Mitch Carnell

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Posts Tagged Baptists

“Religious Liberty” is being hijacked; Rev. Dr. Molly Marshall – BaptistNewsGlobal

Aug 29

Posted by Mitch in Articles, Christian Civility, Say Something Nice | Comments off

It is much easier to sit in front of my computer screen and opine about government, politicians, policies and the challenge of living in a democratic municipality than it is to enter the political process as one voice among others. It is much easier to limit my engagement to spaces and contexts where most are in agreement. It’s easy to sit in our Sunday school classes and talk about our responsibilities in the public square. It’s much harder to actually move from theoretical advocacy to responsibly and faithfully inhabiting those places where decisions are made about the common good.

I recently had such an opportunity as the city in which I live was debating whether or not we need a nondiscrimination ordinance to protect LGBTQ persons in our community. I went to a public meeting as a private citizen, as a person of faith with clear convictions about justice and as a religious figure who serves as president of a seminary that resides in the area the city council oversees. I went as one voice among others (which is always helpful to those of us given to pontification).

Members of our community had been working on this for more than a year. It takes great patience and strategic thinking to make policy change. As one who came late to this movement, I grew in respect for those who have labored to garner support and sift what is at stake. They are serving the common good in ways that may surpass some of our faith communities that are more insular.

I was pleasantly surprised by the level of civility. No one clapped, hissed or booed. Persons listened attentively to those with whom they disagreed on the nature of human sexuality, religious freedom and public accommodation. And we stayed a very long time in order to give each one opportunity to present perspectives on the proposed ordinance. I found myself on the opposite side of some other clergy, especially Roman Catholics, which was painful since I care intensely about unity of the Body of Christ.

I felt it important to stress that persons of faith can find inclusive ways to express their own religious freedom. It requires empathy and attentiveness to those whose experience we may not understand. I spoke about the journey our school has been on, seeking to be nondiscriminatory in all our functions.

“We must work to preserve human dignity and religious liberty for all.”

For the past seven years, Central Baptist Theological Seminary has had a non-discriminatory policy that names gender identity and sexual orientation. Our board is far from a wild-eyed liberal group; rather they are sober, faithful people who believe in religious liberty, justice and compassion. They acknowledged that we know a lot more today about human sexuality than when the Scriptures were penned. We believed it was the right position for a school that prepares leaders for ministry.

Some in attendance at the city council meeting were stunned that “a Baptist can be open minded,” as one put it, after I articulated our institutional perspective. The popular (and rather monolithic) conception of who Baptists are is less than admirable.

I presented a few brief words of witness from the perspective of religious liberty, especially as the rhetoric of discrimination is heating up nationally, kindled by the Trump administration. Reportscontinue to surface that the president is asking the Supreme Court to legalize workplace discrimination against gay employees.

Religious liberty does not mean persons can do whatever they please. We live in community as citizens in a democracy that has both legal and social obligations. The free exercise of religion is within a larger commonwealth, which has implications for the religious liberty of others.

Thus, the limits of religious liberty have to do with whether or not its exercise causes harm to another. Precluding employment, housing or public accommodation is life-threatening and injures already vulnerable citizens. We are aware of the statistics of incidences of suicide attempts among LGBTQ youth and adults; additionally, violence against this community is rampant.

Congregations are free to do what they choose about including or excluding sexual minorities from membership, roles of leadership either ordained or lay, and whether to provide pastoral services (including weddings) to LGBTQ couples. The church or synagogue or temple can determine how it will exercise its religious liberty. It can exclude in a way a civil society cannot, yet many religious leaders are learning how to include and accord dignity to those formerly marginalized by faith communities.

As the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has concluded: “A baker or florist’s religious beliefs do not provide a blanket exemption to state or local laws that protect customers against discrimination in the commercial marketplace. Granting an exemption could drastically undermine nondiscrimination laws which provide important protections for religious customers.” This balanced perspective offers a helpful approach to the thorny issues a community faces. Baptists and other communions caring about religious liberty can trust the BJC as a reliable guide on current legal challenges.

