Wade Burleson and Freedom

Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, OK, has been fighting a battle for Christian freedom of conscience in the Southern Baptist Convention for the last couple of years. He has stood against persons and policies that unduly restrict Baptists from participating in Southern Baptist life.

Though I may not agree doctrinally with some of Wade's positions, I do praise his spirit of grace. And for me, spirit trumps doctrine anytime. That is what the NT tells us plainly. Several weeks ago I sent this message to Wade.

Wade,
I have followed your journey for the last year and have gloried in your courage and Christian spirit. You have embodied the historic struggle for freedom that is characteristic of Baptists. I salute and honor your efforts.

Baptists have been fighting for personal, spiritual freedom from their earliest beginning. They fought for freedom from the Roman Catholic Church, from the Church of England, from the Presbyterian church in Scotland, from the Lutheran church in Germany, and from the Puritan churches in New England. They have refused to be bound by any authoritative religious power that limited their freedom of conscience, biblical interpretation, and practice of worship.

They have been accused of being illiterate, uneducated, uncontrolled heretics. They have been distrusted because they have pursued a freedom that authoritarian Christians could neither understand nor appreciate.

The Baptist comfort with this kind of freedom has stemmed from their belief in a personal relationship with God through Jesus. They believe that this personal faith relationship produces a spirit of humility, truthfulness, dignity, honorableness and love. It changes the spirit of persons because it allows the Spirit of God to enter the heart and life of the believer.

Baptists learned from the beginning that doctrinal positions had little to do with the personality of believers. The biblical teachings about having a spirit of grace and agape were not automatically connected to any doctrinal position. The gracious spirits found in Christians were the result of a personal connection with the Living Heavenly Father.

As a result, Baptists have placed far more emphasis on knowing God personally than they have on authoritarian dogma. Their insistence on being born again has been a foreign language to those who believe that orthodox doctrine is the key to pleasing God. Baptists have been more attuned to the spirit of care and kindness, truth and honesty, and the unselfish humility of believers. These are indicators of a born again heart, spirit and life.

The Southern Baptist Convention has also known this struggle for freedom from its very beginning. Great pains were taken by its founders to ensure that it could have no authority over individuals or churches. Nothing the Convention decides has any binding power over its cooperating churches. The assembled Convention is simply an annual business meeting to decide how its monies are to be spent, and to receive reports from that expenditure. It has no membership. It only has contributing churches. These churches are completely free to do as they please. They simply contribute to cooperative efforts with other like minded churches.

Many Christians do not trust freedom. They do not trust the working of the Spirit of God in the hearts of those who have a personal relationship with him. They have a difficult time in relating to those who have come to differing positions in biblical understanding. They are looking for mental assent to propositions about the faith rather than for a particular spirit in the behavior and attitudes of fellow believers.

Historically, Baptists have fought a lonely fight. Most other Christian peoples believe that they should be subject to some degree of authoritarian oversight. Be they Catholic or Nazarene, they are more comfortable with some form of extra-congregational accountability. Baptists have exercised a level of church independence that is unpleasant to those Christians who place great value on doctrinal orthodoxy. Baptists have followed a lonely road.

People cannot understand how forty thousand churches with no central authority can voluntarily cooperate to accomplish missions and education unless they can also understand the Baptist commitment to personal rebirth. Pastors from all kinds of churches can gather annually and share the spirit of God’s presence in their hearts and lives. They can glory in a common faith without being concerned with lockstep doctrine. Dogma is a dirty word for them. Knowing the Lord and walking in the Spirit are what they value the most. They are strange people. They are a peculiar people.

There has always been a portion of the pastors of the Southern Baptist Convention who place more emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy than on living in the Spirit. They would rather the Convention be more concerned about proper biblical interpretation than about like minded churches cooperating in a world enterprise. Church, associational, state, and Convention leaders have understood what would happen to cooperation at all levels if authoritarian leaders assumed leadership positions.

Historically, some pastors of very large Baptist churches have never been nominated for Convention leadership positions. Their spirit of authoritarianism, and criticism of pastors who disagree with their biblical positions, has made them disqualified for leadership of such a diversified Baptist family. Baptists do not trust authoritarianism or intolerance. Their freedom has been pressured by such from their very beginnings. They want leaders who believe in true freedom of conscience, biblical interpretation, and worship. That is simply who Baptists have always been.

Blessings to you my brother. You have that Baptist spirit. You can lead where others must coerce or deceive. You are free and you allow others to be free also.

Grace: The Second Mile

The teachings of Jesus are replete with illustrations of what a lifestyle of grace looks like.  From these we continue to clarify our understandings about what grace meant to him.  Matthew 5.41 contains an miniscule teaching that is filled with meaning.  It is an interplay between behavior that is legalistic and that which is of grace.

And whosoever shall compel you to go one mile, go with him two.

