Scottish Baptist College

What Baptists Stand For: Baptist shaped community

Adjectives are a good thing. But not when they're overused. If that happens, instead of clarifying they get in the way of clear meaning. Intended to qualify the meaning of a noun they are sometimes used to retread tired metaphors, or enhance meaning by piling up compliments or criticisms, or are added in to define more precisely what is already clear. But chosen and used with care, adjectives are important in conveying significant nuance, constructing and construing a more textured statement of what is meant.

The word Baptist can be noun or adjective. In the phrase "Baptist-shaped community" the word "Baptist" is an adjective,  constructing and construing a more textured statement of what is meant when we use the word "community". The adjective qualifies the noun. Baptist qualifies the shape of what is envisaged as community in a Baptist church. So when we use the phrase "Baptist-shaped community" as a value woven through our approach to College life and to theological education as formation for ministry, that word "Baptist" is expected to carry considerable freight.

The reason for that is simple. The word community is in danger of becoming a lazy cliche, a marshmallow word that is soft, sweet and squeezeable into most any shape that suits us. Community in itself isn't necessarily good - communities can be oppressive, introverted, selfish, hierarchical, exclusive. So as Baptists we qualify what we mean by community, and indicate the shape it must take, by bringing it under the cosntraint of Baptist convictions. So what are these convictions, and how do they make a difference to a community so that it is a different kind of community best described as Baptist?

A fellowship of believers, a gathered community of people of faith in Jesus Christ, who have covenanted together to follow faithfully after Christ

That covenant is centred on the person of Jesus Christ, grounded in a relationship of trust and promise, and expressed in baptism as an act of confession, witness and proclamation

Baptist shaped community grows out of the simple but radical conviction that where two or three gather together in Christ's name, there is a true church of Christ and there the risen Christ is in their midst

The church meeting then becomes an encounter where the members meet under Christ to discern his mind, with open Bible, in prayer and conversation, under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit, listening to God, to each other and to God through each other

Such community tries to embody the priesthood of all believers, expresses trust in the Headship of Christ in His church, and in the celebration of the Lord's Supper takes again the bread and wine that proclaim the incarnation, death, resurrection and coming again of Christ

Baptist shaped community, with all its limitations, embarrassments and failed aspirations, nevertheless looks to the life of the Triune God of love, and the mutual self-giving and harmony of purpose that outflow in the mission of love that flows out to the creation in mercy, peace and reconciling grace.

Baptist shaped community, then, is both ideal and reality, the reality at times falling short of the ideal. The ideal being no less urgent and attractive for all that.

In the life and teaching, the learning and sharing, the challenge and joys of our life together, in church and in College, such an ideal, and such a reality, make sense only because first and foremost we covenant together to live, by the grace of God,  towards a Christ centred faithfulness. Those convictions are themselves embedded in a deep loyalty to the Bible and lived out in a spirituality that is unabashedly Evangelical.

Jim Gordon.

What Baptists Stand For: Christ-centred faithfulness

Years ago a book on Baptist principles took as its title the mildly assertive title, What Baptists Stand For. It's still a good reasonable introduction to what it is that makes the Baptist way of being a Christian distinctive. But times change. And traditions like our own have to change too. Jaroslav Pelikan famously  said, "Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living; tradition is the living faith of the dead". Baptists have been impatient with tradition, jumpy about any concessions being made to that manipulative plea, 'the way it's always been done'. But we are a Christian tradition whether we like it or not. And I like it. 

At the same time a tradition must be living, organic, able to adapt and grow into new situations, changed by, yet also able to change, circumstances. A living transformative Christian tradition is a changing continuity, a growing and maturing way of being Christian, distinctive, with its own integrity and its own inner dynamic urging and impelling towards that faithfulness that answers the call of Christ to be who we are.

We've decided this blog could do with a bit more action. News about the College community. Comment about stuff that pushes our justice and righteousness buttons. Argument, or at least discussion about what us Baptists stand for. Theological upstarting in a constructive way about the things we won't stand for!

So for starters. We are currently working on the next College Development Plan, and while much of that remains open and discussable, there are some fixed points for us. Amongst these are the four values and convictions that lie at the heart of our College, because they energise the core of our College life and inform the content of a Baptist theological education. They are what we stand for.

Christ-centred faithfulness

Baptist shaped community

Biblically grounded theology

Evangelical spirituality

In one sense these are self-evident to us. But it is also true that they remain carefully chosen descriptors with no effective purchase on our lives unless they are lived, embodied, practiced; unless they represent habits of the heart, values in our thinking and acting, virtues of a Christlike character formed and transformed by encounter with the Living Lord.

