from Roger E. Olson's blog
Strange (but Real) Baptists: An Exercise in Diversity
July 1, 2013 By _Roger E. Olson_
(http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/author/rogereolson/)
Americans are woefully ignorant about religion. Most claim to be religious
or spiritual in some sense but they know little to nothing about various
religious groups that are all around them. Very few people understand
Baptists. Okay, maybe that’s expecting too much. “Understanding Baptists” may
take a lifetime. I’m not sure I can claim that! But what I mean is very few
people realize how diverse Baptists are. There is no one person or group that
speaks for all Baptists—that would go against the very nature of being
Baptist. And yet I meet people who think there must be a Baptist headquarters
somewhere. Even the local newspaper, in this metro area packed with
Baptists, occasionally refers to “the Baptist church” even when it is
referring
to all Baptists generally. I have tried to inform them that no such thing
exists. One can speak rightly of “The United Methodist Church,” but one
cannot speak rightly of any Baptist group using the word “The” followed by “
Church” except the local Baptist congregation (as in “The Baptist church on
the corner”). Baptist denominations are always only voluntary associations,
conventions, conferences, of local Baptist congregations and have no
authority over them (except to expel them in which case the local congregation
keeps everything and can simply join another Baptist group).
Like many other movements and religious-spiritual groups “Baptists” are a
centered set, not a bounded set. We (I include myself as a Baptist) are a
group without borders or boundaries. If someone thinks there are boundaries
around “Baptists,” I’d like to know what it is. When they mention it (or
them) I simply ask “Who says?” There’s no magisterium to say; there’s no
Baptist pope to say; there’s no Baptist headquarters to say. As a religious
type Baptists have a history and all we can do is talk about certain
historical commitments common to most Baptists and then admit there are always
exceptions. Of course, someone might say of the exceptions “Well, they’re
not true Baptists.” But they can’t make that stick. All they can really
mean, at best, is “In my opinion that group of so-called Baptists have
wandered
so far away from anything historically recognizable as ‘Baptist’ that I
don’t consider them Baptists.” I will say that about some groups of
Baptists, but I can’t enforce it. Nobody can. After saying that, I still have
to
admit that if they call themselves “Baptists,” given the peculiar history
and character of Baptists, they are.
So let me illustrate with three groups of Baptists about which few people
are aware—including most Baptists. Even most Baptists scholars, scholars of
Baptists, aren’t aware of them. But they should be.
First, Christianity Today recently reported on a Baptist denomination (if
any Baptist groups can be called that this one can!) in the former Soviet
republic of Georgia (not the state of Georgia in the U.S.). It’s called the
Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia and mimics the Eastern Orthodox in
some theology, church leadership (bishops) and worship (incense and icons).
(See the on line article “The Baptist Bearing Robes and Incense” dated June
22, 2013. “Google” it!) Fascinating.
Second, a group of Baptists in the Caribbean (especially Trinidad and
Tobago) is called “Spiritual Baptists.” It exists in organized form in New
York
as The Spiritual Baptist Archdiocese of New York. All one has to do to see
diversity among Baptists is “Google” this group and/or watch some of
their worship services and ceremonies on Youtube. According to some scholars
who have studied them, at least some of their churches have incorporated
communication with the dead into their services—not séances per se but the
pastor receiving greetings from recently deceased members and passing them on
to the congregation. Rumors of syncretism abound about this group of
Baptists and especially rumors about the blending of Orisha beliefs and
practices
with their Christianity.
Third, there exists in the Appalachian Mountains of the U.S. a “
sub-denomination” of Baptists called “No-Hellers” by some observers. See
scholar
Howard Dorgan’s book In the Hands of a Happy God: The “No-Hellers” of Central
Appalachia (University of Tennessee Press, 1997). These are “Regular
Baptists” who do not believe in hell—fundamentalist universalists! They have
entire congregations that together constitute a network although there is no
headquarters as such.
There are at least “57 Varieties” of Baptists in the U.S. alone and
hundreds more around the world. What do they all have in common beyond the
word “
Baptist” (and in some cases even that’s missing!)? Well, that’s hard to
say. So far as I know, however, all 1) practice believer baptism and not
infant baptism, 2) deny that water baptism is necessary for salvation but make
it a condition of full church membership, and 3) emphasize religious
liberty. Historically, all trace their roots back in one way or another to the
first Baptist congregations in England (that sojourned in Holland for a time)
in 1610/1611 if not further back to the radical Reformers, the
Anabaptists.
So what lesson does this teach? We should be wary of generalizing about any
religious group; there is likely to be more diversity than we suspect if
it is old and large. Baptists are among the most diverse of Protestant
groups. Baptists of all people should learn to acknowledge diversity.
=================================
Selected Comments
I remember seeing on the news a Baptist church that practiced polygamy
----------
I've heard that there are some Baptist Buddhists running around out there,
too
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I wouldn't be surprised
------------
Many Baptist conferences, conventions, church associations have statements
of faith. Some function as creeds within those particular groups. My point
was that there is no single document that all Baptists adhere to other than
the Bible (and they interpret it differently).The Baptist Faith & Messages
is a distinctively Southern Baptist document; it does not speak for other
Baptists.
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