells, my mind goes back to a tent. Blind Isaac is lying in bed. He’s sent Esau for deer and promised him a blessing. Unbeknownst to him, Rachel has a plan.

She sends Jacob, covered in Esau’s scent, to Isaac with a bowl of stew. It’s too soon for Esau to be back, and Isaac’s suspicious … but not long enough. He knows the voice isn’t right, but the smell and the feel are Esau. The stew is good. So, he gives away the blessing … too soon.

Had Isaac waited for both his sons to be at his bedside, he wouldn’t have had to question his faculties. The truth would have been plain enough. There’s a lesson in there for us.

We may not be able to trust everything we see, read and hear as readily as we once did, but truth is still discernable if we will not give the blessing away too soon.

In a world where what appears to be true can be distorted so easily—and so quickly—we must leave room for and allow the Holy Spirit to do for us what all too often we cannot do ourselves. We must allow the Spirit to guide us into all truth (John 16:13).

But to do that, we’re going to have to cede control to the Holy Spirit. And maybe that’s the real problem. We want control, and neither AI nor the Holy Spirit promises us that.

*******

Opinion produced by ChatGPT:

Write editorial in the style of Eric Black, Editor of the Baptist Standard, on autonomy of the local church. Use one hundred words.

“In the rich tapestry of Baptist life, the cherished principle of the autonomy of the local church weaves a thread that holds us together. Rooted in Scripture and etched in our heritage, this bedrock belief empowers congregations to govern themselves and follow their own convictions under the lordship of Christ. It is a sacred trust, a divine gift that must be cherished and safeguarded. As we navigate a rapidly changing world, let us not forget the beauty and strength of this autonomy. May we embrace it with humility, honoring the autonomy of our fellow churches and joining hands in the shared mission of advancing God’s kingdom.”

Opinion produced by Bard:

A 100-word editorial in the style of Eric Black, Editor of the Baptist Standard, on the autonomy of the local church:

“The autonomy of the local church is a fundamental principle of Baptist life. It is the right of each local church to govern itself according to its own conscience, without interference from any other church or denomination. This freedom allows churches to adapt to the needs of their own communities and to be creative in their witness to the world.

“Of course, the autonomy of the local church is not absolute. Churches are still bound by the teachings of the Bible and by the principles of Christian love and justice. However, within these limits, churches should be free to make their own decisions. This freedom is essential for the vitality and growth of the church.

“In conclusion, the autonomy of the local church is a fundamental principle of Baptist life. It is a right that should be cherished and defended.”

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

CAUTION: The contents of this editorial may be disturbing to some readers.

Gun violence is the asphyxiating fumes of a toxic brew. Our response to it has been anemic, at best.

What is this toxic brew? It’s not any one thing but is a cauldron of misplaced values, disregard for others, materialism, lust for violence, entitlement, hatred, suspicion, fear, illness and more. Rather than dumping out the pot, we hurl slogans: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

Slogans are a dodge from our shared responsibility. To say, “People kill people,” is to gloss over the fact a person with an AR-15 can kill more people more quickly and efficiently than someone with a pistol. We shouldn’t shirk our responsibility to deal with the shooter and the gun.

Such slogans also belie the fact guns really can kill you, just as so many other dangerous and regulated things can. The difference is those other dangerous things don’t have a Second Amendment protecting them. Nor do they have our slogans: “Fentanyl doesn’t kill people. People kill people.”

Another oft-repeated refrain—“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”—may evoke visions of American military victories and Old West justice, both of which we love. Nevertheless, it cedes the terms of the fight to the “bad guy.”

When we let the “bad guy” set the terms, we’ve already lost. It’s time for the “good guys” to set the terms. But this means we have to be clear about who are the “good guys.”

Defining “good” and “bad”

When we divide the world into “good guys” and “bad guys,” we naturally designate ourselves as the “good.” But this is to turn a blind eye to how we are involved in the “bad.” We may not have pulled the trigger, but we are part of the toxic brew.

We are among those who have spread or encouraged demeaning views of other people. We are among those who can’t seem to get enough of violence. We are among those who demand our rights like the prodigal son calling for his inheritance early.

During his appearance on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott laid responsibility for the May 6 mass shooting at the Allen Outlet Mall on mental health. He said people want a short-term solution—alluding to gun regulation—but what’s needed is the long-term solution of addressing mental health.

Abbott is partly right. We do need to address mental health, and we need all hands on deck. But it will be a tough row to hoe, because Abbott’s long-term solution will require nothing less than a cultural 180 in how we think about mental health. For we are among those who have belittled and underfunded mental health. Long-term solution, indeed.

Alongside mental health

Alongside addressing mental health, we need legislative action addressing gun access. We’re currently headed toward one of two possibilities—a continuing arms race with the “bad guys” or imposing a police state. We don’t want either of these.

During the summer after my sophomore year in high school—and two years after the U.S. apprehension of Manuel Noriega—my church’s youth choir went to Panama on a mission trip. Armed guards were outside businesses all over Panama City, their guns at the ready.

We stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s—as Americans are wont to do—and as we ate our hamburgers, a guard stood directly behind us holding a shotgun. As is obvious, that made an impression on me.

The same is true at the Texas Capitol this session, where Texas DPS officers are posted throughout the complex, one officer in each pair or group with an assault rifle at the ready. The message is clear: We aren’t safe, not if it takes another AR-15—or two or 10—to save us.

This is not the sort of society we want to live in in the United States or anywhere.

The other possibility—a never-ending arms race in which the “good guys” constantly are trying to stay ahead of the “bad guys”—should be just as untenable to us. There is an upper limit to that race—the stuff superpowers fret over—and to think we are willing to reach for that limit is proof we’re in a toxic brew.

There must be and can be a short-term and long-term solution to gun violence that doesn’t require us to aim for utopia and end up in the dirt.

During the most recent Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board meeting, my friend Pastor Paul Kim addressed his fellow board members with a question he shouldn’t have had to ask.