So what do they mean, in practice? What do people look like who claim to make these core values the energising and directing principles of Christian discipleship?

This blog is now one of the places where we face up to those questions. And also where we persistently and honestly ask other questions, share conversation, compare insight and experience, argue with passion and courtesy, entrust our deepest convictions to each other so that we are mutually enriched. Or at least, so I hope. And in doing so we will try to live within our own commitments to Christ centred faithfulness; to Baptist shaped community; to Biblically grounded theology; to Evangelical spirituality. And these are not meant to be hard edged exclusion zones, but affirmations around which we express our lives in the freedom of Christ and in the power of the Spirit.

Jim Gordon, 5 November, 2009

Thanking God for the end of Session

Sometimes life takes on an impetus that means you just hang on and go where it takes you. This year we have managed to accommodate two staff sabbatical absences. I was on sabbatical from September to December; Stuart has been finishing his PhD and has taken three days most weeks since January, and is almost at the home straight with a target date of end July.

This has meant that all of us have been lifting and laying our own tasks and those of others - called team work. But Joyce and Ian are the two constants, with Stuart and I the beneficiaries.

It's been a good year. Two of our students finish - Gordon Jones' has been unanimously called as pastor to Gourock Baptist Church, and will be ordained and inducted on June 30th. Peter Dick is also completing his studies and actively seeking pastoral settlement. All our full time students have completed their year and our part time and modular students their chosen modules.

We are all thankful. Which is why we have a Thanksgiving Service! You are very welcome to come, on June 18, at 7.30 p.m. in Central Baptist Church, Paisley. It will be a service of worship, of celebration of work well done and ministries strengthened, there will be prayer for our finishing students, and a report of the year. As always, we have a guest preacher, and this year we are looking forward to the ministry of the Rev Brian More, Senior Pastor at Newton Mearns Baptist Church. Brian is a past student of the College, and one whose ongoing academic work has focused on Anabaptist theology and history.

Hope you can come, and if you do, looking forward to meeting you.

Baptists and the Authority of Scripture.

Last night was the inaugural meeting of the Scottish Baptist Theological Society, held at Newton Mearns Baptist Church. This is neither a College nor Baptist Union "thing". It will be an informal and open society where Scottish Baptists can meet together to explore who we are and why we are. We agreed several Values that are intended to shape the ethos of shared faith and trustful exploration together.

The inaugural lecture was given by Dr Stephen Holmes. lecturer in Systematic Theology at the University of St Andrews: A Baptist View of the Authority of Scripture. Amongst all Evangelicals the Bible holds an honoured and unrivalled place as the source of authority in matters of faith and practice. Numerous confessions of faith begin with statements which affirm the Bible as the supreme, absolute and sole authority. Linked to this high view of Scripture authority, is the further conviction amongst Evangelicals that Scripture is clear, plain and can be read by all who humbly seek the will of God in Scripture. From the least tutored to the textual expert, the Scripture is given as gift of grace to lead, guide and teach the Church.

British Baptists however have a particular way of understanding the authority of Scripture, as clearly set out in our Declaration of Principle.

That the Lord Jesus Christ our God and Saviour is the sole and absolute Authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer His laws.

From this nuanced and profound statement, Dr Holmes explored "the Scripture Principle" from a Baptist perspective, and indicated the quite specific emphases of a Baptist theology of Scripture.

1. The Bible is interpreted within the Church, in a process of community discernment, as in prayer, with open Bible, gathered in the presence and the name of Jesus, the Church meets to discern the mind of Christ.
2. The guidance of the Holy Spirit is an essential assumption in how Christians are enabled to read and interpret this gift of grace called Scripture; the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness to Christ in Scripture.
3. In such a process of discernment, prayer and shared seeking of the way of Christ, each local Church is a complete competent Church under Christ, to interpret and administer "His laws". Such a dynamic nexus of people, word and Spirit, means that Scripture is there to be obeyed as its truth is brought home to the heart.
4. However the first statement of the Declaration qualifies significantly the nature of Scriptural authority. Uniquely amongst Evangelical statements of faith, Baptists place the Lord Jesus Christ. Absolutised predicates such as "supreme", "sole" and "absolute", refer to Christ in the first instance. Known as the Christological hermeneutic this means that for Baptists the authority of the Bible derives from the final and sole Authority of Christ "as revealed in the Holy Scriptures". Dr Holmes was careful not to set Scripture and Christ over and against each other. Rather, Scripture is to be seen as the uniquely authoritative means, in sacramental terms, a means of grace through which access is given to Christ. Thus through the text of Scripture the truth of Christ is given, spoken, revealed, so that the Holy Scriptures do more than ,merely facilitate encounter - they bear witness to the One who is encountered, in unique, historically rooted, divinely given documents whose text becomes transforative, quick and powerful in their impact on those who seek in them the truth of God in Christ.

