A Theology of World-Building

Every civilization has a corresponding religion. There is no society without a spirit animating it, a moral code governing it, and ritual acts of worship that formalize it. A charism of Theopolis is to exposit the timeless symbols in Scripture and Creation for the church, so she may be the fount of true civilizational renewal (in our parlance, the death and resurrection of worlds). Counterfeit religions create unworlds, anticivilizations that wrongly interpret the world along lines of bloody sacrifice. Under the oppression of angelic “guardians”, like overprotective mothers and angry fathers, these unworlds suffocate their children and feed on violence (Colossians 2:6-15).

There, I showed my Theopolitan hand. Now let me show you my Baptist hope.

My Baptist Hope

I believe revivalism is the spirit animating the United States, the Bible is the moral code governing us, and the Baptist conventions of worship are the ritual acts that formalize and sacralize what we hold to be dear–personal choice, yes, but also pure character, optimism, flexibility, love of Scripture, anti-elitism, missionary zeal, absolute dedication to God, suspicion of grand displays of wealth, hospitality and a number of other exemplary, fine, and curious practices that make our country who we are.

Just as the Biblebelt (the Southern Baptist Convention’s stronghold) is growing in influence and status, so too does the Baptist tradition, led by the SBC, have a duty to take on the mantle and accept the particular calling of social and religious leadership in America. As Mark Tooley points out, this is not a burden exclusively shouldered by members of the Southern Baptist Convention. Many nondenominationalists will operate outside that system, but so long as the SBC holds the keys to the seminaries, they will be the standardbearer for southern Evangelicalism, even if they fall to half their current size. Numerical strength is rarely representative of power, but it can and does signal headwinds. And only the Baptists have anything like a headwind or institutional clout to steer the aircraft-carrier breadth of Evangelicalism.

Our Baptist Heritage

At Union University, the Anglicans had a joke that Baptists didn’t believe in tradition, but they did believe in heritage. Good enough. If the United States was founded by Reformed Congregationalists in New England and bishopless Anglicans in the South, the Baptists and the Methodists are their American inheritors. The Baptists, clinging to the heel of the Methodists in the early Republic, have emerged as the uncontested religious posture for America. What the Lutheran tradition was for Germany, the Church of England was for England, and the Presbyterians were for Scotland, the Baptists are for the United States.

That religious normativity is what I meant in my last essay by “state church.” Calling Baptists a state church is not a clarion call for Constantinianism from a nostalgic Anglican. In fact, it’s simply impossible for Baptists to occupy the role of a past order of the world, even if they wanted to. Baptists have been given the gift of the present nation and time, not the past. In other words, Baptists need not bow to the feet of Satan in order to inherit the world.[1]

To say again, I do not want American Baptists to be English Anglicans. I do want Baptists to learn from previous models of nation-sustaining churches, and to be conscious of their heritage from southern Anglicanism as well as Yankee-Puritan congregationalism, so that they can be self-confidently and holistically Baptist.

Two Historical Considerations

The Reformed Baptist’s Anti-Southern Blindspot

The SBC, the 900 pound gorilla of Evangelicalism, has undergone something of a renaissance under the sway of Calvinistic leadership. Figures such as (but by no means limited to) Carl F.H. Henry, Al Mohler, and Mark Dever, besides birthing the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement, have immensely influenced Baptist historiography, interpreting their own heritage as an outgrowth of the Puritan movement. This is certainly true as far as it goes, and I hope that the Puritans find wide readership in SBC churches.

That said, there is a certain 20th century “Puritanism is an idea” approach to the retrieval of Puritan authors from the 1960s and onwards that corresponds with the rise of the Roman Catholic dominated conservative movement in the pages of National Review, the Weekly Standard, and so forth. Conservatism, a WASP-less political movement, was defended as a series of principles that could be applied by almost anyone. Especially when fighting communism, it was easy for conservative Americans to idealize the power of ideas relative to cultural expectations, political maneuvering, common heritage, and plausibility structures. Notably, few of these people had any experience with actual political power, certainly not generationally. As with politics, so with religious identity. A Memphis or Dallas seminarian could read Puritan Paperbacks and be a Puritan just as easily as John Winthrop, and run a church accordingly, in nine easy(?) steps.