In his opening remarks, he shouldn’t have had to remember the lives of three Korean American Texas Baptists killed May 6 at the Allen Outlet Mall. He shouldn’t have had to remind Texas Baptists about our commitment to the sanctity of life.

Furthermore, it shouldn’t have been the responsibility of someone from the Korean American community—or Uvalde or other mass shooting survivor community—to ask something so simple. It should have been all of us asking: “Can we as Texas Baptists make a statement about gun violence?”

But Paul was the one to ask, because we just keep stirring the pot.

Today needs to be different

Today needs to be different. Why today? Because today, May 24, marks one year since a gunman killed 19 children and two adults inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

Less than one month ago—May 6—a gunman killed eight people at the Allen Outlet Mall.

May 18, 2018, a student gunman killed eight students and two teachers at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas.

Just six months before the Santa Fe High School shooting—Nov. 5, 2017—a gunman killed 26 people and wounded 20 others inside First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

Aug. 3, 2019, a gunman—from Allen, no less—killed 23 and wounded 26 people in an El Paso Walmart.

Before the month was out, another gunman killed seven and wounded 25 people in the Midland-Odessa area.

During a press conference following the Midland-Odessa shooting, Gov. Abbott said: “We know that words alone are inadequate. Words must be met with action.”

“I have been to too many of these events. I am heartbroken by the crying of the people of the state of Texas. I am tired of the dying of the people of the state of Texas. Too many Texans are in mourning, too many Texans have lost their lives,” he added.

Yet here we are.

Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough, to borrow the title of Taylor Schumann’s book. We must do more. We must do better. And we can.

At a minimum, Texas Baptists can make the statement Pastor Kim called for. But we can do more. We have the Christian Life Commission addressing the issue. We also have among us lawmakers and judges, professors and teachers, pastors and business owners, children and adults and more—all of whom can join together to tip the cauldron over and dump out the toxic brew.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

The 2023 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting is less than one month away and promises to be another interesting meeting for SBC-watchers. What people seem most interested in are the convention’s presidential election and whether the SBC will vote out a group of churches, including Saddleback.

Many also want to know if a constitutional amendment will be adopted. The amendment, proposed by Virginia pastor Mike Law, would exclude churches with women pastors.

This amendment was referred to the SBC Executive Committee during the 2022 SBC annual meeting. To date, the Executive Committee has not decided whether to send it back to the messengers, but messengers could vote to bring it to the floor regardless.

One factor not to be overlooked in this matter is the creation of a standing credentials committee in 2019. Messengers to that year’s annual meeting approved creation of the committee to provide a more efficient way to hold SBC churches accountable for instances of sexual abuse in those churches.

Current SBC president Bart Barber, who is seeking a second term, believes that efficiency measure created another need—intentional or not—related to women pastors. He spelled out that need in a video he tweeted May 10. Barber and Law agree theologically about women pastors, but not about what to do structurally with churches who employ them.

Barber would like to be the convention president who appoints a task force to address the structural issue by examining and recommending clarifications to the SBC’s constitution, bylaws and statement of faith. But will he or Mike Stone preside?

Barber or Stone?

The presidential election is a fairly straightforward question. There are two nominees: Bart Barber, the incumbent, and Mike Stone, who is making his second attempt after losing—barely—to Ed Litton in 2021.

Stone is the choice of the Conservative Baptist Network. With the election taking place in New Orleans, some believe CBN will make a strong showing. Not Dallas-in-1985 strong, but strong for the current SBC.

I’m not predicting who will win. Call that what you want.

What about Saddleback?

The more involved and more interesting question is what the SBC will do about women pastors—senior or otherwise—and the churches who employ them, such as Saddleback.

Part of the question is whether messengers to the convention will agree with the SBC Executive Committee’s approval of the Credentials Committee’s determination that Saddleback is “not in friendly cooperation with the Convention, on the basis that the church has a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the church having a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor.”

Will Saddleback messengers get to decide whether and how churches like them are excluded from the SBC? Stay tuned to find out.

Amending the constitution

The other part of the question about women pastors is whether any SBC governing documents will be amended to prohibit them outright.

Law’s proposal mentioned earlier would amend Article III of the SBC constitution—establishing the criteria for “friendly cooperation” between churches and the convention—to exclude churches that “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

Law made this motion during the 2022 SBC annual meeting, where it was referred to the SBC Executive Committee. Following the annual meeting, he posted a letter explaining the rationale for his motion. Later, Law assembled a list of supposed SBC churches with women pastors on staff.

His motion, letter and list have generated considerable discussion on social media and elsewhere about who the Bible says can and cannot be a pastor, and whether the titles “pastor” and “minister” are interchangeable. It’s also caused many churches to wonder what their relationship to the SBC will be following this year’s annual meeting.

As with the SBC presidency, I’m not ready to make a prediction about the messengers’ will on women pastors. Like December 2020, a month is long enough for anything to happen in SBC politics to shift messenger opinions. Enter Barber’s tweet.

Clarifying a vague phrase

In his video, Barber cited Article III of the SBC Constitution, which states the first requirement for a church to be in friendly cooperation with the convention. Such a church must have “a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith”—or Baptist Faith and Message.

“Nobody knows what ‘closely identified with’ means in terms of actually applying it to the case of individual churches,” Barber said, calling the phrase “vague on purpose” and written deliberately “to put phraseology in there that nobody can pin down, that nobody knows what it means.”

Barber noted that, historically, messengers defined “closely identified with,” but now having a standing Credentials Committee creates the need for messengers to “speak plainly” about what “closely identified with” means in relation to the Baptist Faith and Message. Does a church have to hold to every word of the statement to be included in the SBC?

In Barber’s estimation, messengers “adding in language about the office of pastor” ensures the Credentials Committee doesn’t “fill in the blanks” itself, thereby exercising more authority than messengers would want the committee to have.

Barber believes messengers should be allowed to vote on Law’s amendment, but he doesn’t believe the amendment will solve the problem. He also thinks an examination of the SBC’s constitution, bylaws and statement of faith is needed—a motion he expects to be made during the 2023 annual meeting.