Now all that is my summary of Steve's lecture. I hope I haven't misrepresented or misquoted him. Please feel free to correct or comment Steve. This lecture was rich in historical reference, and rooted Baptist theology in its own origins and articulated Confessions, while tracing trajectories through the Reformation and into the period the the Early Church Fathers. It also drew upon insights and experience from the wider Evangelical tradition, and had a good balance of Baptist affirmation and self-criticism. This isn't a matter of academic debate, but goes to the very core of baptist faith and practice, and is an important ongoing discussion as together we seek to discern the mind of Christ in each Church and in our fellowship together under Christ.

The discussion afterwards picked up several key points, some of which may well be ideas for following up in later meetings.

Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality: Under the Rule of Christ

It's here. Just received in the post my copies of the most recent Regent Study Guide entitled Under the Rule of Christ. Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality, Paul Fiddes (Ed.), Smyth and Helwys, 2008 (ISBN: 978-095397 - 4-1). The book arose out of a request from the Baptist Union Retreat Group to the UK College Principals to write something on spirituality amongst Baptists. The result was a series of papers which we wrote, reviewed together, revised in the light of our discussions, and then offered for publication.

Here's the blurb from the publisher

In this book the Principals of the six Baptist colleges in Great Britain take up a request to write about Baptist spirituality. They propose that the spirituality of Baptists, in all its diversity, is characterized by living ‘under the rule of Christ’. While all Christian spiritual traditions affirm this truth, they suggest that there is a particular sense of being under Christ’s rule which has been shaped by the story of Baptists and by their way of being church through the centuries. Elaborating the main theme, chapters explore various dimensions of spirituality: giving attention to God and to others, developing spirituality through suffering, having spiritual liberty within a community, living under the rule of the Word in Christ and scripture, integrating the Lord’s Supper with the whole of life, and engaging in the mission of God from an experience of grace. Together, the writers present an understanding of prayer and life in which Christ is both the final authority and the
measure of all things.

Chris Ellis is Principal Emeritus of Bristol Baptist College; Paul Fiddes is Principal of Regent’s Park College, Oxford; Steven Finamore is Principal of Bristol Baptist College; James Gordon is Principal of the Scottish Baptist College, Glasgow; Richard Kidd is Principal of Northern Baptist College, Manchester; John Weaver is Principal of the South Wales Baptist College, Cardiff; Nigel Wright is Principal of Spurgeon’s Baptist College, London.

My own chapter "Spirituality and Scripture: the Rule of the Word" is an exploration of how Baptists live with the theological tensions inherent in the Baptist declaration of Principle. That tension is both vital and creative, and calls us as Baptists to live in that dynamic place of personal trust, seeking to reconcile in obedient discipleship, faith as personal encounter with and commitment to "Christ as the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice" while at the same time holding to Scripture with a faithfulness that takes just as seriously the crucial qualifier "as revealed in Holy Scripture".

Later this year, on November 27 at Newton Mearns Baptist Church, the Rev Dr Stephen Holmes, Lecturer in Systematic Theology at the University of St Andrews, will deliver the inaugural lecture of the Scottish Baptist Theological Study Group. The lecture will be on "Baptists and the Authority of Scripture", and Steve will approach the subject as a Baptist theologian, deeply evangelical in conviction, and from a personal perspective that is both pastoral and academic. In a postmodern context impatient with authority claims, dismissive of denominational loyalty as unnecessarily limited in perspective, in an overall situation of church decline and loss of theological confidence, conviction is more than ever an essential component of identity.

How Baptists interpret the Bible indicates how Baptists use the Bible. And if we think at all about that sentence then we should be more than a little uneasy with that word "use". The nature of the authority under which we seek to faithfully follow after Christ is of the first theological importance, and for that reason can become an issue of personal and at times rancorous disagreement. But for Baptists there is an underlying spirituality that arises out of what we have historically called Baptist Principles. Central to these is the person and place of Jesus Christ.