While I have much admiration for Baptists in the Puritan vein, it seems that the emphasis on the Puritans in Baptist history underplays the impact of the elitist Anglican social imaginary on Southern Baptist ecclesiology.[2] Baptists reforming the colonial abuses of the late 18th century Anglican elites were not reacting to the same problems as 17th century Puritans. And I am skeptical on just how much Virginian and Carolinian Baptists identified with the verbose Tocquevillian Congregationalists to their north (though there was definitely overlap!). These new Baptists in the South evidently developed an ecclesiology that reformed the Colonial Anglican abuses while functioning within the same social imaginary. Consider some parallels:

1. Neither Southern Baptists nor Anglicans were united around a common confession;
2. Both were managed by a single head pastor (the Baptists have exceptions to this earlyon, especially in New England, but this seems to change);
3. Both had a board of reputable men overseeing all finances (Anglican vestry or Baptistdeaconboard);
4. Both were united by a shared sacramentology of Baptism;
5. Both located mission and discipline in the local congregation, not larger ecclesiasticalhierarchy;
6. Both were overseen by an elected distant executive officer overseeing a convention (theroyal governor functioned as the administrative bishop, but would never visit localcongregations);[3]
7. Both relied on topical moralizing and allegorizing sermons rather than expository ones;
8. Both shared a hatred for vestments;

On top of these, Baptist churches have long had steeples and been designed in the white-washed neo-colonial style, much like 18th century Episcopalians (unlike Presbyterian Meetinghouses). Notably, the Baptists sued the Episcopalians after Independence and actually confiscated many of their churches. Virginian Baptists saw themselves as the rightful inheritors of the old Anglican church. And they were.

But the Southern Baptist Convention is Southern, not Northeastern, and the values of southerners are far less transformationalist, idealist, communitarian, republican, and activistic. While the Puritan work ethic (and conscience) might eventually emerge from Southern Baptists, acknowledging the elitist/populist southern culture would go a long way towards revealing the limits of the Puritan mind. Change will have to happen slowly. Political action will be limited. Skepticism about social action is steeped in generations of ancestral wisdom. Southern congregationalism can be quite monarchical, and sometimes showy.

I think this heritage is a challenge for the reforms that Abbotoy wants at the Convention-wide level, and precisely why the SBC is in slow-motion numerical decline. Less than 15% of the population of some southern states voted in the presidential election 85 years ago, and that number included virtually no Baptists. The Baptists’ great weapon against progressivism, disinterest for change and low political agency, makes major reform really hard unless the insiders are on your side, or a once-in-a-lifetime populist surge takes place.

The End of the Mainlines

I had hoped Mr. Ackerman (hereafter RZ) would engage more critically with my work on what can and cannot be brought into Evangelicalism from the old Christian traditions, but alas.[4] I think his project to revive the mainlines is interesting, but it’s a project that seems in denial about the social trends happening in the United States right now.[5] The mainlines, as a self-description, depended upon universities that have lost standing, severed ties to their Anglo-Protestant constituency, and lost the German inspiration that built them to begin with. They’ve all declined for decades, and most are still in denial. On top of all that, the economic and population centers are fleeing the northern corridor and rust belt that was the center of those churches.

The mainlines and their universities ended up being just what the German universities were for their pietistic churches: deadly. In fact, every denomination that founded or sent clergy to the Ivy seminaries fell to theological liberalism. In fact, the main source of LCMS liberalization, (the one mainline besides the SBC to counteract a progressive takeover), was their Atlantic, Ivy League trained faculty.

The most congregationalist denominations still have redeemable value, and I think missions attempts to retake northern Baptist congregations by Southern Baptists is the most promising of possible “reconquistas.” Even so, no reconquista could have the resources to take back most of the seminaries at this juncture without serious federal assistance, an unlikely prospect at this juncture.

There are still faithful mainline churches around the country, and for them and the many others who have been strengthened or come to their faith through his work, I think RZ plays a great service. Yet if Evangelicals want to inherit the promised land, we need to burn the plunder of Jericho in the Ivies and hierarchical Mainlines, and Evangelicals and Southerners should provide the tender.

Here I’d like to make one last point of connection to Mark Tooley’s astute analysis on the decline of denominations nationally. While all denominations are shrinking, this does not mean the SBC could not or should not use its convention identity as a bully pulpit while it has the media’s undivided attention, or strategic gathering place for disseminating evangelistic and cultural engagement strategies, such as were outlined in my initial essay.

A Detailed Reply to Jared Longshore

At this point in the essay, I will turn from a positive essay to a point by point rapid-response to pastor Jared Longshore, a Southern Baptist turned Presbyterian in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, before concluding with a summary and positive vision.

