Maintaining Moral Integrity & SBC Bashing

A week or so ago, Baptist ethicist David Gushee penned an op-ed for Associated Baptist Press titled Reflections from BWA: Missing and forgiving, Southern Baptists. In his column, Gushee called on "the Southern Baptist Convention to rejoin the world Baptist family, on humbler terms." Gushee also "called on" us former Southern Baptists to "renounce SBC bashing, and seek the spirit's power to forgive." Here's a snippet from Gushee's lecture to "ex-Southern Baptists":

I hope it is clear that I am sad rather than angry about the SBC split from the BWA, and -- for that matter -- the split between the conservatives who now firmly control the SBC and the moderates and progressives who have largely left it. Most of the time (but not always) I heard sadness rather than anger when the SBC was mentioned in Prague. There were a few presentations still characterized by what felt to me like active hostility toward the SBC.

These all came from Americans, mainly aggrieved former Southern Baptists. I wonder when the anger, hurt, and grief that so many still feel about the SBC will finally run its course. My sad fear is that a generation of wounded “exes” will never get there, and that only their retirement will end their public airing of the hurt and anger that resulted from the SBC controversy. It would be nice if Baptists could (re)learn a radical commitment to Christian forgiveness -- which would mean not that some of us weren’t hurt, but that all of us know that Jesus demands that we forgive.

Bruce Prescott, Executive-Director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, responded to Gushee's column with a post titled Unity or Integrity. Here's Prescott:

What David Gushee doesn't realize is that forgiving Southern Baptists for leaving the Baptist World Alliance is relatively easy for many of us. We are constantly praying "father forgive them, they know not what they do." We don't seek the Spirit's power to forgive them, we seek it to forgive the myopia of those, like Gushee, who insist that unity is more important to Baptists than moral integrity.

...Unity on Southern Baptist terms, and those are the only terms by which unity can be achieved, is the last thing that the world needs today. Southern Baptists have completely undermined the integrity of the Baptist witness in the eyes of the world. More than anything else, the world needs to hear that all Baptists are not like Southern Baptists....Today, there is no way to maintain moral integrity as a Baptist without distinguishing yourself from Southern Baptists. That may look like "SBC bashing" to some. To others, it looks like an apology to the world on behalf of Baptists and a call for all Christians to repent.

And today, Robert Parham, Executive-Director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, has weighed in on his discussion.

When the Southern Baptist Convention began the process of defunding the Baptist World Alliance and bore false witness against it, some Southern Baptists, who claimed to support the BWA, were publicly silent. They dared not challenge openly, if at all, the fundamentalist leadership. They engaged in collusion with wrongdoing, and that helped the SBC's abandonment of the Baptist global commons. Some of those same folk now express grief that the SBC isn't part of the BWA. Wanting the SBC to rejoin the BWA, they have the gall to blame the so-called angry, former Southern Baptist moderates, who are near retirement, for being a stumbling block to a reunited Baptist family. They have apparently forgotten what happened only four short years ago.

Moral amnesia is never a virtue. It's always a prerequisite to a weak view of human sinfulness and a wrongful social analysis, which cripples constructive reformation. Moral forgetfulness enables one to erase one's own complicity in the failure to show courage and do the right thing.

And Parham's conclusion:

...Even so, some finger the aging SBC moderates as those who should repent for alleged SBC bashing, which apparently in the minds of some is what keeps the SBC from rejoining the BWA. That is moral rubbish. Free from domineering fundamentalism, the BWA is a stronger, healthier organization today than it has been in years, one that can engage in constructive dialogue and interface with the 21st century realities. This year in Prague global Baptists spoke openly about more inclusive leadership, dialogue with Muslims, the status of Baptists in the West Bank, the situation of the Roma people, global climate change and a host of other timely and touchy topics. That would not have been possible with the SBC in the room

First, it is worth noting that David Gushee has objected to Bruce Prescott's analysis. In the comment thread, Gushee states that he is "not calling for unity at the price of integrity." I usually like Gushee's ABP op-ed's especially his most recent writings on homosexuality. I enjoyed reading his book, The Future of Faith in American Politics. But rarely, if ever, do I find myself in total agreement with Gushee on the subject of the Southern Baptist Convention. Maybe our differences can be most easily explained by the fact that up until making the trek to Mercer University a year or so ago, Gushee was still a self-described "Southern Baptist ethicist." Honestly, I can't really recall the last time that I used the words "Southern Baptist" to describe myself. I suspect I was last a self-described "Southern Baptist" around 1992 when I was baptized, shortly before being shown the door by fundamentalists at First Baptist Soperton, Georgia. Another difference: Gushee describes the events of the 1980s as a "conservative resurgence" while I recognize the Southern Baptist Controversy for what it really was...a fundamentalist takeover - "fundamentalist" being a word that Gushee oddly refuses to use in this context.

I am, however, in complete agreement with Bruce Prescott when he says that "there is no way to maintain moral integrity as a Baptist without distinguishing yourself from Southern Baptists." If doing so qualifies as SBC Bashing, so be it. When having political/theological discussions at the University of Georgia, I ALWAYS had to explain myself to others. Folks I encountered just couldn't understand how I could vote Democrat and be a Baptist. Surely Gushee understands this reality. So, as long as "Baptist" is still synonymous with "Southern Baptist" in the minds of most Christians and non-Christians, I will continue to explain why I don't share Richard Land's politics and Al Mohler's theology. Doing so in positive terms might be a little difficult at times. But my integrity demands explaining to the uninformed what "Being Baptist" means to me and millions like me.