“The limits of religious liberty have to do with whether or not its exercise causes harm to another.”

We must work to preserve human dignity and religious liberty for all. This means that employment, housing and commercial services are equally available to all. It is the right thing to do; it is good for our community; and, yes, it is good for business. Across the nation, the law is trending toward equality. The church must not lag behind.

We must not be absent from the social landscape. Schools and churches are members of the larger community, and we are called to participate constructively as faithful interpreters of gospel values. Keeping silent is not helpful in our times when the principle of religious liberty, as set forth in the First Amendment, is being hijacked by religious leaders and others who give it a narrow sectarian meaning that argues for personal privilege and concomitant discrimination.

The proposed ordinance passed with a 5-2 vote. It was an act of compassion and justice for which I am grateful. I pray it will be but one of many grassroots-led actions for the common good in the days ahead.

Related commentary:

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Why all Christians, not just Baptists, are indebted to Glenn Hinson*

Apr 5

Posted by Mitch in Articles, Christian Civility, Say Something Nice | Comments off

DOUG WEAVER | APRIL 4, 2019 Baptistsnewsglobal.com

During the last weekend of March, Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, hosted a celebration honoring the life and work of E. Glenn Hinson, longtime professor of church history at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who later taught at Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond and Baptist Seminary of Kentucky.

With Hinson in the audience, Loyd Allen, Raymond Bailey, Alan Culpepper, Bill Leonard, Karen Smith and Phyllis Rodgerson Pleasants Tessieri, who had been Hinson’s students and faculty colleagues, gave lectures and described Hinson’s influence on their scholarship. During worship at Crescent Hill on Sunday, Elizabeth Hinson-Hastey included in her sermon insights on Hinson from her unique perspective as his daughter.

In many ways, the weekend was a reunion of the “old Southern Seminary” – a band of alumni, most of whom graduated before the Albert Mohler era, celebrating life beyond their exile of decades past. It was a gift to all who were there.

After serving as moderator for Crescent Hill’s William M. Johnson Lecture Series, I believe the event merits a postscript since the Hinson legacy celebrated in Kentucky literally reaches around the globe. Here are four of the many gifts Hinson has bequeathed to Baptists and the larger Christian community.

The gift of ecumenism and recognition that we are part of a larger Christian story.
In decades past (and still today), many students arrived on campuses with little knowledge of Christian history. If they knew anything about their Baptist story, it was probably a triumphalistic version and they still knew little or next to nothing about the broader traditions of the faith. It is the legacy of Glenn Hinson that Baptists became more aware of the larger Christian story. He was unique among Baptists, a patristics scholar, and while he added other things to his scholarly repertoire, he never ceased to introduce students to early Christianity.

“Out of his love for the whole history of the church, Hinson embodied ecumenical relationships.”

Out of his love for the whole history of the church, Hinson embodied ecumenical relationships. If you went to seminary and primarily knew and loved only Baptists, you left knowing and loving the church universal. (Who else but Hinson would send me to St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana to take a class on early Christianity with Father Ephraim?)

In his autobiography, Hinson has a subheading: “Catho-Baptist or Bapto-Catholic.” My personal assessment is that Hinson has always been a catholic Baptist, one who loved being Baptist, who affirmed vibrant personal faith, but who also heard the broader call of catholicity and was not afraid to teach his students about Catholic monks or Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. He has been a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.

Hinson describes his identity in even broader terms. He asserts that he is a “Bapto-Quakero-Methodo-Presbytero-Lutherano-Episcopo-Catholic!” And so he is. And his gift of ecumenism to Baptists is a gift that keeps giving.

