If I were approached by someone who was thinking of becoming a Baptist….

… and they asked if I’d take a moment to talk with them, I would drop everything and take as much time as that person needed.

I would have very good things to say about what it means to be Baptist, the church I grew up in, and especially the people in the church I grew up in. And I’d be honest about why I am not a Baptist today, even though there is a GARB church a few miles away.

Baptists spend their lives trying to live a life pleasing to the Lord and looking forward to seeing Jesus and departed loved ones. Everything they do revolves around that. Monday thru Sunday, morning to evening. From work to play to dinner to TV to music and movies and books.

What’s wrong with that? They give more than a day’s work for a day’s wages. They pay their taxes. They vote and go to PTA meetings and support local police and charities. They give their children square meals and teach them to say please and thank you and you’re welcome. They get vaccines and play sports to try to win and lose graciously and are kind to animals and children and the elderly and the homeless and hungry and infirm.

And they pray their hearts out when others are suffering.

Good Baptists are the finest people you will ever meet. My recent worship choices are based on some ideas being more right than others, not some ideas being wrong.

If you want to be a Baptist, you will find no better people to worship with.

Why am I writing this?

Over the past few years, I’ve asked some others about their faith who were, or had been, deeply steeped in it; these were not “Oh, by the way” conversations; I’d asked to sit down with them with the understanding I was inquiring about their faith. However, I didn’t get the same response I would have gotten from a Baptist. Some were too busy, others had left the church, some were indifferent.

(I have on some occasions been pleased with the response, so please don’t read yourself into this if you’re among those I’ve talked to or exchanged email with. And please don’t assume Baptists are always interested in talking about their faith and everyone else isn’t. I did, however, detect a pattern.)

If you believe what you believe is critical down here and in the hereafter, others will know it; and if you don’t, they’ll figure that out too. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but most folks aren't going to work to get it out of you.

 

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The GARB grew out of a schism with the American Baptists. "The Baptist Bible Union (BBU) ... was the forerunner to the GARBC. The final meeting of the BBU in 1932 in Chicago was the first meeting of the GARBC." Source >

Comparative summary of baptism traditions >

[2013-09-13]

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