We love and serve the crucified, risen and coming Christ who is living and present in the Church which is His body. We seek together to discern the mind of Christ, as a fellowship of believers, a gathered and covenanted community, and as such a complete Church because Christ is present in its gathering. It is in this process of seeking the mind of Christ that we regularly gather, assuming His promised presence in our gathering, trusting the superintendence of the Holy Spirit who moving amongst and within our hearts interprets the truth of Christ, and with mind and heart open and obedient to Scripture as it is opened, read and pondered, so that in this dynamic force field of divine initiative, human longing, shared learning and redemptive love, we seek to follow after the One who always goes before us, beckoning us to follow.

The "church meeting" is, therefore, in all actuality and with deliberate intent, the Church meeting its Lord - nothing less than that level of reality and truthfulness does justice to the principles by which as Baptists, we claim to live. A Baptist hermeneutic of Scripture, worked out in such a spiritually dynamic and communally discerning context, is something quite different from many other models based on different theological principles; amongst other things, it is such an hermeneutic that entitles us ever to use the word radical for the Baptist way of being the Church. Indeed the word radical is rendered semantically redundant wherever Baptist identity issues in the faithful and principled practice of Christ-centred community living.

Amongst the Scripture stories that inform how as Baptist we might 'use' Scripture, is the account of the disciples on the way to Emmaus. The risen Christ, drawing near, opens the Scripture, patiently and with persistent authority - then in the breaking of bread, their eyes are opened. The words of Christ about opened Scripture, and the shared meal of broken bread, impel hesitant faith towards recognition, and trustful joy towards an unknown but accompanied future. This Malaysian Icon captures the surprise on the two disciples' faces - the place of fellowship, where, in the presence of the risen Christ, Scripture is opened and bread is broken, becomes the place of recognition and revelation; the place too, where all our assumptions about our lives and possible futures are radically revised by each encounter with the One who goes before us, lovingly daring us to follow.

Posted by Jim Gordon.

Existing in Berlin

At the invitation of Newton Mearns Baptist Church, the Rev. Stuart Blythe will be travelling tomorrow to Berlin with the pastor of the Church Rev Brian More to attend an European Evangelical Alliance Conference on Evangelism. At this conference they will be presenting the personal evangelism project 'Exist' that has emerged from Newton Mearns Baptist Church. Stuart will be offering something of the biblical/theological/cultural rationale for the project and Brian will introduce its history and the involvement that the Church has had with the project.

in the beginning was the word...

the word creates new beginnings...

with the word things begin to exist...

http://www.exist.org.uk/

Original emergent evangelical theology?

I'll be in Cardiff at the South Wales Baptist College delivering the Edwin Stephen Griffiths lectures on Wednesday March 5. The general theme I have been given is Evangelical Spirituality, and I've chosen so near the Charles Wesley Tercenenary of his birth, to explore Wesleyan Spirituality through a close reading of a number of Wesley's hymns. I've posted the brief abstracts below to give a flavour of what I'm attempting.

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Lecture 1 explores the role played by Charles Wesley’s hymns in giving articulated shape to an emergent Evangelical theology. As poet and theologian, Charles’ hymns combine consummate craftsmanship and spiritual impetus, and are shown to be conduits of spiritual experience saturated in biblical allusion.

Lecture 2 examines a cluster of Wesleyan themes held together by the overarching concern for Christian experience of perfect love. The infinite unexhausted love of God evokes powerful religious affections which, aided by grace, are expressed in spiritual aspiration, and longing to be renewed after the image of God.

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Here's a verse from a now unused Wesley hymn, that shows Charles at his most devotionally amibitious - he wants nothing less than an all encompassing grasp of the immensity of God in Christ!

Jesus, my soul aspires

   By faith to compass Thee,

With infinite desires,

   To grasp immensity:

Of all in earth and heaven

   I nothing want beside,

But when my God is given,

   My soul is satisfied.

Posted by Jim Gordon

The Radical in Baptist

In order to understand the heart of what does or what can define Baptist some, I think helpfully, look to the anabaptist tradition. This tradition may not offering an unbroken line of historical continuity with modern Baptists. But it does off examples of a concrete working out of what may be called 'Baptist Principles' as Discipleship Practices.

Thanks to the student who sent me these quotes from a book on anabaptist leader Pilgram Marpeck.

'A Church that had tied itself intimately to political power was no longer capable of truly comprehending the message of Jesus and could too easily formulate its theology - however "orthodox" it might have been - in a way that contradicted the claims of Jesus.'

'Christian theology is the ongoing task of restating and reinterpreting the original message of the Jesus event in continuously changing contexts.'

'It is Jesus who defines peace and not peace that defines Jesus'.

(Posted by Stuart Blythe)