The Many Thoughts of Wanda Kidd

The recent Southern Baptist Convention’s meeting just concluded. We are now headed toward the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in St Louis. During this transition, it dawned on me that this year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.  For many, it was a corruption of the 1963 version of the Baptist Faith and Message. That document had served as a valuable benchmark. It showed how we, an autonomous group of churches, came together. We aimed to serve Jesus through theological and tangible ways. It was an open-handed guide to sharing Jesus’ compassion, love, and grace. It was a voluntary umbrella that allowed us to focus on what we as Baptists had in common rather than what divided us.

This new version of the Baptist Faith and Message became a creed for a non-creedal people. It served as a means of excluding individuals from their calling. It became a requirement for adhering to be included. Additionally, it led to a decentralization of the place of Jesus in our identity.

I served as a campus minister at a state university when this document became the culmination of a twenty-five-year battle for the soul of the convention. Many pastors avoided discussing this topic. They feared potential fallout with their congregations. However, campus ministers in North Carolina felt free to address it with their students. This was especially true if the student came to them to ask questions.

I remember several of those conversations. When they brought it up and asked for my opinion, they always assumed the 2000 BFM’s stance on women in ministry would upset me the most. This was because I was one. They were surprised when it was not.  To me, all the specific objections and exclusions were mere distractions. They distracted from the overarching statement. This rendered all of those arguments seem like straining a gnat. 

The real issue for me was the assertion that all of the Bible was equally valuable. My theological understanding of the Bible was that it is all instructive. However, as Christians, we should filter everything through the teachings of Jesus. We gain a clearer understanding of the God of the Old Testament through the teachings of Jesus. Paul’s writings help in this understanding too. Although valuable, they must always be viewed through the lens of Jesus’ teachings.

That one statement in the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message allowed the adherents to cherry-pick verses that supported their prejudices and elevate them above the teachings of Jesus.  That terrified me then, and the fallout continues to ripple through our Baptist landscape and the world at large. My non-Baptist friends used to tease me because I seemed to know Jesus personally. They said that the Episcopalians elevated the sanctity of God. The Pentecostals embraced the Holy Spirit. We Baptists loved Jesus.  Now it feels like He is just one of many players on the bench, whom we call into the game when we need Him to make the big shot to win the game and the argument.

Twenty-five years is a long time. It has diminished the role of Jesus in our lives, in our churches, and in the world. At this point, the two worldviews of Baptists are not even speaking the same language. This difference shows in how we treat the hungry, the poor, and the sojourners among us. We may not be able to change people with differing views. However, each of us can recommit ourselves to the love of Jesus. We should not grow weary from doing good.