The gift of Baptist voluntarism and Baptist dissent.
Hinson’s gift of ecumenism has never overshadowed his role as a committed Baptist. Throughout his six decades of teaching and writing, fundamentalist Baptists attacked him unceasingly, and he surely found more freedom, appreciation and rest in ecumenical environments. Yet Hinson never let go of Baptist identity, even as he modeled how someone formed by their own experience and tradition could also be a committed ecumenist. He argued that the essence of Baptist life is voluntarism. (His unwavering emphasis on voluntary faith and soul liberty stood in direct contrast to the coercive conformity of many of his detractors.) He warned Baptists that they had lost their way and had become “corporation Baptists” with little vibrant personal faith or authentic community. He understands Baptists, and his focus on voluntary faith is a gift that keeps giving.

For his colleagues and students, Hinson embodied and modeled Baptist dissent. He was the recipient of fundamentalist blow after blow (how many times was he asked if Adam and Eve were real people?), but he remained faithful and taught us that dissent was an act of faithfulness. Often his dissent was done with sly humor. After repeatedly being charged with universalist tendencies, he once facetiously remarked that he was inclined to such a position, but ultimately universalism failed because fundamentalists were surely going to hell. In this day and age, faithful dissent is a gift of Baptist DNA that must keep giving.

The gift of spirituality; the practice of the presence of God.
Many Baptists owe their introduction to the topic of spirituality and the classic literature of Christian devotion through the classes and writings of Glenn Hinson. In 1980, I was a member of the first class that Hinson taught on prayer. Seminarians flocked to his class on the Christian devotional classics. Students learned about Thomas Merton and the Abbey of Gethsemane because of Hinson’s friendship with his “brother” Merton. Students built their spirituality library with Hinson’s books, including A Serious Call to a Contemplative Lifestyle (1974), Doubleday Devotional Classics (1978) and The Reaffirmation of Prayer (1979).

“Hinson simply embodied that compelling phrase of Brother Lawrence, ‘to practice the presence of God.’”

For his students, Hinson simply embodied that compelling phrase of Brother Lawrence, “to practice the presence of God.” It was no exaggeration and with a bit of holy intimidation that we said, “When Dr. Hinson prays, you know God is there.” And we really weren’t joking when we thought Hinson had mystical visions of what God wanted (defined another way as powerful prayer).

I’ll never forget hearing some of my students in the late 1980s spout off a list of Baptist “heretics,” a list of names no doubt given to them by their pastors to warn them of liberalism in their classes. When I heard Hinson’s name blurted out by more than one naïve, young fundamentalist, I often responded with something like this: “Do you know him? Did you know he took the time to call a student when his father died? Have you heard him pray? Have you seen him in communion with God, practicing the presence of God? (Of course that last phrase flipped their minds.) If you blindly call Glenn Hinson a heretic, you have no idea of whom you speak.”

Spirituality and the need for spiritual formation, even of clergy – sharing the energizing love of God to all of his students – is a gift that keeps on giving.

The gift of identity as scholar, minister and teacher.
Last, but surely not least, Glenn Hinson knows who God called him to be. Throughout his long and venerable career, he never forgot who he was. He modeled what it means to be called to a ministry of teaching and scholarship. His ecumenism, Baptist dissent and practice of the presence of God were consistently lived out in the classroom. He wrote for both the academy and the church – a feat attempted less and less in contemporary higher education.

His grasp of subjects was deep and wide. He knew intimately the classics of Christian devotion such as Catholic Thomas Merton, Quaker Douglas Steere and Baptist John Bunyan, to name but three. Who else in Baptist life could write on ecumenism, patristics, Baptist history, spirituality/spiritual formation/spiritual leadership for ministry, ecclesiology, biblical exegesis, peacemaking and worship in scholarly and popular publications?

“He wrote for both the academy and the church – a feat attempted less and less in contemporary higher education.”

And who else was known for lecturing on all these topics (and more) in churches and educational institutions as well as conferences sponsored by a variety of religious bodies? As the Baptist Renaissance Man, Hinson points to the need of lifelong, broad and liberating learning and of devotion to the ministry of teaching.

