Roger Williams Fellowship

As members and friends of the Roger Williams Fellowship, we like to think that the principles we hold dear – freedom of conscience, congregational autonomy, the priesthood of believers, genuinely voluntary association – are a faithful reflection of the heart and soul of the Baptist movement.  And furthermore, we are often quick to say that these sacred principles are under siege by those who claim the Baptist mantle, but aren’t “real Baptists” like we are. 

They are the creedalists, the moralists, the dividers, excluders and enforcers.  They are the ones who “took over” the Southern Baptist Convention, purged seminary faculties and mission boards and other denominational institutions there, and are now about to dismember the Baptist World Alliance.  They are the ones who have introduced formal creedal tests for ordinands in several American Baptist regions, and have forced American Baptists to be gerrymandered into regions defined by ideology rather than geography.  They have kicked the tent poles out from under the historic “big tent” of American Baptist life and have forced us to retreat into a motley collection of smaller tents. “They” are unconscionable. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am as distressed by judgmental neighbors and fractured fellowship as anyone.  And I am personally aware, as most all of you are, of congregations demoralized and ministries sabotaged by those who cloak themselves in presumptions of righteousness.  But I wonder if, in our distress over the state of our denominational life and over trends in the broader religious and cultural landscape in our nation, we are not in danger of becoming as judgmental and as Manichean as some of our “evangelical” opponents.  Someone has wisely remarked on the danger of becoming the mirror image of our enemies when we are consumed by a struggle.  How many years is it now that our biennial and regional conversations-in-the-hallway have been driven by what “they” are doing and how dangerous and unscrupulous “they” are? 

I do not discount Jesus’ admonition that we be “wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16).  And I do maintain that we need to eloquently expound and promote our vision of Baptist life in the congregations, associations and regions where we reside, and in our denomination.  But finally, the Body of Christ on earth is like a tapestry, with many contrasting threads and many snags and runs.  And every historic expression of Christian faith has a life span, and that includes Baptists in all their forms.  Will we be around at all in another century, or two, or three?  Certainly living faith in our wonderful Creator and Redeemer will endure.  Certainly the story of Jesus will be retold and reenacted, and people will be fascinated and attracted, and will become his disciples.  (Remember how quickly the “Death of God” came and went more than three decades ago?)  But we are not forever, no matter how faithful and true we be.

So in the meantime, let’s enjoy the fellowship of our free and inclusive congregations.  Let’s develop and implement exciting visions of ministry in user-friendly associations and regions – whether they be traditional regions or newer groupings like Evergreen Baptist Association and Pacific Coast Baptist Association – without looking over our shoulders to see what “they” are doing.  And let’s have assemblies and conferences about concerns other than Baptist principles, such as being faithful disciples of Jesus in a world tragically divided between the privileged few and the marginalized many.

If we dare to affirm that our Roger Williams way of being Baptist Christians faithfully reflects the love of Jesus and the grace Paul proclaims, and if God alone vindicates us, and not church growth statistics and market share, then let’s lighten up and revel in the greatness and goodness of God in our midst.  Surely in this frightened, fractured post
9-11 world we have more to fear than denominational meltdown and more to offer a broken world than reactive responses to “them”.  Let’s be Christ to one another and to our neighbors and let the chips fall where they may.  And finally:  “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again, I say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

                                                                                           David L. Wheeler
                                                                                           Los Angeles, California