Commentary: When conservatives eat liberals’ medicine

I don’t live in Texas, but I’m a frequent reader of the Baptist Standard. I appreciate the efforts the Standard has made to cover a broad range of faith-oriented news beyond the scope of Texas, the Baptist orbit and even its own orthodox beliefs and affirmations.

I value the Standard because I find many of the other readily available Baptist-based options to be unevenly handed, tilted clearly in a direction that blends news and opinion in just about every posting.

In one popular outlet, almost anything reported on related to a more conservative or evangelical context generally is treated with derision. In another outlet on the other side of the Baptist aisle, you rarely will find any reporting that isn’t positive toward its constituency.

It is for this reason the Baptist community in North America needs the Standard to maintain its current practice and posture, and those who are skeptical of the Standard need to consider whether we, as conservatives, may have eaten the medicine of liberals by opting unflinchingly into a hermeneutic of suspicion.

Influence of postmodern thought

I cut my teeth in ministry among college students and young adults in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During that time, much attention was given to the rise of postmodern thought.

Largely advanced by liberals in academic circles, a hermeneutic of suspicion was introduced as a lever to undermine commonly held assumptions, accepted truths and beliefs that had stood the test of centuries.

Several decades later, I can see the medicine progressives largely introduced into our cultural reality has driven many Christian leaders away—sometimes far away—from the core of the Christian faith they had once held. In some ways, that was predictable, though nonetheless painful.

I’ve known far too many leaders I used to count as those walking the same orthodox path as me who have chosen another route.

Equal-opportunity influence

On the other hand, something surprising has come of the medicine of liberals that I did not expect or foresee. Now, conservatives often have taken the medicine of liberals and have eaten the hermeneutic of suspicion, often without any recognition they are playing into the very postmodern foil they likely would denigrate elsewhere.

It is now more common that our first assumption about any statement, article, sermon or other communication is that it is latent with a hint of something more deeply revealing—and disturbing—than what is there at face value. I get it, I really do.

I have witnessed many people make the progressive turn, and often it does show up in small snippets and bite-sized illustrations that reveal the direction they are heading.

For instance, I recall a very popular Baptist preacher some years ago lifting up panentheism in a sermon illustration as a way of thinking about God and the world. Now, they never explicitly endorsed panentheism, but the way they discussed the topic positively would have left many to believe such a view might be feasible within orthodox Christianity, if not preferable.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but over several years now I have come to see such an illustration was part of a larger pattern advocating for a more progressive Christian understanding. Like breadcrumbs for a mouse, they dropped those hints selectively along the way, so as not to be too obvious to those following them.

In defense of Baptist Standard

However, as a regular reader, I don’t believe the Baptist Standard has any such larger pattern and that those of us who fall within the more conservative side of the Christian house ought to give the team at the Standard the benefit of the doubt in a world where doubt is the default.

Let’s encourage them to report on news as news and to share opinion as opinion, just as they receive our opinions and publish some of them.

Chris Backert serves as senior director of the Ascent Movement attempting to advance a joyful, winsome orthodox witness to whole-life salvation through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.