Bottom line

The bottom line is the SBC does not believe women should be senior pastors. Many in the SBC are also anxious about women in any other ministerial position being given the title “pastor.” But can women be any other subcategory of pastor and their churches still be part of the SBC? We shall see.

Some in the SBC want doctrinal purity and mean to exclude woman as pastors in any form. Others desire structural clarity and seem willing to exclude women as pastors if the language is clearly stated to do so.

At the end of the day, the boundaries seem likely to become more rigid than clear. Which makes me wonder what outcome Jesus wants from all of this.

EDITOR’S NOTE (June 20, 2023): A link to Mike Law’s list was removed after the list was used to harass women and churches named in it.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

The news of the last week has been one troubling story after another. It’s the kind of bad news to which we give some attention (but not for too long), feel bad about (but not for too long), and move on from (as soon as possible).

We may move on because we think, as bad as the news is, it doesn’t really involve us, not directly anyway.

But it does. This week’s news involves us, and we need to get more involved.

Ethnic and religious persecution

We received word last week that mobs had “destroyed at least 40 churches and forced thousands of Kuki, Zomi and other minority hill-dwelling tribes … from their homes in the Manipur State of northeast India.”

We may think, “This sounds like a terrible situation,” and brush it off as a people and place we know nothing about. We may call it a shame and go on to the next thing. But there’s more to the story we shouldn’t ignore.

Imagine having to move to a new place because you are not safe in the place you call home. Imagine after leaving all you know to go to that new place, you become unsafe there, too.

Go a step further. You aren’t unsafe just because you’re “not from around here.” You are unsafe because of who and how you worship, because you’re a Christian. And it’s not just you in danger. It’s your whole family and community.

This is the case for many of the Kuki, Zomi and other tribes, many of whom have been Christians for generations.

You may not picture yourself in their situation, but you are if you claim to follow Jesus and go by the name “Christian,” because all who follow Christ are baptized into one body, one Spirit (Ephesians 4:4-5). We are one, then, with our Kuki, Zomi and other brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering in Manipur.

Yes, this involves us.

Race and gun violence

Perhaps the news from Manipur was overshadowed—and understandably so—by the horrific mass shooting May 6 at the Allen Premium Outlet Mall.

This one hit closer to home for many Baptist Standard readers. Texas is no stranger to mass shootings, two of which were inside Texas Baptist churches. The horrific Uvalde school massacre almost one year ago is still fresh in our minds. At least one of the children killed—Lexi Rubio—attended a Texas Baptist church, and her great-grandfather was a Texas Baptist pastor.

There also are a significant number of Baptist Standard readers who live in or near Allen or who consider Allen part of their extended community.

Most news reports in the days following the Allen shooting are focusing on the gunman’s white supremacist views and the fact four of the eight killed were “of Asian descent.” Investigators and reporters are searching for a motive.

Part of the story that hasn’t received much attention to this point: three of those killed—Kang Shin Young, 35; Cho Kyu Song, 37; James Cho, 3—attended a Texas Baptist church. Kang and Cho’s 6-year-old son William was seriously injured but survived.

Yes, this involves us.

How we’re involved

In a general sense, what is happening in Manipur and what happened in Allen involve us, because we all are created in God’s image and are loved by God. I’ve already mentioned these stories involve us more specifically, because they involve our brothers and sisters in Christ.

An even more specific way these stories involve Texas Baptists is through the ministry our churches share through the Baptist General Convention of Texas. If your church is affiliated with the BGCT, you have a three-fold interest in paying attention to what is happening in numerous places around the world.

What is happening in places like Manipur is directly affecting your fellow Texas Baptists, such as the Greater Houston Burmese Christian Fellowship. They carry the weight of concern for their family and friends who are being hunted, brutalized and even killed in Manipur and areas to the east.

Likewise, what is for many of us a tragic news story is for New Song Church in Carrollton a propulsion into trauma. They will gather the evening of May 11 for a memorial service to mourn the loss of Kang Shin Young, Cho Kyu Song and James Cho. They will begin to do their best to care for William.

The burden is not Greater Houston Burmese Christian Fellowship’s alone. The mourning is not New Song Church’s alone. The burden and the mourning are ours, also.

Yes, this involves us.

Two ways to be more involved

We are involved in the news of this week, and alongside our prayers, we must do more than pray. But what? There are at least two things all of us can do to come alongside our brothers and sisters.

We can denounce racism and xenophobia. Neither has any place in Christ’s church and should find no quarter in our thoughts, speech or actions. Every opportunity we get, we can denounce racism and xenophobia.

“In Christ Jesus … there is neither Jew nor Gentile” (Galatians 3:28). Race, skin color, ethnicity, nationality—none of these make us better or worse than, superior or inferior to anyone else. We can make that abundantly clear everywhere we are.

We can denounce the sins of racism and xenophobia in sermons and Bible studies, in conversations with friends and coworkers, in social media posts and everywhere else we communicate. It’s really not hard.

We can advocate for religious freedom for all. Religious freedom doesn’t just happen in this world. We must work for it, and the work is within our reach.

We can promote religious freedom in all the same places and ways we denounce racism and xenophobia. We also can go to the halls of power and advocate for religious freedom among our lawmakers and diplomats.

These are only two things we can do. Though they may seem more abstract or controversial than “thoughts and prayers” or sending money, they have real-world consequence for real people—our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

Movement DFW commissioned a study in 2021 of youth in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to find out why they are leaving the church. I will quote one of their findings in whole, because I want you to pay close attention to it. Don’t react. Just listen.

“The majority of all those interviewed cited three reasons. They see church as (1) irrelevant: teaching is outdated and confusing; (2) unloving: lack of care for those who are different; (3) inauthentic: seeks to be manipulative.”

The important follow-up is “what Dallas-Fort Worth area young people want from their churches: (1) teaching that connects to their everyday lives, (2) to be heard and understood by their church leaders, (3) to be involved in and beloved by their church, (4) to see their friends experience that same welcome.”

I found a place where some of them can find—and do find—what they want from their churches. But it’s not the church. The church could be that place, though.