Jackson’s piece warmed my formerly Baptist heart with a bit of nostalgia, particularly because it reminded me of the Baptist way of rallying the troops to an endeavor that is both novel and grand…I recall sitting at a Southern Baptist Convention years ago when I was still wet behind the ears and listening to the fiery, red-faced, hot-preaching Johnny Hunt holler in front of a crowd of several thousand, “I’m tired of business as usual!” The room filled with “Preach it, Johnny!” I didn’t know what the usual business was, but I too, watching that Georgia preacher spit, was tired of it. Admittedly, Jackson’s piece, while channeling that Baptist spirit, took things to a peculiar place. I say this because while he had something of the same confident, system-changing, forward-looking pathos as Southern Baptist preachers I knew so well, those men never would have said, “I’m tired of business as usual! It is time for liturgical feasting!” Southern Baptists don’t do liturgical feasting; they do covered dish luncheons—the best around, mind you.

I’ve never been compared to Johnny Hunt before, but I am happy to join his number in declaring my displeasure at “business as usual,” though, I pray, the parallels end there. More significantly, the nation is also tired of “business as usual,” and this present moment, where Joe Rogan is attending a non-denom church, Capitol Hill Baptist is staffing the White House, and the CREC is planting a church steps from the Supreme Court, is a moment that begs for bold action and fast moving. I think the Baptists of the 21st century are more than able to meet the challenge.

I am a little surprised at Rev. Longshore’s friendly skepticism around Baptists adopting the church calendar and liturgical feasting. After all, Baptists are already adopting these practices, I simply encourage them to adapt parts of the calendar to their historical traditions more tightly. Maybe tie potlucks to Ascension or Pentecost Sundays, for instance. I know several nondenominational and SBC churches around Memphis were celebrating Good Friday, and a few even Maundy Thursday. Christianity Today, for all their deep problems, has played a major role in pushing liturgical traditions of worship with squishy Evangelical Protestants, and Theopolis’ wide Southern Baptist readership tells me the hunger is there with more conservative audiences as well.

It sounds like [Jackson’s] recommended future is a visible and civic unity, a tangible unity, a “unity of the body,” not merely a spiritual or heavenly unity. What is more, the call is for that visible unity through a head, some form of organic, formal, covenantal, or ecclesiastical representation. But that is not the Southern Baptist way…

The non-representative nature of Baptist identity is thoroughly ingrained and historically rooted. Paedobaptism rests upon covenant and representative headship. But the Baptist position, while very much affirming that the husband is head of his wife, Christ is the head of the church, and civil leadership is worthy of honor, has jettisoned the covenantal nature of headship for individualism and voluntarism. It is not without reason that the Southern Baptists call the voting members of their particular churches that attend the annual convention “messengers” rather than “delegates.” Delegates imply representation. A delegate is a representative head. But the SBC messenger is an individual sent to carry a message to a group of individual churches that have agreed to meet together two days out of the year. Thus, the Baptists simply do not have the ingredients to bake the pie Jackson asks them to bake.

Hopefully the first part of this piece cleared up what sort of unity I hope for from the Baptists. Brothers dwelling in unity and local churches in covenant membership is plenty sufficient for what I hope to see. Churches need not outsource any of my recommendations to a commission of experts (that would be quite unBaptist and unAmerican, but I repeat myself, again). Nor must their growing sense of duty as they realize the weight of this moment require an abdication by way of conversion to another tradition. On the contrary, I envision two alternatives for how Baptists could approach political action.

On the one hand, Baptists could approach political engagement as a visible church, particularly through their head pastor, who de facto represents the congregation. On the other hand, Baptists could and at times have recognized that the church points outside itself, first and absolutely to Christ who is in their midst but also in Heaven, but secondarily and derivatively to other executives. Not so much businessmen as great men. That sounds absurd, I’m sure, but if Baptist worship tells us anything, it’s that singular great men, armed with the word of God, have the ability to unite nations and lead peoples. I don’t see any Covenantal formula about that observation. It’s just an acknowledgment that popular sovereignty usually leads to rule by Great Men.

As Thomas Carlyle explains, the democratic French Revolution, which he detested, was the means by which the world was born again, and every man was given the opportunity to become a hero. It sparked a new fire for “Loyalty and Sovereignty.” Cannot the priesthood of all believers in the temple of God, spark a revolution greater than the Cult of Reason in a profaned Notre Dame?

