RE: Voices: Why some conservative churches are feeling less at home in the BGCT
After reading Ryan Gilbert’s article “Voices: Why some conservative churches are feeling less at home in the BGCT,” I became concerned.
Baptists can have theological clarity about what we believe while still allowing faithful Baptists liberty to disagree. I fear the direction Ryan is suggesting could undermine our distinctive understanding of soul competency and the priesthood of the believer.
What I love about Texas Baptists is we are people of the Book. The Scriptures are the sole authority for faith and practice. We expect and will hold each other to biblically based points—but Ryan’s pain is about at what point does a theological conviction become a legitimate boundary for denominational cooperation? That’s the cause of our pain as a community.
I’d point the answer back to the Bible. We don’t merely ask, “Can I find a verse for this?” We ask, “What does Scripture as a whole clearly and consistently teach?”
Soul competency means we recognize each believer is accountable before God and cannot have another believer’s interpretation imposed upon their conscience.
We must protect Christians sincerely seeking to follow the Scriptures as the Holy Spirit guides them.
The question is not whether there should be a standard for cooperation, but what biblical standard should define it. Paul gives us a clear example in 1 Corinthians 5.
Our convention’s focus should be on how we make room for faithful disagreement within cooperation.
In our community we can read the Scriptures and come to different positions and still work together. That’s the core of who we are.
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“We believe the Scriptures … are revealed from God, and that they contain the only true system of faith and practice” (Articles of Faith adopted in Texas in 1840 by Union Baptist Association).
Steve Cain
Garland
Letter: Anti-Muslim language must be rejected
Muslim Americans are our neighbors, coworkers, and fellow citizens. They are entitled to the same full place in our national community as every other American.
Yet, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.) has said Islam “does not comport with modern Western thought” and, when practiced as written, it is “a violent religion.”
That rhetoric is not isolated. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) wrote on X, “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse and a threat to national security and the republic.”
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) likewise posted, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”
These statements do more than criticize particular ideas or policies. They portray an entire religious community—including families, students, and public servants—as inherently suspect and outside the national “we.” That is precisely the danger Holocaust survivor Herbert C. Kelman warned against in his essay, “Dignity and Dehumanization.”
Kelman wrote: “The central lesson that I have learned from the Holocaust is that we must never allow any people, any human group, to be excluded from our moral community.”
For Kelman, a moral community is one in which people recognize obligations to one another.
Public officials should reject language that casts millions of Americans as threats because of their faith and instead affirm the equal dignity and safety of Muslim Americans.
Terry Hansen
Grafton, Wisc.
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