Editorial: Three key challenges to BGCT unity

Texas Baptists’ challenges to unity and cooperation have changed. The new challenges aren’t as inflammatory as the previous challenge. Still, they’re deep, more diverse and potentially more debilitating.

The former challenge was theological discord. Texas Baptists divided into two groups, largely over how we felt regarding charges of liberalism and fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist Convention. But theology doesn’t divide the Baptist General Convention of Texas anymore. Sure, we reflect a range of theology. But those who only fellowship with people who share their ultraconservative beliefs have left to join a competing convention. Remaining BGCT Baptists share many key doctrines and disagree on some. But we grant each other the grace to disagree on non-essential beliefs.

Today, the BGCT faces different challenges to unity and cooperation. They’re not likely to create the kind of conflict that confounded the convention in the past. But if left untended, they will dissipate our affections, develop into apathy if not outright antipathy, and continue to dilute our effectiveness and diminish our efficiency. The results could be even more dire than those ground out by theological conflict.

These are the elephants in the BGCT room. We must name, tame and harness them:

• Church size. Depending upon their size, churches hold very different expectations of the BGCT. The largest and/or wealthiest congregations don’t want much from the convention. Most don’t feel they need it, because they can procure their own resources—primarily for training and missions. They send clergy and laity to conferences most anywhere. They also send members on mission trips—and even long-term assignments—worldwide. Some large churches still value the BGCT for providing opportunities to support missions and institutions, but not much else. Meanwhile, the BGCT is the only vehicle for training and equipping, as well as doing missions, for thousands of small churches. So, what large churches and small churches want out of the BGCT is very different. More and more, their willingness to compromise is diminishing. This creates an almost impossible scenario for developing convention programs and ministries.

• Age. A generation gap is rending many churches, and it’s stretching out in the BGCT. Like most organizations, the convention tends to confer leadership based upon age and experience. But we have raised young church leaders who are ready to exert their influence. And they feel they can’t wait. As change whipsaws their congregations and all of society, they sense that if the BGCT doesn’t keep up, they won’t even have a convention to inherit by the time they’re “old enough” to be trusted with leadership. They have ideas and passion and courage. They’re unencumbered by a generation of denominational conflict. And they’re not patient. So, if the convention cannot keep up with the currents of change, they’ll engage elsewhere—within the confines of their congregations, in their communities, in networks they create themselves or in groups that accommodate their vision.

• Race and ethnicity. In the BGCT, we work hard at liking each other across the races. In many cases, we genuinely love each other. But we don’t respect and trust each other as we should. Respect/trust means staking our future upon each other. It means valuing each other above ourselves and risking comfort and position for the good of the whole. It means acknowledging and affirming racial and ethnic cultural differences. But it also means refusing to make everything about race and recognizing some issues transcend race.

Compounding these challenges is the fact Texas Baptists mirror our culture, with its heightened sense of self and desire to dominate rather than to create win-win solutions. We must embody Christ’s agape love and graciously submit to each other for the sake of God’s kingdom—and the BGCT.

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard. Visit his blog at www.baptiststandard.com .