tagged: Featured, IMB, NAMB, Rastis, SBC, Seminary

The Baptist Triangle: Just as Dangerous as Bermuda Only Without the Beaches

Posted by Rastis in Baptist Life, Church & Missions, IMPACT Features

There is a trend of division within the the Southern Baptist ranks which many people attribute to different theological traditions, generational gaps, or different sub-cultures.  While there is certainly truth with these categorizations, I think there is another element that is often missed: affinity.  Although this is painting with a broad brush, I propose that many of our disagreements and fights are better understood in light of three distinct groups: churches, seminaries and missionaries.

Whenever I write anything, I know there are certain people (fellow bloggers and commenter) who will take various stances in commendation and criticism regarding what I wrote.  Some times, it seems that we could almost copy and past our comments from our last discussion even though the topic has changed.  There tends to be a pattern of who agrees and disagrees with me and their chosen “affinity group.”  I am sure that many of my responses are just as obvious and predictable.  When I talk to each of the three groups there is a sense in which each one feels the other two groups are wrong, and perhaps out to get them.  For example, many in pastoral settings have expressed concerns with both the seminary crowd and the missionary community.  It was not to long ago that I wrote a post mildly defending the Camel Method.  I wrote that post because it appeared to me that there was a group of pastors and seminary proffs who didn’t completely understand the issue but were willing to go after those who contextualized.  I have talked with churches, missionaries, and seminarians who thought that the other two were in some way out to get them.

Let’s have a closer look at these three groups and how they interact.  I do not intend the following descriptions to be prescriptive or theological in any sense of the word.  These definitions are to highlight the focus and values of each group:

Churches: These are groups which have inherited a particular tradition as it relates to theology and worship.  These groups tend to focus on the local community where they are living.  The pastor’s tend to be focused on the daily life of the church.  They are practical and typically not interested in pie in the sky strategies and theologies.  They are the keepers of orthopraxy (in so far as it has been handed to them) and find changes in the local culture and worship form more obvious, if not glaring, than nuances between theological positions.  For example, most of the rank and file would not notice if their pastor slightly changed his views on the end times or from Pipers view of justification to N.T. Wright’s, but unfavorable changes in the worship order and style will warrant sharp and instantaneous criticism.  Don’t believe me?  Just cancel mother’s day or veteran’s day.
Their catch .22:  While suffering the criticism from many seminary proffs for not being theological enough and from missionaries for not being missional enough, the burden of production rests on their shoulders.  Without the churches there is no IMB, NAMB, SBC, and seminaries.  They send their young men and women to seminaries and the field only to have them returned to them “corrupted.”

Seminaries: These groups are less connected to what is happening at the street level and far more connected to what happens intellectually, past or present.  They are not so concerned with the crisis of a neighborhood going through a dramatic demographic shift and the result it has on the church on the corner as they are with addressing the latest theological trends.  They tend to be ardently non-pragmatic and are the keepers of orthodoxy (which is usually understood in the western context only).
Their catch .22: They bear the brunt of the responsibility for training the next generations of pastors.  Whether this is the way it is supposed to be or not, this burden is laid at their feet.  At the same time, since they are part of the training process, they also bear responsibility for the state of many churches and missionaries which they are prone to criticize.

Missionaries: This group is driven by the culture “out there” (or they are supposed to be).  The colonial era of missions is over and Missionaries intentionally try not to export American culture.  The majority of workers are more feeling based rather than thinking based (there is a personality test we take).   They attempt to explain Christian truths in contexts which often lack the linguistic the philosophical boxes to put the new content into which often forces them into positions which appear on the surface to be heretical (read: non-western) since they neither look like what we have always done before (orthopraxy) nor do they sound like the way we have talked about it before (orthodoxy).
Their catch .22: They are between churches (whose support they need) and seminaries (whose affirmation they need) that tend to not be connected to the foreign field and tend not to understand exactly what it is that they do and how they do it.  On the other side, they face a target culture which also doesn’t understand who they are or what they do.

This three-way divide is not simply a division between different theological camps.  For example, this divide is not centered on arminians vs. clavinists.  There are people from each theological camp in each affinity group.  There are calvinistic Acts 29 pastors who draw the ire of fellow calvinists who serve in more traditional churches or seminaries.  The difference is not theology as much as it is praxis.

This three-way divide is not simply a generational divide.  I try to be contextual in all I do, but that is not because I am younger.  I have learned it from older men (some of whom are already with the Lord) who contextualized.  There are many young people who are not contextual in any sense of the word.  While there are many young people who were quick to hop on the band wagon to the contemporary service (which is considered to be a generational divide) there is a growing movement of young people who are now seeking out high church!

This three-way divide is not simply a matter of training.  Many people in all three camps have been seminary trained. While some argue that contextualization is an ivory tower theology, there are many with no training who contextualize.  At the same time, there are many who are indeed seminary trained who don’t contextualize.  Furthermore, if we are simply to blame the blind spot of any camp we aren’t fond of on seminary, then we could just as easily say traditional church is the product of the seminary.  Since most of us with conflicting views on ministry have come through the seminary system, it seems overly simplistic to simply throw the seminaries under the bus.

4. Discipleship.  It is not only missionaries who need to be contextual, seminarians to be theological, and pastors to be pastoral.  Perhaps one of the problems with both missiology and theology is that they are practiced in exclusion to each other.  We need people who are radically committed to the mission and are doing theology at the same time.  This is exactly what Paul did.  In spite of most people considering him to be a pastor-theologian, he was a missionary-theologian.  The same is true of church and mission; these have often been done in exclusion to each other.  We have many missionaries and strategies which are “lone ranger” strategies.  Conversely, we have many churches that fail to think about their changing context.  We need pastors and churches to look at their context locally in a way that a missionary does internationally and we need missionaries who look at the mission as a group project.  There is an African proverb which says “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far go together.”  The key to this kind of cross-pollination is incorporating it into training each affinity group.  In seminary studies, many programs have the required intro to missiology.  Is this really an adequate introduction to equip our pastors to understand and supply the field with fresh workers?  Everything begins at the local church and thus, if we are to see change in any of the affinity groups it has to begin there.