June 20, 2024
By Jeff Huett
GREENSBORO, N.C. – At a time when the larger culture and the Church are becoming more polarized, isolated and defined by echo chambers, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is becoming more diverse but must be clear about how it understands difference in diversity, CBF Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley told attendees at the opening plenary session of the 2024 General Assembly in Greensboro, N.C.
“More and more often, the most common response to difference is fear, hatred, anger and violence,” Baxley said. “I’m not just talking about the political climate heading toward the election. I’m describing the congregational and denominational climate in the United States of America.”
Baxley said he believes CBF’s growing diversity is nothing less than an act of God and a clue that God is in the midst of reimagining CBF “so that we can be an image of the love and power of God in a broken and hurting world that desperately needs to see a still more excellent way.”
CBF has been politically and theologically diverse from our beginning, Baxley noted, but now that political, liturgical and theological diversity stands alongside the fact that CBF is becoming more racially, ethnically, generationally and geographically diverse.
“God is in the process of reimagining us so that we can be a different kind of image to the world around us,” Baxley said, but “if we are going to participate in God’s transformation of the world through Jesus Christ, we must first be even more overtaken by God’s reimagination, and being more overtaken by God’s reimagination will require us to be more clear about exactly how we understand difference in diversity.
Perhaps more than anything else, Baxley said, that will be a reimagination of the way we see difference. We can no longer see our differences as a problem to manage or as a challenge to overcome.
He said we need to see that much of diversity is a reflection of both the character of an adventurous God and the beauty of the image of God. That reflection is not uniquely reflected in one race, one nation or one language.
But that’s not all, he said. Some of the other differences result from a truth the Apostle Paul shared with the Corinthians—that we see through a glass darkly, and we know only in part. And what God says through the prophet Isaiah, “‘Your thoughts are not my faults, my ways are not your ways.’ There is more to God, more to God’s mercy and more to God’s life than any of us have seen yet. And part of the diversity among us in conviction and practice is a reflection of the fact that each one of us only knows in part and each one of us sees through a mirror dimly.”
The conclusion is “maybe we can see a little bit more together,” he said.
Baxley pointed to early Baptist expressions of this kind of reimagination of difference in their deep commitment to see the image of God in each person and to honor the consciences of each person, in genuine religious freedom and in their insistence to make space for dissent.
Another of those commitments is to the autonomy of local congregations.
“The highest authoritative voice in a Baptist denominational community is a local congregation gathered to worship and serve and pray and discern and work out its own salvation with fear and trembling,” Baxley said. “The highest authority in a Baptist denomination is not a denominational gathering or taking votes. The denomination works for the congregations. The congregations do not exist to serve denominations.”
Baxley said on the one of the places where the uniqueness of what God is doing in our fellowship is a tremendous scandal in the larger Christian world and other denominations is a community or people of different perspectives on questions of LGBTQ inclusion come together and that has become an increasingly unique space.
CBF is a community that includes congregations, partners and individuals who describe themselves as welcoming and affirming, and also includes congregations and partners individuals who do not, he said.
“Almost every congregation I have visited and every CBF gathering I have been a part of there are persons who identify as LGBTQ in the congregation and in the assembly,” Baxley said. “It’s important that we recognize that the difference that exists among us in our community today is not just a difference about a subject matter; it’s a difference of conviction, conscience and practice that affects the lives, hopes and dreams of people.”
Baxley highlighted several things he has noticed when visiting congregations on behalf of CBF.
There has been a recognizable increase in number of congregations who identify as welcoming and affirming, but there are still more congregations in CBF who do not. Also that some congregations who would be described as traditional in their theology, have pastors and lay leaders who ask out loud “what does it mean to do ministry in a faithful and redemptive way in the presence of and in ways to include the LGBQ community that is in their congregation,” Baxley added.
He said CBF partner churches have a number of different places of belief and practice, but almost all CBF congregations are beginning to ask themselves, “what does it mean to provide care and ministry.”
“I have also heard some pastors and lay leaders from theologically traditional congregations say that they are troubled, offended and mortified by the violence towards the LGBTQ community,” Baxley said.
He said many CBF congregations are being visited by people leaving the United Methodist Church—some congregations in fact have received visitors from both sides of that devastating schism.
But they are all asking the question about whether CBF can force a congregation to take a particular position or adopt a particular practice when it comes to questions related to LGBTQ inclusion or anything else,” Baxley said. “The answer is simple. No!”
“Because we are a denomination that works for congregations and we entrust congregations with the responsibility in making these decisions. And it’s our responsibility to pray for congregations, support congregations, try to make their life easier, at the same time more faithful as they ask and see and not as the Lord leads them. So, it is our calling to honor the decisions of congregations.”
As there are still many congregations who partner with CBF who are also dually aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention, current debates in the SBC have produced some lines of question as well, he said. Namely, since CBF includes congregations, partners and individuals who don’t all see these matters the same way, does that mean that all CBF believes in any particular way.
“No,” Baxley said. “The CBF community includes congregations, partners and individuals who are welcoming and affirming alongside congregations, partners and individuals who are not because we are Baptist, and as Baptists, we all see only in part and know only in part, and we’re trying to find our way forward together in ways that respect and honor one another and see the image of God in each other.”
Another set of assumptions that goes with such questions is that Cooperative Baptists don’t believe the Bible, don’t have any conviction and are moderates who go along to get along.
“I have yet to meet a Cooperative Baptist who does not love the Bible,” Baxley said. “I have yet to meet a Cooperative Baptist who is not wrestling deeply with the scriptures. I have yet to meet a Cooperative Baptist who is not interested in discerning a response to God’s call.”
“We just haven’t yet reached the point where we confuse our way of reading with the way which is Jesus Christ,” Baxley said.
And so if someone says to you ‘Why are Cooperative Baptists taking the easy way out on this, I would suggest we prayerfully consider saying, ‘No. We’re trying to find a more excellent way. I would prayerfully recommend we consider saying that Cooperative Baptists are trying to find a courageous way that prevents us from pushing one another in the corners of sameness and allows us to come close together so that we might learn from each other and grow together and respect each other.”
Watch the video of CBF Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley’s report to the 2024 General Assembly below:
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CBF is a Christian network that helps people put their faith to practice through ministry efforts, global missions and a broad community of support. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.