"Tracing Baptist theological Foot Prints"

As we look beyond 400 years of Baptist life in England, I want to trace five theological footprints which marked early Baptist communities which might still be important as we ‘look beyond the horizon’ and ask what our vision might be.

Reading the Bible

There is a challenge to help churches to engage in reading the Bible. We may have colluded too much with a pulpit-orientated form of church life on the one hand, and an individualistic piety on the other. There are possibilities for imaginative ways of reading the Bible together. In looking at the role of the Bible for Baptists, I suggest that what has been distinctive for Baptists has not been a doctrine of biblical authority but rather a particular way of using the Bible. It is remarkable that in his ‘Short Confession of Faith’ of 1609 John Smyth does not include a clause about scripture. This might have been due to the fact that the document was written in a hurry. Even so, the omission suggests that a doctrinal formulation on the Bible was not at the forefront of Smyth’s mind. What did concern him deeply was how the Bible functioned in practice.

Living the Life

There is an emphasis in Baptist thought, as in Anabaptism, on the new way of life that is to be lived, but what is striking is the strongly Christ-centred framework in which this set. On the question of ‘living the life’, one of my own interests is in how biography can be used to shape our Christian stories today. There is much to explore here.

There are good reasons why you might not want to read this: it’s not practical; it doesn’t comment on denominational organisation; it lacks focus and finesse.  But, you may want to read on because I plan to talk dirty.  Or rather I’m going to suggest that in our musing about the future we should rehabilitate some supposedly dirty words.

Theology  Let’s get theological.  Please God deliver us from panic-induced pragmatism; just because it works doesn’t mean it’s worth doing.  There’s been a lot of talk in this conversation about hopeful imagination.  Amen to that.  But our playful, imagining must be rooted in serious, theological reflection.  The challenges we face aren’t just organisational or cultural they are ever and always theological.

Religion  Let’s come clean about being religious.  Of course we are, or at least we ought to be.  This “I’m not religious” talk usually amounts to little more than labeling those aspects of church that we don't like “religious” and then writing them off.   God is a big deal, prayer is an integral part of our lives, worship is the highest expression of our faith commitment.  This makes us religious.  Let’s turn the religion dial up to eleven and get on with it.   Time to stride out of the closet.   Religious and proud?  Well, maybe not but religious and unabashed?  Certainly.

Sect  Being sectarian has a lot to offer.  We live in exciting times, our world is dizzily pluralistic and significantly secular.  Holding onto and holding out a distinctive vision and a peculiar way of life these days is the equivalent of white water rafting.  It makes for a thrilling ride but the danger is we’ll be swept away.   The call to be more theological is a call better to resource our distinctive identity, this is a call actively to bolster that identity.  We need to attend to plausibility as well as truthfulness.  What’s called for is more integrated communal living; ongoing conversion to sharpen our ability to articulate the faith; smarter attempts to help our children to own the faith, and a clearer sense of who we are, and who we aren’t.

‘The dodo is dead everybody knows that’, thus began an episode of David Attenborough’s Life Stories broadcast on Radio 4 on Sunday 4^th September 2009. Attenborough then unfolded the less well–known aspect of the story, the reason for the dodo’s extinction.

It is likely that its ancestors were blown to the Island of Mauritius in a storm. The Island was a haven for its new inhabitants. It was large, 50 miles across, with good vegetation, plenty of food and nothing that would attack or threaten the new arrivals. It was easy and safe to stay on the ground. They conserved energy and reduced the risk of being blown away again. So they didn’t fly; for generation after generation. There was plenty of easy food – the dodos grew big and fat. The wings they no longer used dwindled in size and would no longer lift the large bird into the air. Life was easy.

And then things began to change. In the last years of the sixteenth century sailors arrived on the island. They were hungry and wanted fresh meat. The dodo was big, fat, flightless and defenceless. They were also innocent and inquisitive so made no attempt to run away. It was easy for the sailors simply to club them to death. As more humans settled on the island the threat to the dodos increased, until the bird was no more. 

Fundamentally the dodos became extinct because they lost their powers of flight.

The story made a huge impression on me. Was the Church becoming flightless? Was it in danger of extinction? I received Attenborough’s words in the tradition of Old Testament prophecy, not a foregone conclusion but a spur to act. We need to re-learn how to fly.

The image of relearning how to fly and its implications has underpinned my reflections of what God has called our group to do in our new church project.

Twenty years ago, I became chief executive of an agency that existed to support and represent 600+ other charities.  It had enjoyed an honourable history and had facilitated many new developments, campaigns and projects. To have achieved such a senior appointment while still in my 20s would have been more impressive if the agency concerned had not been facing a sudden financial crisis, with a catastrophic reduction in income, 6-figure debts, few tangible assets and all the key stakeholders nervous about the future. 

Although I had been well briefed before taking the position, it felt like being appointed captain of a wrecked ship. While the acute problem was a shortage of cash, the underlying issue was that an agency with a long and fruitful history had failed to read the signs of the times and left it too late to adjust to a very different world which now confronted it.  In trying to find a way forward, we needed:

• To understand that the world around us was changing dramatically and rapidly
• A view of how the future might look
• A frank appraisal of our strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures
• A single-minded focus on the purposes we served. 

In 2009 the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa was commissioned to do a piece of work for the former Sutton Manor Colliery in St Helen’s, Merseyside.   The concept was ‘Dream’ which takes the form of a 20 metre high girl’s head with her eyes closed, seemingly in a dream-like state.  The notion is simple but profound and in Jaume’s own words “in our dreams, anything is possible….”

On average 100,000 vehicles pass ‘Dream’ daily, equating to more than 35 million vehicles each year, as she appears close to Junction 7 of the M62 motorway. I love this sculpture and whilst on a five day silent retreat in September 2011, I visited ‘Dream’ every day and thereby began a significant conversation with God that I am still engaged with.  God spoke to me and the word I heard was ‘courage’. 

In the bible we learn that Jesus was courageous, not least in his journey to the cross.  In the Old Testament we learn of courageous people and as we look closer at Elisha in 2 Kings Chapter 4, we see a person of courage.  Elisha was faced with famine in the land and asks one of his servants to get some flour.  Out of all the ingredients that could have been added to the pot of stew, only one thing was needed – flour.  Imagine the courage it took for Elisha as the weight of responsibility of life and death weighed heavy upon his shoulders.  If you were Elisha, what would you have added to the pot of stew?  If I’m trying a new recipe I get concerned about whether it’s plain flour or self-raising flour and I’m only making buns!  For Elisha, this was a courageous moment because in saying ‘yes’ to the flour, there was also a saying ‘no’ to other ingredients.  It is a story of courage and we need courage.