Where I found a model

Walking into the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston during the First Robotics World Championship mid-April felt like what it must be like entering the Olympic village. The air was electric with energy and excitement, and the sea of faces came from all over the world.

First Robotics reported more than 18,000 students and another 30,000-plus coaches, mentors, family and friends from 59 countries attended the 2023 championship.

What impressed me the most, though, was the concerted effort shown to welcome and care for every teenager there. Every one of them was valued. There’s a lesson in there for the church.

What’s this First Robotics thing?

For those unfamiliar with First Robotics competitions, it’s organized chaos. Local events generally have one field and regional events have two fields on which all participating teams compete. The massive first floor of the Houston convention center was covered with eight fields.

Three teams form an alliance—red or blue—and then work together to win the match against the other alliance. Alliances change from match to match as they progress through qualifying rounds toward the semi-finals and then finals. There’s more to it, but I only have so much space in this editorial.

First in Texas events might have 60 or 70 qualifying matches per event. The world championship had about 130 qualifying matches on each of the eight fields.

Each robot is built, programmed, marketed and driven by a team of students, each with their own role on the team. These robots aren’t small, and they’re fast. They can hurt you. Students have to be OSHA certified.

In addition to the students, each team has at least one coach and a group of adult mentors.

The core values of First Robotics

First founder Dean Kamen has thoroughly inculcated a set of core values into First Robotics, and he’s very evangelistic about them. They are:

• “Discovery: We explore new skills and ideas.
• Innovation: We use creativity and persistence to solve problems.
• Impact: We apply what we learn to improve our world.
• Inclusion: We respect each other and embrace our differences.
• Teamwork: We are stronger when we work together.
• Fun: We enjoy and celebrate what we do!”

Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition are two other First values. Both involve equal parts fierce competition, kindness, respect and cooperation.

From the time you walk in the door until you walk out—and all through the season leading up to the championship—these values are enacted consistently, top to bottom.

During his championship monologue, Kamen proclaimed the world would be a better place if everyone lived according to these values. And about 50,000 people—plus those watching online—believed him.

It’s no wonder children and youth who become involved in First Robotics enjoy it so much. They are valued, celebrated and challenged there in a way they may not be—and often aren’t—anywhere else. Many of the youth I saw in Houston would not find welcome in some of our churches. They also wouldn’t be valued or celebrated. I can say that because I’ve seen it.

What robotics taught me about the church

First Robotics is not the church. The church has some values and convictions First doesn’t have. But that doesn’t mean the church can’t learn from and interact with First Robotics.

I see in First Robotics a model for how the church can embody Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

First isn’t known for being judgmental; the church is. Because First welcomes all people without judgment, it stands as a clear example of what a gracious welcome might look like. Remember, welcome is one of the key things youth are looking for in a church. The church needs to ask: “Are we going to judge them or welcome them?”

First reignited in me the same deep excitement I had when I started a ministry to hot air balloonists in the mid-2000s. Hot air ballooning offers tangible ways to minister to people in key situations. So does robotics.

People who love Jesus and care about people and who also have mechanical, engineering, electrical, hydraulic, programming, marketing, fundraising or motivational skills can be mentors or coaches for a robotics team. First always is looking for adult mentors and coaches. Why shouldn’t followers of Jesus sign up?

Is there room in robotics for the church? Absolutely. Is there room in the church for robotics? I hope so, because “robotics” here is also a placeholder for a myriad of places Jesus is calling us to follow his lead and to embody his good news where people are. When we do that, young people won’t have to go looking for the church they want—and need. The church will already be with them.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

The Texas Senate has passed three bills that present a test of the First Amendment establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Baptists are to thank for that clause, and Baptists—with our commitment to religious liberty—should be at the forefront of defending it. How we defend it matters immensely.

About the bills in question

The three bills are SB 1515, SB 1396 and SB 8. A fourth—SB 763—is still under consideration at the time of writing.

SB 1515 would require the Ten Commandments to be displayed conspicuously in each public school classroom. The exact text and size of the display are stipulated in the legislation.

SB 1396 would allow boards of public school districts and charter schools to adopt a policy providing “students and employees … an opportunity to participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text on each school day.”

Section 1.019 of SB 8—a sweeping education bill—establishes an education savings account program that would use “general revenue transferred to the fund; money appropriated to the fund” and other monies to offset the cost of private education for those who meet stipulated requirements.

SB 763—still under deliberation—would allow chaplains to volunteer or be employed by public schools and charter schools “to perform the duties required of a school counselor.”

Before forming your opinion of these bills—none of which has passed the House, none of which currently are law—you should read the text of the bills. That’s why they are linked. There is more to each one than brief summaries contain.

Prepare for your legislative visit

After you become familiar with the bills, you should get ready to visit your representative and senator.

The first step in preparing your visit is to determine who is your representative and senator, which requires you to know your House and Senate districts. This was easier in urban areas before districts were redrawn in 2021.

The Texas Tribune provides an easy solution. Type in your address on the page linked in the previous sentence, and you will be shown your current districts beginning with your U.S. House district and then state offices.

Once you know your district number, you can visit the members pages. The House is here; the Senate is here. Since the House’s page is sorted by last name, it’s easiest to browse by your district number. The Senate’s page is sorted by district.

Clicking or tapping on the photo of your representative and senator will take you to their respective member pages. From there, click or tap on “email,” and then fill in the fields.

Clearly state your purpose in the subject field—such as “Requesting an appointment” or “My position on SB 763.”

The message field is where things get important. That’s the first place how you communicate your position matters more than what your position is.

Communicating your position

Your representative or senator will not be the person receiving your email; it will be a staffer. Staffers are frequently young adults, often just out of college. They get chewed on all day every day by any number of people for any number of reasons.

When you type your message, address the legislator, remembering who will read it first. Express gratitude for their service. State clearly, concisely and—most of all—compassionately what your purpose is for writing.

Then plan to visit your legislator’s office in person—with or without an appointment. An appointment doesn’t guarantee you’ll see your legislator. Their schedules are fluid, depending on what is happening in their committees or on the floor of the House or Senate.

