ABC Crisis

[pastormikejordan]

Hi all...hoping we can talk about controversial topics without killing each other again...just feel like it would be good to get insights from various sides of the table on this issue.

On Dwight Stinnett's (GRR exec min) blog he has with Susan Gillies, he says (as part of a very long, I think insightful, post):

One part (a very large part) of our struggle right now has to do with whether or not we really want to be together in covenant and what that means. Our organizational documents promise things that the organization cannot deliver. This is complicated by the fact that we have large numbers with denominational expectations that we were never intended or organized to deliver.

I think he's right; I think there are two substantially different notions of what together in covenant means. And since that idea of being together in covenant is at the core of American Baptist identity, there are two substantially different notions of American Baptist identity on the table.

First, it seems that there is one group that defines our covenant as simply a mission-sending agency. There is no theological core, no essentially American Baptist way of thinking or living that churches must proclaim or live out; rather, American Baptists are entirely self-defined. Those that want to contribute to our way of mission and living thus are in covenant.

The other group would define covenant as mission locally and globally based on an agreed-upon theological core, a confession, if you will. The nature of our covenant is to do mission together based on a shared set of beliefs. Within this camp, of course, people differ about what exactly that shared set of beliefs should be. Yet there is a common belief that our mission is necessarily weakend by not having any shared way of thinking to which we subscribe and are accountable.

It seems to me that these are the two options for American Baptist identity on the table. So I have two questions:

1--Is my understanding of the situation correct? Does it need further nuances I'm not seeing?

2--if my understanding is correct, are these two understandings of the covenant mutually exclusive? Is there any hope for two groups that understand our identity so radically differently to co-exist? More important, is there any hope for these two groups to do meaningful ministry together (rather than just staying together for the sake of our retirement plans)?

I honestly don't know the answer to #2. My hunch is that there is not really a deeply meaningful identity that can be forged together by these two camps. I'm hopeful, of course; I do believe in a God who had this habit of raising dead people. But, it's just hard for me to see what the answers are now.

Share some thoughts, please--I value them...

Mike

[Ed Pettibone]

[jerryl]

[pastormikejordan]

[jerryl]

[pastormikejordan]

[pastormikejordan]

[jerryl]

[Ed Pettibone]

[jerryl]

[jerryl]

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

[jerryl]

[jerryl]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Ed Pettibone]

[pastormikejordan]

[pastormikejordan]

[jerryl]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Ed Pettibone]

[pastormikejordan]

[Haruo]

[pastormikejordan]