Hinson is a scholar/teacher, but he has never lost sight of the practical needs of ministry. That has been his identity. The test questions he asked in “Introduction to Church History” demanded rigorous thinking and quality content; but they also revealed the practical application of Christian history to local church situations (something most churches are not prone to see). For example, I recall this test question: “You’re a minister in _____ position, and one of your church members asks you about _____. Answer them based on your knowledge of this issue in church history.” I copied this format when I started asking test questions (as did others who studied with him). I must admit, however, that I never quite got the answer he once received, “You have asked a very good question, Professor. I want to give you a very thoughtful answer. So let me do some research and let’s meet again next week to discuss it.”

Ecumenical and Baptist? Appreciation and commitment to the church worldwide, past and present? Realize the need for lifelong commitment to spiritual formation? Recognize that scholarship that meets the demands of the academy must also have a role in the church? Know that being Baptist embodies voluntary faith and dissent at its core?

To say that Baptists and other people of faith are “indebted” to E. Glenn Hinson is an understatement.

Editor’s note: The 2019 William M. Johnson lectures will be published by the American Baptist Quarterly. For information about pre-ordering a copy, contact the American Baptist Historical Society.

*Glenn Hinson lectured at the Hamrick Lectureship at First Baptist Church of Charleston, SC. He is a scholar’s scholar and friend.

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Revisiting ‘Battle for the Minds’ after nearly a quarter of a century

Feb 28

Posted by Mitch in Uncategorized | Comments off

MOLLY T. MARSHALL *| FEBRUARY 27, 2019

I have had much to ponder over the past few days as “Battle for the Minds” has been digitized and placed on YouTube. Given all that is transpiring in Southern Baptist life with reference to sexual abuse, it is timely for this documentary to be on the scene once again. It is not only a historical record of a tumultuous time at what many of us called “the mother seminary” in Louisville, Kentucky, but also serves as a cautionary tale about the ongoing misogyny within the Southern Baptist ecclesial tradition.

Former students and present detractors have responded to the video’s revival and its stark portrayal of what was at stake in “the Controversy,” as we called it then. As the social media engagement suggests, there are many who applaud the clear dissent to the Southern Baptist Convention powers that were circling. Others want to take up the conservative battle again, including some who have written to me to question whether or not I am a confessional Christian. I remain one, a thoroughgoing Trinitarian, even if I do not believe the inerrancy of Scripture or the relegation of women to secondary status are requisite. One writer questioned if you can follow Jesus without the pretext of inerrancy. Yes, young man, I think you can.

“We are now seeing some of the foul fruit of this exclusionary ecclesial vision.”

Filmed in the spring of 1995 shortly after I had been pushed out as a professor of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the documentary chronicled faculty and student response to the hostile takeover of a beloved theological school for the purpose of preserving a patriarchal vision of ministry and, more importantly, of God. We are now seeing some of the foul fruit of this exclusionary ecclesial vision, and the Southern Baptist diminishment of women is revealing the pernicious outcomes in damaged lives as male hegemony has persisted.

One of the things that struck me as I viewed “Battle” once again were the prophetic voices of colleagues Paul Simmons and Henlee Barnette (of blessed memory) who held forth the best theological ethics of the seminary’s tradition as they questioned the captivity of thought to the agenda of the religious right. They were prescient as they saw the impact of politics and religion too deeply entwined. It took courage for them to appear in the film, and they aptly sized up the implications of the kind of inculcation portended in the seismic shifts occurring then (and now).

One of the students in the film who was supportive of the new regime went so far as to say that one does not come to seminary to learn new things, but to have reinforced what one already believed. The seminary experience was intended to be an affirmation of grassroots theology, not an openness to the wider intellectual heritage of the church.

My experience as a student at Southern was just the opposite. I needed to hear the challenge to my narrow Landmark Baptist identity forged in Muskogee, Oklahoma. (I only discovered the heresy of the Landmarkist “Trail of Blood” theory while sitting in Glenn Hinson’s church history course.) I needed to hear of the common pre-Reformation heritage of the church. I needed to learn from theologians, historians, scripture scholars and ethicists how the faith tradition had developed and been passed on. Even more, I needed to witness the godly example of these faithful scholars who gave themselves in the classroom day by day and offered their gifts in the churches on weekends.