At the beginning of your visit, say your name and who you are with if you’re with a group. Say whether you have an appointment. If you don’t have an appointment, ask if you can speak with someone about the issue most important to you. Issues are divided up among the staff.

You likely will be asked if you have a specific bill to discuss. Be ready with the bill number or say you don’t have a specific bill.

Then, state your position as clearly, concisely and compassionately—or more—as you did by email.

My position

Now, about my position on the Senate bills listed earlier. I have concerns about each one and all of them taken together. Taken together, they present an apparent establishment of religion that could open the door to clear infringements of religious freedom.

At a minimum, these bills require much more debate, if not outright opposition. How that debate or opposition is communicated matters immensely.

My experience

A couple of weeks ago, I spent the morning visiting legislative offices. I spoke with several staffers. Each one of them reacted with some surprise when I followed my opposition to a piece of legislation with affirmation of them as human beings.

In one office, after identifying as Baptist, the staffer’s eyes immediately grew wide, and her face flushed. Her evident anxiety made me wonder what she’d heard from other Baptists who oppose her legislator’s positions.

She stepped away for a moment, and when she returned, I told her what I’d told others, that we care about her and her legislator. She immediately relaxed and smiled.

Believe it or not, legislators sometimes respond the same way. They’re used to people using them more than caring about them.

Religious liberty isn’t a command; it’s a principle—however important. Love is a command, the most important one, the one on which everything else hangs.

If we communicate our positions on legislation with anger, vitriol, vicious sarcasm or personal attacks, we won’t be any different than so many others who visit legislators at the Texas Capitol. If we communicate with love—Christ’s love—we will be different.

The 88th Texas Legislature isn’t over. It’s not too late to go to Austin, to visit the Capitol and to communicate Christ’s love. Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission will be glad to help you. This editorial owes a great deal to them helping me.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

If you are reading this, you can read.

It’s a ridiculously obvious statement, I know. It’s statements like that that led my family to buy me a t-shirt with “Captain Obvious” printed across the chest.

Our ability to read is so second-nature to us that many of us no longer think about it, much less wonder over it. Many of us take it for granted.

So, let’s revisit the statement.

Si puede leer esto, puede leer.
Or إذا كنت تستطيع قراءة هذا ، يمكنك أن تقرأ.
Or 如果你能读懂这个，你就能读懂。
Or Εάν μπορείτε να διαβάσετε αυτό, μπορείτε να διαβάσετε.

All four lines above say in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Greek the same thing as the first sentence of this article says in English. But if we don’t recognize the characters or know the languages, they are meaningless to us. You may have ignored them and jumped to the next recognizable words.

For many with whom we want to communicate, English is just as meaningless. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. You and I can give the gift of reading and understanding English. In fact, we should give that gift.

Partner with literacy ministries.

One way we can give the gift of reading and understanding English is by partnering or volunteering with organizations like Literacy ConneXus, a ministry established in 2004 by the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Baylor University.

According to a 2019 U.S. Department of Education report, 1 in 5 (21 percent) U.S. adults—or approximately 43 million people—have “low literacy skills.” Two-thirds of these adults are U.S.-born.

“Low literacy skills” means a person likely cannot read a prescription or complete basic government or other forms, such as a job application.

Literacy ConneXus was started, in part, to address this problem. The ministry focuses on three areas: providing children with access to books, preparing children for school, and training church-based English-as-a-Second Language teachers. You and your church can be involved in any or all of these focus areas. A free ESL training event is being held April 22.

Being able to read and understand English is about more than getting a job and getting around. It’s also a key way we communicate the good news of Jesus Christ. For people who hold Scripture reading so highly, we ought to insist every person has the basic skills to read and understand Scripture.

Bible reading is central to literacy.

Protestants, from their beginnings in Europe, have known the importance and power of reading Scripture in their own languages. Some were willing to die for it.

Fleeing such persecution, Protestant American colonists made the New England Primer, with its inclusion of Scripture and Calvinist principles, “a principal textbook.” According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “The doctrine of the priesthood of the believer motivated Puritans to teach reading to all citizens so that they could know and follow the Christian scriptures.”

Some Protestants, knowing how powerful Scripture is, also produced modified copies of the Bible—such as the Slave Bible—removing passages that might inspire unwanted actions. The Museum of the Bible describes the Slave Bible as “a missionary book,” stating it was used “to teach enslaved Africans how to read while at the same time introducing them to the Christian faith.”

Unfortunately, the Slave Bible publishers purposely omitted sections of the Bible—in particular those pertaining to Israel’s exodus—essential to understanding God’s desired relationship with us. It is right that all people be able to read all of Scripture.

Literacy is central to missions.

Just as learning to read the Bible—the whole Bible—has been central to literacy, literacy is at the core of Christian mission.

Frank Laubach, a missionary to the Philippines, learned Maranao—the language of the largely Muslim Moro people in the southern Philippines—using a system he developed. He realized the system could be turned the other direction to teach people how to read their own languages.

Laubach’s method came to be called “Each One Teach One” and is credited with millions of people learning to read. He influenced literacy experts the world over—including at Baylor University—and continues to influence the work of Literacy ConneXus.

For some language groups, Bible translators have provided the first written alphabets and books. This foundational work is a first step in translating the Bible into these languages. A next step is teaching those to read who don’t already know how. When they read the Bible in their own language, it is life-changing.

Literacy is ministry.

Literacy isn’t just about teaching people to read in their native language. It is also about equipping them to function well in another language—which brings us back to ministries like Literacy ConneXus that provide ESL training and courses.

Remember those strange-looking lines at the beginning of this op-ed? What if you had no choice but to learn to make sense of them? How would you do it? Where would you go for help? What if you could learn to read and understand a new language among Christians who care about you, seek your welfare, and will walk with you as you learn?

I celebrate that people needing to learn English can find this kind of loving ministry in numerous Baptist churches. A simple Google search of Baptist churches in Texas with ESL classes will show you just how many there are.

