14. Beyond400; what kind of future awaits the Baptist Community?

Imagine it is 2412, and we are a group of researchers asked to contribute to a data pod which is to be sent to Betelgeuse. We are commissioned to focus on the last 400 years, with special emphasis on the people called Baptist. What would we hope to discover, and how might those hopes for the future feed into our discussions now?

We would note that there used to be an organisation called the Baptist Union of Great Britain that supported churches in the complexities of C20 society, and took the flack when things went wrong. These dedicated people worked from a place called Didcot, now lost in the Oxon Metropolis.
This organisation ended in 2060, when Universal Simplification made its services redundant. But by then it had created a culture of such mutual encouragement and concern that its work continued in new forms.

We might find ourselves recording the final disappearance of traditional church in the hyper-individualism of the late 21Century, and the Long Silence of C22 when, without the discipline and support of a Christian community, the Way was almost lost, surviving only in those places where remoteness, urban dislocation or the harshness of the environment kept a sense of mutual commitment alive.

Maybe in the wake of the Silence we will note the rise of the Micro-church Movement, as the faith found new life in small, highly intentional groups of friends and fellow pilgrims. The collapse of the notion of Charity in C21 and the demise of clerical, property owning churches cleared the way for these new micro communities. We might record that Baptists had been among the first to pioneer this movement.

On the other hand, we might find ourselves describing a Second Reformation, when a dynamic new theology was forged, as Christians in the West discovered that they were not alone, and began to listen to the experiences, the theological insights  of brothers and sisters from Asia and Africa, from Latin and South America. Perhaps we will be able to record that Baptists were in the forefront of this Reformation, as they forged friendships across cultures that expressed real respect and trust.

Or maybe we will be recording how this Second Reformation flowered through creative interaction with other World religions,  and Baptist principles of freedom and tolerance, Baptist resistance to conformity, proved to be a bridge over which love, truth and revelation were able to travel.

Perhaps this Second Reformation will be characterised by new ways of holding together the Word of God and the fire of the Spirit?  - a new passion for holiness?

We might have a chapter- or whatever a small segment of data will be called- on the synthesis between the individual, called to personal repentance, conversion, Baptism and discipleship, and the company of priests, together discerning the purposes of their Lord and together acting to bring grace and new life to the world. Maybe we will be recording the great value of this synthesis to the fragmented and isolated society of 22 and 23 Century.

Perhaps from the tradition of multi-voiced communities, with the tact and courtesy they require, we will be able to describe a movement that found solutions to the in/out, establishment/marginal, empowered/disempowered, kosha/nonkosher stuff  that bedevils human organisation?

We can, however, be sure that we will not find a company of Christians, whether called church or not, finally free from disappointment, failure and scandal, unburdened by inertia, tedium or distraction. Our researchers will look in vain for an ideal church They will only find particular people in particular places, with particular problems and particular methods of dealing with them, trying to be at the service of God’s grace.

Even in 2412 our God, the God revealed in Jesus Christ, will still be realised in all the cramping, frustrating circumstances of being made flesh, still caught up in the mundane reality of human existence. But maybe we will be able to record that in partial and fallible ways, we have helped to seed the world with hope, have been agents of peace, laboratories of love.

I think so.

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Pat Took retired as the London Baptist Association's Regional Minister (Team Leader) in September 2010. Before that she was the minister of Cann Hall and Harrow Green Baptist Church, Leytonstone. She is currently (2011-2012) President of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.