I think Longshore protests too much. Popular democracy does have a different flavor from Covenantal Politics, but America is a Congregational nation, not a Covenantal nation, so Baptist engagement seems particularly suited for a nation of Baptists and fellow travellers.

I wonder if Jackson wants Southern Baptists to leave off their presentism, utilitarianism, individualism, voluntarism, and separatism, in order to be a united elite force that will take the longevity approach as an organic head of American Christianity, ushering in the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. That intimate association between the theos and the polis, the heavenly and earthly, the covenantal and the individual, the sacred and the secular, is simply not what Baptists do. They do missions, evangelism, altar calls, and democracy…

They also strongly advocate for the separation of church and state. Granted, some Baptists will insist on influencing the state, and Baptists have been significantly engaged in influencing politics. But, they do so with a deep awareness that the church is a heavenly kingdom not to be too cozy with the earthly kingdoms of this world.

I’m not sure what Rev. Longshore wanted to communicate here. Yes, the Baptists will always distinguish between discipling in the local church and power politics. There just is a distinction between those things. The state is not ushering in the kingdom of God on earth, but it can reveal, recognize and obey the kingdom of God that’s already present and will come more manifestly at Jesus’ return. My first steps for Southern Baptist political involvement were really basic: Sabbath keeping, gathering for informal worship with friends on holidays, and thinking about how the Ten Commandments apply to your duties as a citizen. No nefarious church-state canoodling here!

More deeply, I do believe that worship on Sunday affects how we view the world, so it should be done biblically. Sing outside of church. Cultivate a familiarity with the symbols of the Bible in the world, and look for those signs of God in creation. We can be more practical still: American political involvement is already happening in principle when presidents speak to the SBC, and SBC leaders visit the White House. That is the norm of what American religious engagement looks like, and I think that’s a good floor. Could local pastors foster the same relationship with local and state leaders that the SBC has done nationally? My concern though is on the church side. How are we building ourselves up to see the world aright? I’ll let the political experts take those tools of the normal Christian life—the Lord’s Day and the Ten Commandments and intercession for the nation—and apply them to the nitty gritty of politics.

Baptists have not been in the shadows or outsiders when it comes to influencing the American church, culture, or politics. But they are self-consciously outsiders ontologically. As the origin of the Baptists is found in Puritans who sought a pure church outside of the visible church in England, they did, in a sense, live in her shadow. That identity remains among Baptists today as expressed in their sacramental and ecclesial practice. To ask them to leave that shadow is to ask them to stop being Baptist. If the Baptist identity is found in being outsiders, preaching hot gospel down by the Jordan River, then to ask them to come serve as the foreman within the walls of Jerusalem is to ask them to stop being Baptists.As Jackson notes, “a growing hesitation about what it means to be a Baptist is leading more and more Baptists to jump ship in search of firmer ground.” And I’m suspicious that the firmer ground commended to Baptists in the address is itself not on the Baptist ship.

Southern Baptists have been outsiders in that they are southern, therefore defined against being “normal” Americans in some sense, and they are working and middle class, therefore outside the “ruling class” of the American coasts. Happily, the mid-south is getting noticed, and is economically growing. In this sense, the SBC can absolutely come into the limelight of American leadership. The biggest challenge for the rank and file Southern Baptist is probably indifference. My concern is that Southern Baptists have never been taught any civic responsibility for their nation much less how their nation’s prosperity depends on their faith and worship. Milquetoast pastoral leadership on politics has either demoralized my peers, led them out of the SBC, or never even engaged them to begin with.

With regards to purity of faith I would posit to my biblicist allies the stories of Ezra and Josiah. When Biblical preaching converts not just the outcasts but the free agents of a nation, it’s not enough to tell them to pray the sinners prayer. You must “teach them to obey all that I have commanded.” Josiah didn’t just sponsor high school prayer nights, he tore down idols. Nehemiah didn’t mourn for Jerusalem and send a check to the Samaritan’s Purse or IMB, he actually went and rebuilt the walls. Yes, Elijah lived in the wilderness, but he had entry into the king’s court, and managed to take down a few prophets of Baal. Sometimes those acts of obedience are explicitly theological, sometimes they’re prudential and require a special skill set. In all cases, the Spirit of Wisdom rushed upon them and compelled them to action. My prayer is that the Spirit would do so again.

Conclusion

Though my first address/essay was to Southern Baptists at my alma mater, I think almost all of my message could be applied to nondenominational Protestantism as well. Indeed the differences between them are not always clear. One of the nice things about Congregationalism is that its integrity does not rely on institutional unity so much as missional and cultural unity. It is subsidiarity at work.