Learning to read as a child may have been wondrous or overwhelming, depending on how quickly the skill came to you or if you struggled with a reading disability such as dyslexia. One of my closest friends required a specific approach to studying in high school because of a particular reading challenge he had.

Whatever our challenges were or still are in learning to read, reading is a gift that has changed our lives and the lives of those around us. It’s a gift we can and should give to others—whether our own children or someone else’s.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

Baptist University of the Américas started more than 75 years ago as the Mexican Baptist Bible Institute. The name changed to Hispanic Baptist Theological Seminary and then Hispanic Baptist Theological School, before changing again in 2003 to its current name.

Given the names, where do you think students come from to attend BUA? I suppose that’s a rhetorical question. Don’t they all come from Spanish-speaking countries or regions?

Would you be surprised to know BUA students also hail from Central, East and South Asia?

Mary Ranjel, director of the international student services office at BUA, sent me the following list of countries represented at BUA: Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the Republic of South Korea, and the United Kingdom by way of Nigeria.

And I got to be with them this week during BUA’s International Student Fair.

International students enrich us in so many ways. Ministry to and with them is energizing and has the potential to revive us. We should look for opportunities to join those already engaged in international student ministry.

What international student ministry looks like

You might wonder what international student ministry looks like. What I participated in at BUA this week looks almost identical to the international student ministry my wife and I were part of as missionaries serving the Baptist Student Union at the University of New Mexico during the 2000s. In short, food and music.

Now, food and music aren’t the totality of international student ministry, but they are a significant part of it.

International students love to share the foods that are a piece of home for them. I get that. Being from New Mexico, I try to introduce as many people as possible to the joy of Hatch green chile and plain sopapillas with honey.

During the BUA International Student Fair and the International Culture Nights at the UNM BSU, we enjoyed food from around the world, enjoyed traditional music and other cultural expressions, and celebrated the rich diversity of God’s world. Some students wore traditional attire. At UNM, we learned traditional dances from international students.

Welcoming this kind of diversity affirms international students’ culture and uniqueness, telling them “who they are and where they come from is important to us,” said Gabriel Cortés, BUA chief of staff.

In fact, what we communicate to international students is the most important part of international student ministry.

What international student ministry communicates

For Yamileth Guzman, a BUA student from El Salvador, the International Student Fair communicates the university is interested in her, not only as a student, but as a person—with all that her personhood entails.

She is proud to represent her country through food and a display of things for which El Salvador is known. Additionally, the fair is a learning experience for her, as well as her schoolmates, opening them to new interests or career paths, she said.

During the 2000s, UNM had about 1,000 international students from 89 countries. Only one of those students was from Taiwan. For each international student involved in our ministry, we hung their national flag in our building. When Joe walked in one day and saw the Taiwanese flag, he stopped and cried because he couldn’t believe we would do that for him. We told him, of course, we would do that for him—which told him he is valued.

There are only one or two students from some of the countries represented at BUA, but that doesn’t make them any less important than the many students from Mexico—the largest international contingent, naturally. Each one was and is celebrated.

Celebrating these students as they are communicates what we believe, that God is a creative Creator who loves the whole world and wants people from every nation, tribe, people and language to know salvation. It also opens the door to communicating the good news of Jesus Christ to those who aren’t already Christians.

Read back over that last phrase—“those who aren’t already Christians.” We make a mistake to assume international students aren’t Christians, but I hear the assumption spoken all too often. Many are Christians and are looking for a ministry to be part of while in college.

Christian or not, most international students long for friendship and connection—just like most of us.

You can do international student ministry

International student ministry is within your reach. If you are within driving distance of a college or university, you are within driving distance of international student ministry, and likely a Baptist Student Ministry that would love your help.

It’s a good idea to check with a BSM to find out what help is needed before just showing up. You may also need to study up on cultures involved in a given BSM and how to interact effectively with them. To find a BSM near you, click here. For help navigating cultures, Mark Heavener with Texas Baptists’ Intercultural Ministries is a great resource.

You may not be close enough to a BSM to make regular trips, but you might still be able to participate in something like a furniture giveaway. International students generally arrive in the United States with only what will fit in one or two suitcases. They need furnishings for every room in an apartment—kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. You, your friends and your church probably have items you could donate. Again, contact a BSM to find out what is needed.

For God so loved the world

Jesus called us to love others as we love ourselves. International student ministry gives us the opportunity to practice and grow in doing just that—loving people the way Jesus demonstrated his love for people.

International student ministry is about caring for people as they are, not expecting them to move toward us, but moving toward them just as God moved toward us in Jesus. Join in the joy of international student ministry. It will be life-giving for you and for the students.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

Jesus led a revolutionary life and called us to do the same. In our own time of revolution, we might prefer to take the edge off “revolutionary,” so Jesus’ life can’t be equated too closely with revolutionaries of our day.

Or we might make light of the radical nature of Jesus’ life and commands, so we don’t have to give so much of ourselves to them.

Or we might blend Jesus and the Bible with revolutionary rhetoric swirling today, so we can baptize our anger and lust for vengeance.

All three are a mistake—running counter to the life of Christ. We need to remember the nature of Jesus’ revolutionary life and how he commanded us to live. Holy Week is a good time to do this, when the culmination of Jesus’ revolution stares us in the face.

Jesus’ backward revolution

Jesus led a backward revolution.

From the world’s perspective, turning the other cheek, loving those who hate you—that’s backward stuff. Doing those kinds of things won’t get a person ahead in this world. It will get a person walked on. You know, the whole nice-guys-finish-last thing. This world isn’t about finishing last.

But Jesus said it is the last who will be first. By the world’s terms, this is a backward revolution, indeed. How often are we still trying to go forward—in the world’s terms?

Jesus’ backward revolution didn’t make sense to the Romans, but they didn’t mind as long as the people behaved. Our world still doesn’t mind, as long as we stay in our lane.

Jesus’ subversive revolution

Jesus also led a subversive revolution.

From the religious leaders’ perspective, healing people on the Sabbath, being a friend to sinners—that was subversive stuff. Rulebreakers do those kinds of things, and rulebreakers dishonor God. God is to be honored; religious rules are to be kept. End of story.

