A Bit of Hope from and for Southern Baptists 0

Having been raised Southern Baptist, I have found the Southern Baptist Convention’s veer towards wingnuttery over the past three decades to be most distressing. (It is no coincidence that the trend started when Texans took over the leadership of the SBC, altered the structure of governance, undermined basic Baptist tenets, and attempted to enforce autocratic rule.)

I know it also distressed my father, who was descended from generations of Baptists. Indeed, the little Baptist Church in which I was raised stood on land donated by one of my ancestors shortly after the Revolutionary War, when persecution of Baptists by the colonial government came to an end (in the Virginia colony, the Church of England was the established church,; supported by tax dollars; others, including Elijah Baker, who founded my father’s congregation, were persecuted).

Anyhoo, the path of the SBC troubled my father so much so that he sometimes wondered whether the congregation would do better to leave the SBC and join the Yankee Baptist Church American Baptist Association. As a practical matter, the congregation ignored Nashville as much as it could and went its own way.

Now comes a hint of Christian charity from the SBC.

Not much more than a hint, but still a hint. Cynthia Tucker reports in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A nugget:

Last week at its annual meeting, the Southern Baptist Convention called for “a just and compassionate path to legal status” for the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented workers. The “messengers,” as the convention delegates are called, also denounced bigotry and harassment toward those who are here illegally.

The resolution was hotly debated, and it carries no imprimatur of authority for the millions of Southern Baptists across the country, whose churches take pride in their autonomy. They have no hierarchy — no pope or bishop to enforce adherence to church doctrine.

Furthermore, the clause in the resolution that dealt with legalization barely survived, with just 51 percent of the messengers supporting it in an early vote, according to the Baptist Press.

The delegates later added an amendment which noted that the Baptists were in no way endorsing “amnesty,” a hot-button term without any precise meaning.

It is telling that Christian charity squeaked by with a margin of one percentage point.