...and taking with the other

Recently I've said a few things about Baptists, like if you were to scratch an American, you'll find a Baptist underneath. To clarify, I am particularly talking about the habits of mind and soul that almost any American takes for granted as being true -- so much so that to suggest otherwise borders on socio-cultural heresy. And many of those habits parallel quite closely distinctive teachings and convictions of the Baptist tradition.

Actually, what they really approximate is the liberal tradition that came out of the Enlightenment, but when I call my Southern Baptist pastor friend a liberal compared to me (I'm an Episcopal priest) he just laughs. But it's true. The Congregational, Baptist, Unitarian, and most other free church traditions -- especially those that came early to America -- share these characteristics in common, and are properly called "liberal" traditions. I don't call them "liberal" because that would lead to more misunderstanding than calling them Baptist. (In fact, I try to avoid the term "liberal" altogether, because -- like "literalism" -- I think it can become a very grey catch-all term, with any number of a vast array of meanings. Some of the meanings even contradict the other meanings. So I try to leave it alone. If you do ever hear me use it, though, I am almost certainly talking about the sense of "liberal" I am outlining here.)

So here in a rough-and-ready outline are some characteristics of Americans, Baptists and other liberals:
1) privileging of the literal level of interpretation over any other.
2) distaste for the symbolic and abstract/preference for the literal and concrete.
3) utilitarian and pragmatic, seeing beauty and ornament as extras (which, when push comes to shove, are unnecessary).
4) stress on the individual (and her conscience) as the seat of authority, in interpretation especially; community is secondary or nonexistent.
5) stress on The Bible, and the Bible's perspicacity -- and hence a de-emphasis on interpretation, or a denial that it takes place.
6) stress on liberty of the individual, versus communal or tradition-based norms, with a corresponding de-emphasis on any historical memory.
7) emphasis on voluntary membership in church, a group whose authority is entirely congregational, and run by popular vote (or possible a board of elders). Suspicion of either a concrete, embodied church structure (whether full-blown episcopacy, or even a regional synod or classis), or of "high" doctrines of the church as anything other than a human, voluntary creation. The notion that one might be a Christian in isolation, without being a member of any church seems to be common sense.
8) strong emphasis on separation of church and state.
9) strong tendency to divide the world up into "spiritual" and "political", so that the two should not meet: that is to say, faith is "private" while politics is "public".
10) strong sense that salvation is other-worldly, i.e. it's about going to heaven, and that we should do as much as possible to help others make a decision that will help them "spiritually". This often entails a corresponding de-emphasis on this-worldly efforts by Christians, except, perhaps, as they lead to the spiritual.
11) often displays a sense of patriotism that goes beyond affection for one's country to an assurance that it is favored or chosen by God, perhaps an instrument of God in the world.

We are all Baptists to some extent: we all have to wrestle with these habits of mind and life, as they have simply been given to us and they are in the bedrock of our national culture -- moreso, I would argue, than the Puritans and their convictions. Of course, even if we define ourselves against this characterization we are still demonstrating the Baptist/ American influence. Naturally we don't need to accept these habits, even if they've so deeply shaped us. But if we have been formed by them, it will be difficult (and will seem anything but natural) to notice them, to doubt them, and to think and act differently.

I will, in time, try to make more observations about how these habits show themselves in our society. I think this conversation (if you make comments) is important, because this is not just our Baptist-liberal-American culture, but increasingly, as we assume the mantle of World Empire, and spread our way of life through global commerce (a parody of Christian mission), it is becoming the way of the world.

Giving with one hand...

I feel that I need to say something about Baptists in my life, as I have said a number of things about Baptists in general in a few recent posts -- and intend to say a few more things in future posts -- that sound negative. I don't mind offering criticism, but I am uncomfortable when others seem to have some scapegoat on whom they blame everything. So I should say at the outset that this is not my intention in talking about Baptists the way I have.

I have known the work of a number of Baptist writers who have been influential on me, and whom I respect. One, of course, is Real Live Preacher. There are others, too.

Two members of my extended family are Baptists and they have always been a model of Christian living for me: generous, loving, self-sacrificial, gracious, humble. They have been saints of God in my life and would be embarrassed to hear me say so.

I have many friends who are involved with Baptist churches, including one longtime friend who is pastor of a Baptist church in Virginia, and another who is a New Testament scholar teaching at Moody Bible Institute. I regard all of them with affection and respect.

Also, I must say in all honesty that I owe a debt of gratitude to the Baptists, for I became a Christian in a Baptist church. Without exaggerating, I cannot imagine what my life would be like now if it weren't for a few friends inviting me and a church welcoming me and telling me what it's about back when I was a teenager. In plain terms, I owe them my life.

Finally, in case it should ever sound in my writings as if I were picking on the Baptists, as if I were suggesting that if we could just isolate them or eliminate them or change them and everything would be okay, please remember this: we are all Baptists.

That is to say, if I am right in the ideas that I am unpacking, then the same habits of mind and soul that animate the Baptists are what drive and form all Americans, not just those who were dunked in a free church setting.

The Continuing Saga of America: a ________ Nation

Some time back, I explored the proposition put to me by a friend and maintained tenaciously by many others that America is a Christian nation. More recently, I have been analyzing Baptist theology as directly influencing and reflecting American habits of mind and life.

Now here comes Caleb McDaniel, writing with his usual verve and insight on a related topic, the shape of Thomas Jefferson's faith. I recommend you read his entire entry, but I found the following excerpts particularly telling:

Whatever one thinks about the "Christian nation" question, it is undeniable that Americans of all stripes have been obsessed throughout our history with Jesus. What [this author] proposes to show, in fact, is that Americans have frequently used their various interpretations of Jesus, whether historical or theological, as critical tools against "Christianity."

...and further...

But what is clear even from this start is that Jefferson's ideas about Jesus were "Christian" only in a highly qualified sense. What is even clearer is that Jefferson intended his Jesus to stand in judgment against Christianity. It is important that he underlined his status as a "real" Christian. He was not claiming Christian faith in such statements, but was (as many Americans subsequently have) attempting to evacuate the term and fill it with new meaning. And, again like many subsequent Americans, he wanted to claim that this new meaning of Christian was the original, unadulterated one.

I find these observations fascinating not in what they reveal about Jefferson himself, as what they reveal (by analogy) about Americans in general. The practice of using Jesus as a critical tool against Christianity -- not to say the church -- seems to me to be a sort of characteristic move of Americans (and perhaps the Enlightenment in general). To do this, one needs to prise Jesus away from any sort of embodied tradition and assert that he is actually free-floating and abstract, universally and immediately available (how else would one "have" the "real" Jesus with which to judge the Christian faith?). One would need not only skepticism towards tradition(s), but also a conviction that oneself (or one's conscience) is the final authority on such issues as reading and interpreting the Scriptures (editing them, in Jefferson's case). Finally, one would need to maintain the tried-and-true (and dubious) distinction of "wheat" and "chaff". Harnack was a prominent later proponent of this notion of getting rid of the chaff of Christianity to maintain the pure wheat, not unlike what Jefferson was up to. I raise these issues not to offer thorough critique here, but to observe some of the signs of what I elsewhere call the "Baptist nature" of much American tradition.