“God put me on the planet to love students and stir the theological pot.”

While many think of the damaged lives of faculty during the fundamentalist takeover of our beloved seminary, it was the students who bore the larger burden of sorting through what was going on. They saw faculty members they trusted pilloried; they saw a shifting landscape for the churches they might serve; and they saw abuse of power in how the board and president disposed of those who did not fit the new symbol system they were erecting. Surely a woman theologian did not fit into the iconography, as my life attests.

A Baptist diaspora followed the conquest of Southern. Faculty members populated established schools like Baylor and helped found new theological schools, most imbedded in universities. The charism of Southern continues as it is scattered throughout these new sites of ministry preparation. Often when the consortium of CBF-affiliated schools gathers, former faculty colleagues from Southern will gravitate toward one another. As Bill Leonard has remarked, “You kind of know who you shot the rapids with.” Truly!

I was very fortunate in that God preserved my vocation to form leaders for the church. Three days after I was terminated, I received a call from Central Baptist Theological Seminary to begin a conversation about planting my life in Kansas City. If that sounds like resurrection, it surely was — and is! God put me on the planet to love students and stir the theological pot.

For these ensuing years, I have served in a hospitable space among the American Baptists and alongside the CBF. I give thanks for this welcome, and I am grateful for the ways the wider Baptist identity continues to become more inclusive of its daughters.

“Dr. Molly Marshall was a favorite speaker in the Hamrick Lectures held at First Baptist Church in Charleston, SC. Her’s is a voice I always turn to for guidance.

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Dear Judge Kavanaugh: Jennifer Hawks – BaptistsNewsGlobal.com

Sep 6

Posted by Mitch in Uncategorized, Articles | Comments off

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

As a fellow attorney who – like you – takes my faith seriously and is actively engaged in my congregation, I am sure we have much in common. However, we seem to disagree about the robust way that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, alongside the Free Exercise Clause, has protected religious liberty in our country and permitted religious dissenting groups – including Baptists and Catholics – to thrive.

The institutional separation of religion and government is a foundational aspect of our democracy, one deeply rooted in our shared history and experience.

In reviewing your record, I was disappointed to learn that you think the metaphor of a wall of separation is “wrong as a matter of law and history.” Admittedly, all metaphors are imperfect; yet, good metaphors are one of the best ways to conceptualize an abstract idea. As a religious liberty advocate, constitutional attorney and ordained Baptist minister, I urge you to reconsider the metaphor you’ve disparaged.

The wall metaphor was first articulated by Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and the First Baptist Church in America. He said that a wall was needed to protect the “garden of the Church” from the “wilderness of the world.” Church and state governed two different realms, and neither would ever truly succeed if distracted by the ultimate concerns of the other. President Thomas Jefferson famously picked up the metaphor and used it to reassure Baptists in Connecticut that the new constitutional government would indeed protect their religious freedom.

“For faith to be vital, it must be voluntary and uncoerced.”

Separating the institutions of religion and government ensures that the rights and responsibilities of citizenship do not rise or fall based on compliance with state-sanctioned religion. The institutional wall provided space for our dissenting religious ancestors to seek converts and pass their religious teachings down to current generations. It is up to the people, not the government, to teach our respective faith traditions to future generations. For faith to be vital, it must be voluntary and uncoerced.

This is why the concept of a wall of separation worked for Roger Williams and President Jefferson – and still works today. The wall does not keep people of faith from the public square but separates institutional control. There is debate about the application of “the wall,” but it is certainly not “bad history,” nor is it useless in modern debates.

“It is not the role of the state educational institution to dictate religious conformity by telling students when or how to pray.”

Judge Kavanaugh, we see this in our public schools. I imagine that, like myself and millions of other Americans, you place a high value on the power of prayer and see it as a conversation with God. I know that you and I agree that public school students have the right to individually and collectively pray on school grounds. What I am unsure of is whether you also agree that students have the right to choose not to pray. It is not the role of the state educational institution to dictate religious conformity by telling students when or how to pray. Even between us Christians, there is a vast difference between typical Catholic prayers and typical Baptist prayers, let alone the prayers of non-Christian faiths. A government institution should never be allowed to force any of us, much less children in state-run schools, into religious observance.

