On the BGAV’s Decision

I’ve not written a lot about this at all, for a couple of reasons, including my own complicated feelings around larger issues of context.

However, there are a couple of misconceptions that I’ve read in comments and other reactions that I’d like to speak to.

Let me start by saying that one of the great things about the Baptist world is that we have freedom of association. Being Baptist does not require us to belong to any particular larger group of Baptists. Relationships between Baptist churches are voluntary.  It means that we as an individual church can choose which groups we belong to and which groups we do not. It also means that any group can choose not to have us as a part of them.

So, yes, the BGAV has every right to not associate with us if they so choose.

I don’t know all the BGAV bylaws, so I’m not going to get into the question as to whether there were any pre-existing requirements that put the BGAV in this position in the first place. I’ll leave that particular point for individuals more familiar than myself.

However, there are some things that BGAV did or failed to do that are very ethically questionable.

First, the fact that the BGAV did not ask the Religious Herald to hold off on publication of the story until after sufficient time for us, Ginter Park Baptist Church, to have received the letter. Because of this, most of the members of our church found out about this decision on the part of the BGAV through the Religious Herald, people posting about it on facebook, or even through the local news.

More importantly, the BGAV is the party that wants to end the relationship, not Ginter Park Baptist Church. However, the BGAV is trying to put Ginter Park Baptist Church in the position of being the one to formally end the relationship.

The metaphor I keep using to describe this move is thus:

If my parents had decided, after I came out to them, that they wanted nothing more to do with me, did not want to remain in any kind of relationship with me, but had also decided that they did not want the guilt of having disowned their daughter, and had come to me and informed me that we could no longer be in relationship and, therefore, I had to disown them, that would be this situation.

Now, before anyone brings up the questions of Baptist Principles, allow me to clear up a couple of other misconceptions:

Ginter Park has not been a member of the Southern Baptist Convention for several years. So to point to SBC values and say that we are in clear violation of them is an irrelevant statement.

Not all Baptists are Southern Baptists. Southern Baptists do not define what it is to be Baptist.

One of the very few agreed upon historic Baptist principals is Autonomy of the Local Church. That means that no larger or outside group gets to dictate to us as a local church whom we ordain, whom we marry, or pretty much any other bit of doctrine or practice. Nor do our voluntary associations bind us in our decisions, unless we so choose.

The ending of this relationship will not result in the confiscation of our church building or land. There is one way in which we might be directly affected, and, as of this time, we do not really know what’s going to happen there, so I’m not going to get into that.

You may agree or disagree with our choice. You may agree or disagree with the BGAV’s choice. But at no point in this process has Ginter Park Baptist Church violated Baptist Principles or acted outside of its understanding of God or Scriptures.