On a Small World, a Big Faith, and Ann Rice

During our trip to the Baptist World Congress – which happens every 5 years, this one in Hawai’i! – we took a side trip to the island of Kauai.  We were on an excursion bus, which made a 5 minute stop to gawk at a blow hole on the coast.  Beside the natural sight-seeing opportunity there were locals selling souvenirs.  As I walked down the line of covered tables of strung sea shells and small wood carvings, I saw someone who looked a lot like a young man who grew up at KBC.  Sure enough there in the middle of the Pacific was Caleb Lawson.  He was in Hawai’i on a short vacation.  He was as surprised to see me, as I was him.

It is a small world, and made even smaller by our capacity to travel and talk across large distances.  The BWA meeting was a reminder that though we are separated by oceans and languages, what we humans share is much greater than that which separates us.  There were 4,000 at this meeting, but the more significant figure to me is that over 100 countries were represented (and the sad figure of 1,000 that US immigration kept from attending).

What do all these Baptists, with distinct languages, cultures, expectations, share in common?   It isn’t agreement on every dot of doctrinal truth.  It isn’t agreement on musical tastes or how to dress for worship (I always appreciate the Africans and their bright, beautiful, flowing robes – quite a contrast with the Americans who show up in shorts and white tennis shoes).  But it is an experience of love and a belief that God was at work in Christ.

The author Ann Rice has been in the news this last week.  After a high profile conversion to Catholicism a decade plus ago, she has now renounced her faith.  She says she will never go back to her atheistic days, that she still believes in Christ, but that no longer – given Catholicism’s express views on social issues – can she call herself a Christian.  After making this public statement, she said it’s the first time she’s felt sane in a long time.

I’m sympathetic to Rice’s concerns, but am amazed that she is about 500 years behind.  Or at least 400.  The early Baptists understood that God’s truth was larger than any one person or any one group.  They believed that the Spirit was at work in persons individually and in the local church communally, and that understanding required a kind of freedom.  The early Baptists embraced a freedom for individuals to disagree and for churches to differ.  Starting in 1610 early Baptists made it clear that no church, denomination, pope, or potentate could compel the conscious or demand conviction.  Early in our nations history, Baptist fought for the freedom of religion, believing that all should be free to worship as their conscious dictated.

Ann Rice shouldn’t have rejected Christianity, she should have embraced being a Baptist.  There is room for her in this large, diverse, energetic, group of Jesus followers.  We don’t all agree, but we do all see the need to serve in the name of Christ – for God so loved this small world that he deemed it worth saving.  It isn’t saved by our submission to a set of beliefs, but our adoption of a big faith that puts a loving heart and working hands ahead of agreeing brains.