But Jesus said the Sabbath was made to satisfy us; we weren’t made to satisfy the Sabbath. Using the Bible’s words to unbind the rules, that’s the stuff of subversion.

Jesus’ subversive revolution could be tolerated by the religious leaders, as long as he kept the right rules. Our world still doesn’t mind our rule-keeping, as long as we follow the “right” rules.

Jesus’ steely-eyed revolution

Jesus led a steely-eyed revolution.

From the start, he was tempted to achieve his ends some other way or to give up his ends altogether. Jesus never flinched. The world knows the odds against the revolutionary, and the world—including Jesus’ own kith and kin—thought him a fool. “He’s out of his mind,” they said.

They tried to trick him, trip him up every chance they could. He saw through their games with steely-eyed commitment. When they stacked the deck against him, trapped him, they tried to get him to say something in his own defense, but he wouldn’t break concentration even then.

The world is still trying to get us to flinch, to blink, to drop our gaze and give up our determination to follow Jesus faithfully. It’s not a big deal, they tell us.

Jesus’ revolution misunderstood

Our mistake all too often is not flinching, blinking or dropping our gaze, but is falling for the head fake.

The head fake is to think Jesus’ mission is to bless us, to make straight the path before us, to squash all opposition to us—even if that opposition is God’s own Spirit. The head fake is to think we’ve fulfilled our obligation by calling him “Lord,” so then we can tell him “no” when he tells us to “go.”

Like the crowd cheering Jesus as he entered Jerusalem, we think Jesus is going to work a particular kind of revolution in our lives, our homes, our churches, our communities, our world. We think he’s come to do our will. This is the world juking, faking us out.

Jesus’ revolution was misunderstood then as now, because he didn’t come to Jerusalem to glorify Israel among and above their neighbors and oppressors. He came to Jerusalem to glorify his heavenly Father and do his Father’s will.

When Jesus persisted in disappointing the people and incensing the priests—what so many revolutionaries do—they abandoned and consigned him to the grave.

In Jesus’ death, the people’s hope died, and the rulers’ hope revived. None of them realized his death was the turning point in his revolution. They didn’t realize his aim was to undo the very fabric of our existence by overthrowing sin and death.

Jesus’ revolutionary call to us

Jesus calls us to a backward, subversive, steely-eyed revolution. But I bet we don’t think about that during Holy Week.

As our children wave palm fronds in the Palm Sunday service, do we appreciate Jesus’ call to resist the world? As we consume the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday, are we fully aware of the revolutionary actions of taking Christ’s body and blood broken for us, poured out for us?

In our Easter Sunday pageantry and finery, do we understand just how radical a thing resurrection is in a world that would rather Jesus shut up and stay dead?

Jesus left us with these words: “Go and make followers of me from all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I taught you.”

He didn’t teach us to take up arms against one another. He taught us to do for others what we want done for us. He didn’t teach us to dominate others. He taught us to deny ourselves and follow him. He didn’t teach us to gain the world. He taught us to find our lives by losing our lives.

Obeying these teachings is backward and subversive in this world. It requires steely-eyed commitment.

Revolution is risky. It cost Jesus, and it will cost us. But there’s no avoiding revolution. We either will join the world and revolt against God, or we will join Christ and revolt against sin and death. One revolt has littered the world with graves. The other is already undoing the first. Which revolution will we join?

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

Hold out your hands. In one, hold your redemption in and through Jesus Christ, and in the other, hold what you know of our world.

Bring your hands together, one holding the other. This is a picture of our call to be ambassadors of reconciliation in this world.

Look at your clasped hands. In the same way you can’t hold your own hand without both hands touching, Jesus came into this world, not distancing himself from the sin and brokenness in it, but getting very near it to break sin and repair our brokenness.

If we follow Jesus, we are called into the same work of reconciliation.

Our call to be reconcilers

Hold your hands apart again. In the hand holding your redemption, imagine these words from Paul:

“If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:17-20).

If these words don’t take your breath away, I wonder if you’re paying attention. These words are at once thrilling and daunting—the stuff of movies and epic novels, except this is supposed to be our lived experience now that we are reconciled to God in Christ.

If we are going to fulfill our duty as Christ’s ambassadors—being his messengers of reconciliation, communicating to the world God was “not counting people’s sins against them” but was restoring us to him through Jesus—then we must not shrink back from the news of this world’s sin and brokenness. We must engage the many points of sin and brokenness in this world.

Examples of brokenness

In the hand holding the news of this world, give attention to some examples of the brokenness we are enduring.

On March 25, an EF4 tornado left a path of death and destruction—which can be seen from space—through several communities in the Mississippi Delta.

On March 27, a woman entered The Covenant School in Nashville and, using an assault rifle, shot and killed three children and three adults.

Also on March 27, 38 migrants died in a fire inside a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Authorities are investigating why they were not let out to escape the fire.

In yet more news on March 27, a Texas Tribune report revealed new information about when and how much was known of allegations that Paul Pressler sexually abused young men. Pressler was central to Southern Baptist Convention politics during the 1970s through 1990s.

In Ukraine, both sides are using for war what amounts to a hobbyist’s toy—Chinese-made drones that “people mostly used … to play around with … for experimental purposes,” NPR reported March 28.

Many in the tech world are sounding alarm bells that artificial intelligence technology is advancing too fast with too few controls. Their greatest concern is AI could endanger humanity.

The preceding examples may seem too big and too far away for us to do anything about them. But each one is local and personal to those directly involved. They are examples for us, because we are enduring our own local and personal brokenness, and sometimes it’s easier to see the way to reconciliation when the problem isn’t ours.

We may not like or want to hear about the problems of this world we find ourselves in and have helped to create, but we must not shrink back from the news. In fact, we must lean into it, looking for where God is calling us to enact our ministry of reconciliation.

Engaging a broken world

We are glad to report some of the ways Christians are fulfilling their call.

Christ’s followers are bringing material and spiritual reconciliation to the communities in Mississippi devastated by the tornado.