Most Baptist congregations will not be directing their resources to the local elites of Nashville, Charlotte, or Atlanta, but there should be some SBC churches that do that, and networks that aim at those sorts of things. The disciplines I commended in my first talk are Biblical and practical steps for creating a language of political engagement centered on the Scriptures. To even consider sanctified political engagement, churches need habits and modes of thought to get their minds turning on the interconnectedness of God’s people and the nations in which they serve, which is why I commend church services on federal holidays and major civil events. Give people a theological understanding of their world grounded in worship and much of the rest will naturally follow.

There’s also room for smaller denominations such as the ACNA and PCA in this picture, especially among subsets of what Aaron Renn calls the “striver classes.” These denominations have done a good job curating networks and ministering to specific niches of people. Those smaller denominations will keep filling gaps where the SBC lags, but the SBC can and should take a more active role given their size, prominence, location, and institutional superiority.

The Baptists are American Civilization’s last best hope. Their love of the unadulterated and simple gospel refreshes and transforms the lives of millions of Americans every year. I do not know if there has ever been a civilization built on such a pure love for God’s word and nothing else as with the Southern Baptists. I want that legacy to continue, and I believe it will continue, for the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Jackson Waters is the Executive Editor at the Theopolis Institute. He studies divinity at Trinity Anglican Seminary and received a B.A. from Union University in Anglo-American History. 

NOTES

1 Every regime, returned to after its time has expired, becomes a synagogue of Satan, a body of sin. So the Noahic Covenant, set up by God allowed for worship in the High Places, continued for ~400 years of the Abrahamic Covenant, but this practice was forbidden ~400 years after in the Mosaic Covenant. So too was, after ~400 years, the Tabernacle destroyed and the Temple constructed. Lo, 400 years after the Temple was constructed it was torn down and the people of Israel were made to be prophets in strange lands. 400 years later, the Maccabean revolt tried without the power of God to reestablish the Davidic Covenant without God’s blessing, and it quickly expired, resulting in the horrendous oppression of Israel by a Babylonian exile within their own land under Rome, the Herodians, and worse yet, the Pharisees and Sadducees. A house divided cannot stand.

2 I here mean Baptists from Virginia and other southern states, not members of the convention that would be formed in 1845.

3 The Episcopal Convention of Virginia wouldn’t change their name to “Diocese” until decades after its Independence. Those early conventions were much like Baptist Conventions, with hours or even days of preaching and socializing before a relatively brief business meeting.

4 Northern Presbyterians always understood that they had a role in ordering and encouraging the spiritual pieties of those denominations of lower social standing, even when they critiqued them. Certainly, American Presbyterians at least always knew better than to betray fellow Scots-Irish Protestants to elite Roman Catholic Pretenders.

5 I was particularly disappointed by his preference for Roman Catholicism over the Evangelicalism from whose ranks he relies upon to save his own church. Why is evangelical worship unserious? Where does he get the notion that I find Roman Catholics as the only voice of reason in the academy, or the idea that I think Romanism is the “last bastion of conservative Christianity in western culture?” Did he not hear me? Romanism is strongest in America where biblical literacy is generally lowest. Trads aside, the Roman church is in rapid decline and losing most of their members to agnosticism and then Evangelicalism. Indifference and unserious worship are evidently preferable to whatever Rome is peddling to the American rank and file. There’s no better way to raise agnostic children than to baptize them in the Roman Catholic church.

I do not mean to be crass, but firmness on this point is important. Roman Catholic political leadership is spiritually dangerous. The 18th and 19th century founders of the American mainlines were of one accord on this point. The Seven Sisters RZ wants to reinvigorate were behind the Blaine Amendments, Muscular Christianity, and the Temperance Movement to Protestantize Roman Catholic immigrants before their Sabbath breaking, domestic abuse rates, alcoholism, gambling, support for corruption, biblical criticism and anti-democratic social norms spread to Protestant children and incurred the wrath of God upon the nation. We need not be as frantic as our forefathers (Vatican II and the American moral norms have had a purifying effect) to acknowledge Rome still has major problems discipling their children, not to mention discipling nation-states. Even suggesting that Rome is preferable to congregationalism (nondenominationalism) or historic Southern Baptist Christianity (which has been a key part of American fabric since the Founding) is just bizarre for a self-professing yankee Presbyterian.