Colonial Baptists, Catholics and other dissenters endured imprisonment, whippings, fines and other forms of state-sanctioned religious persecution so that each American could voluntarily choose to be a person of faith or not. As members of the American legal community who value our respective faith traditions, we must remember and continue to honor those sacrifices by taking seriously – and enforcing robustly – both Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.

America has never been united by a single religion, but in the Constitution we secured unity in a commitment to religious freedom for all people. Separation of church and state is good for both.

Respectfully,

Rev. Jennifer Hawks
Associate General Counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Libertyge Kavanaugh, the wall of separation is worth defending
OPINIONJENNIFER HAWKS | SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

26344
Dear Judge Kavanaugh:

As a fellow attorney who – like you – takes my faith seriously and is actively engaged in my congregation, I am sure we have much in common. However, we seem to disagree about the robust way that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, alongside the Free Exercise Clause, has protected religious liberty in our country and permitted religious dissenting groups – including Baptists and Catholics – to thrive.

The institutional separation of religion and government is a foundational aspect of our democracy, one deeply rooted in our shared history and experience.

In reviewing your record, I was disappointed to learn that you think the metaphor of a wall of separation is “wrong as a matter of law and history.” Admittedly, all metaphors are imperfect; yet, good metaphors are one of the best ways to conceptualize an abstract idea. As a religious liberty advocate, constitutional attorney and ordained Baptist minister, I urge you to reconsider the metaphor you’ve disparaged.

The wall metaphor was first articulated by Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and the First Baptist Church in America. He said that a wall was needed to protect the “garden of the Church” from the “wilderness of the world.” Church and state governed two different realms, and neither would ever truly succeed if distracted by the ultimate concerns of the other. President Thomas Jefferson famously picked up the metaphor and used it to reassure Baptists in Connecticut that the new constitutional government would indeed protect their religious freedom.

“For faith to be vital, it must be voluntary and uncoerced.”

Separating the institutions of religion and government ensures that the rights and responsibilities of citizenship do not rise or fall based on compliance with state-sanctioned religion. The institutional wall provided space for our dissenting religious ancestors to seek converts and pass their religious teachings down to current generations. It is up to the people, not the government, to teach our respective faith traditions to future generations. For faith to be vital, it must be voluntary and uncoerced.

This is why the concept of a wall of separation worked for Roger Williams and President Jefferson – and still works today. The wall does not keep people of faith from the public square but separates institutional control. There is debate about the application of “the wall,” but it is certainly not “bad history,” nor is it useless in modern debates.

“It is not the role of the state educational institution to dictate religious conformity by telling students when or how to pray.”

Judge Kavanaugh, we see this in our public schools. I imagine that, like myself and millions of other Americans, you place a high value on the power of prayer and see it as a conversation with God. I know that you and I agree that public school students have the right to individually and collectively pray on school grounds. What I am unsure of is whether you also agree that students have the right to choose not to pray. It is not the role of the state educational institution to dictate religious conformity by telling students when or how to pray. Even between us Christians, there is a vast difference between typical Catholic prayers and typical Baptist prayers, let alone the prayers of non-Christian faiths. A government institution should never be allowed to force any of us, much less children in state-run schools, into religious observance.

Colonial Baptists, Catholics and other dissenters endured imprisonment, whippings, fines and other forms of state-sanctioned religious persecution so that each American could voluntarily choose to be a person of faith or not. As members of the American legal community who value our respective faith traditions, we must remember and continue to honor those sacrifices by taking seriously – and enforcing robustly – both Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.

America has never been united by a single religion, but in the Constitution we secured unity in a commitment to religious freedom for all people. Separation of church and state is good for both.

Respectfully,

Rev. Jennifer Hawks
Associate General Counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty

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