Woodmont Baptist Church rose to the occasion March 27, immediately becoming the reunification center for parents and their children in the aftermath of the shooting at The Covenant School.

Christians in Ukraine—such as those attending Baptist seminaries there—continue to spread the gospel in word and deed, even in the midst of ongoing Russian missile barrages.

Though there is much more reconciling to do, these efforts at reconciliation should not be overlooked. In both what those involved are and are not doing, we may see where God is calling us—whether it be near or far, big or small, in our families, among our friends or coworkers, in our neighborhoods, our churches or our communities.

Look again at your open hands, one holding the ministry of reconciliation and one holding the sin and brokenness of our world. Take a closer look at your hands. Realize reconciliation is in your hand, and brokenness is, too. It is God, who redeemed you and me and who restores all things, who brings reconciliation together with our brokenness.

Now, you and I are new creations, and we have work to do. How are we going to bring the message of God’s reconciliation to the many points of sin and brokenness in this our world? Individually, we can’t take it all on, but we can and are called to take on some. How has God crafted your hands to take his message of reconciliation to where he is calling you?

Imagine one more thing with me. Imagine reconciliation in our right hand and brokenness in our left, so that when we engage in the work of reconciliation together—hand-in-hand—we receive the ministry of reconciliation as much as we give it away. This is our true call, not to reconcile ourselves, but to receive Christ’s reconciliation and to proclaim his reconciliation to each other.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.

How are we going to save our churches?

Pastors, deacons, finance committee chairs and other leaders in the church are asking this question—verbatim or in essence—with increasing frequency. They started asking before COVID.

Leaders of Christian institutions and parachurch ministries are asking this question, too.

We’re not asking how we’re going to get our churches or institutions into heaven. We’re asking how we’re going to keep from closing the doors and disbanding. We’re probably also asking how we’re going to keep our jobs.

The answer most likely every time is some version of “more”—more people, more baptisms, more money.

We need more visitors, more people attending worship services, more people joining the church. We need more people involved in Sunday school and Bible study groups. We need more people to give more money—which we spiritualize as “tithes” and “offerings.”

If “more” in this sense is the measure of our success, we will never succeed. Something else must be the measure of our success.

To that effect, I asked a group of pastors this week, “How much do we have to accomplish to know we’ve been effective in our ministry?”

Is there a certain number we need to reach in one or more categories to be able to say we did good? And is that number lower than we think is OK to say out loud? Either way, we’re measuring our ministry by the numbers.

Secularism challenging the church

This whole line of thinking was spurred by Andrew Root’s synopsis of Catholic Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s thinking on secularism.

Root, professor of youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary, was the keynote speaker during Truett Theological Seminary’s Pastors Conference, March 20–21. He sees implications for religious belief and ministry within Taylor’s thinking about secularism.

The focal question of the conference was, “Why are people leaving the church?”—a similar question to “How are we going to save our churches?”

In answer, Root offered Taylor’s description of increasing secularism. According to Taylor, secularism in the Western world—Europe and North America—has reached the point that “all belief [is] contested [and] fragilized.” No religious claims are taken for granted anymore; all are open to doubt.

One effect of belief becoming “fragilized” in this way is we aren’t certain about anything but what is right in front of us—what we can touch, see, hear, taste and smell.

One expression of this effect is seen in how churches have redirected funds away from intangible things like Cooperative Programs to more concrete, local and direct connections with people whose faces they’ve seen and voices they’ve heard.

Taylor’s description of our current state rings true, and it leaves us with more questions than answers. It also doesn’t alleviate the concern about how we’re going to save our churches.

The path forward for the church

Root wasn’t ringing the death knell for the church, nor was he advocating hospice care. Instead, he suggested we should lean into the expectation for more direct connection. He encouraged building one-on-one relationships; telling and listening to honest faith stories that include the highs and the lows of our faith journeys; and living in the way of Christ by walking alongside searching doubt.

This way is slow and out of our control. There’s no guarantee it will ever work. If it does work, it may be too little and too late to keep our institutions alive. We may be left wondering which it’s going to be—the institutions or the relationships that get our attention, and does one have to be prioritized over the other?

I asked Root if we’re supposed to give up our concern about saving our churches and instead give our time and energy to building relationships. He said we do have a responsibility to maintain our institutions. People sacrificed to build them, and places like church buildings are necessary sacred spaces. He said we also need to build relationships. For him, it’s not an either/or, but both/and.

I understand responsibility, but I don’t believe the responsibility to maintain institutions is primary to the responsibility to be faithful to God.

Asking the right question

More important than upholding our responsibility to a thing—albeit a thing made of people—is our faithfulness to God.

I don’t state this lightly. Holding up faithfulness to God as primary is a fearful thing that can be misappropriated and abused. In fact, the misuse of the concept has contributed to skepticism about religious claims.

Despite misuse of the idea, actual faithfulness to God still ought to be of more concern to us than more people, more baptisms and more money.

Consider, for example: If God calls one person to bring more people into a church and God calls another person to close a church, who’s the success and who’s the failure? The success is the one who was faithful and followed God’s call.

But in our words and behavior, too many of us don’t define ministry success that way. In our words and reactions, there is one clear success—the church that got bigger. Something was wrong with the church that closed; something was wrong with the pastor credited with closing it. And so, the last thing most pastors want is to be the one who presided over a church’s closing.

How are we going to save our churches? This isn’t the right question. Will we be faithful to God? That is the right question.

A last thought

At this point in writing, I received an email from a friend who is a pastor. He was writing to let me know his church recently voted to dissolve. I know the church, and I know some of their struggle, but I had no idea his email would arrive when it did.

I believe this church and its leadership wanted to be faithful to God—from their beginning to their dissolution. Faithfulness to God didn’t pack their pews. We’re not even sure at this point what their faithfulness to God resulted in or yet will bring to pass. All we know is they sought to be faithful to God.

So, I sit with this fresh news. I quietly hold their grief with them along with their hopeful wondering about the future. And I ask myself, “How will I be faithful to God—even if God calls me to look like a failure in the world’s eyes?”

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed are those solely of the author.