The Roman law allowed Roman soldiers to press citizens of conquered countries into their service.  A soldier could demand that a citizen carry his goods for a mile.  It was the law.

As we might expect, this law created constant hostility and hatred on the part of the citizen and the soldier.  When the mile was finished the citizen walked away swearing vengeance.  He lived for the day when the soldier would get the reward which he deserved.  At the same time, the soldier continued to despise the citizen.

Jesus told his disciples to break this pattern of legalism and hatred.  He asked them to carry the goods a second mile, even though the law did not require it.  The first mile was required, the second was a gift.  It was a gift of grace.  It was an example of overcoming evil with good.

When the second mile was completed, the attitudes of both parties became different than the norm.  The disciple was pleased that he had handled the situation the way Jesus wanted, with "good works."  The soldier was left scratching his head and wondering why anyone would do what he had just observed.  It would be difficult for him to despise someone who had just given him a free and unsolicited gift.  He probably wanted to ask questions about what had happened.

This is an example of the lifestyle of grace.  It is about treating others with agape.  The concept is very simple, but very profound.  The disciples of Jesus were taught to bless those around them in undeserved ways.  Legalism said to treat persons as they deserved: good to the good and hate to the hateful.  Jesus said just the opposite.  Become a person of grace.

His instructions to us are still the same.  We are to be people of grace.

Contagion of the Christian Spirit

In Rodney Stark's wonderful book entitled The Rise of Christianity, he shares many insights, but one in particular is staggering.  He states that the collective conclusions of many in his sociological field have become convinced that one half or more of the persons in the Roman Empire had become Christian by AD 300.

This would not be so awe inspiring were that Christianity a state church enforced by the government as it was later, or were it a great monolithic authoritarian church.  But it was neither.  It was a movement of persons sharing about their experiences with the Living God, as Paul was fond of doing.

Can you imagine the good news they were sharing person-to-person being so attractive to so many?  When my imagination works on how this could have happened, it immediately requires that the stories told by believers be very appealing stories.  If persons were being changed in spirit and lifestyle like they were on Pentecost, at Antioch, and on the Damascus Road, I can begin to focus on the picture.

Paul constantly wrote about spirits being changed by the presence of the Spirit of God in an individual life.  Persons were receiving new spirits and those spirits were wonderful.  If they were producing the fruits of the Spirit which Paul spoke of, disciples of Jesus were becoming the most wonderful of beautiful people.  They were characterized by the concepts behind the words "grace" and "agape."

If disciples agapied the people around them... If they lived like Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount...  If they returned good for evil...  It is no wonder that their experiences and message was received so widely in so short a time.

They lived in a very religious world, as Paul indicated on Mars Hill.  But the religions in the world were anything but attractive.  Gods were angry and punishing.  Legalism abounded among the gods and their devotees.  Required sacrifices were often unbelievably demanding.  The religions of the ancient world were not "good" news.  They were bad news.

Into this stark and overly serious world came Paul and other disciples who had an entirely different experience with a God who is alive, gracious, loving, and fatherly.  They treated each other and those around them with peace, agape, and genuine care.  They were people of truth and integrity in a world of guile and deception.  What was not to like about this new understanding of God and his ability to create new hearts, minds, and lifestyles in persons who believed in he and his teachings?

Paul told the Roman church that humanity had fallen short of the glory which God intended for it.  These new people of the Way were giving evidence that they were indeed becoming a glorious kind of people.  Obviously, people wanted to know a God who created the kind of persons they were observing.  They were too good to be true.

The Spirit of God is still creating these new creations today.  Regrettably, many of them get overshadowed by persons using the Christian name who do not have this new spirit.  Too many are not persons of grace and agape.  Too many are not good news to their worlds.  Too many do not cause those around them to praise God for what he had done in them.

But the Spirit is still moving in the world, and it will continue to do so.  Amen and amen.

Welcome to this new blog.

It begins today, May 10, 2008.  It is a blog about the insight which has come my way through fifty years of biblical study and reflection.  It is inspired by a love for God and a love for the Bible

Entries will be about biblical understanding.  The Bible is a treasury of wisdom and revelation.  We will probe that treasury for an understanding of God and his activity on Earth.

We will explore the mission of Jesus, and the message he has given to humanity.  I think that mission and message to be earth-shaking and eternal.  It is also wonderfully good news for us all.

The blog is named Grace and Agape because these two words and the meaning behind them are central to understanding Jesus and his message.  They contain definitive concepts of the New Testament Christian community.

Welcome!  I pray that you enjoy our journey, and are inspired by it.  You will see ideas that are very familiar to you, and you will see some that are strange to your previous thinking.  Do not be quick to dismiss the strange.  They will be biblically based and will deserve your consideration.

Blessings to you.  May the Spirit seize your heart as we journey together.