Saturday, June 30, 2007

Hello From the Biennial

Don't know if it's the weather, or the Spirit, but this biennial just feels different. A sense of community that I hadn't noticed as much before, punctuated by a VERY hopeful worship last night with CBF...great folks. I'll try to get a full report up when I get back in town, and thanks for checking in.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Why am I here?

I began this blog in preparation for what has been billed in some circles as the "last desperate hope for non-SBC Baptists," the New Baptist Covenant.

Who's us? Well, in my case, American Baptists. I am a cradle American Baptist, having grown up in the Union Baptist Church of Mystic, Connecticut (see links) where I was baptized into the faith in 1981. I pursued various secular goals for a while before recognizing a call to Seminary at Andover Newton Theological School, which led to ordained ministry here at First Baptist Church in Newton.

I am a disciple of the writings of C.S. Lewis, Walter Rauschenbusch, and William Sloan Coffin. As such, I am a student of "liberality," as so well expressed in the recent Christianity for the Rest of Us by Diana Butler Bass. That means I personally believe in welcome and inclusion of ALL persons into the Christian faith, even the folks I disagree completely with.

Is the title self-referential? No, not by a long shot. However,"...a vast number of folks have adopted the appellation 'Baptist' to mean a whole bunch of things that have little to do with what it meant to be Baptist in the first place.Who will be the last Baptist standing? That's unknown, but I can assure you: we'll have to choose from among the available Baptists. All three or so."