The End Times - Not Those - The End of the Southern Baptist Convention

 I TRULY HOPE I AM WRONG.

This is the end

Beautiful friend, the end

This is the end

My only friend, the end.

The Doors

Church autonomy is not a unifying principle

Our present predicament in the Southern Baptist Convention (“SBC”) is no different than that of the United States culture.  We lack a pre-eminent guiding principle.  Until we find one, life in the SBC, like life in the United States, will remain fragmented, disillusioned, distracted, and unbalanced.  I intend to talk about the inevitable break up of the Southern Baptist Convention if we don’t do something immediately.  The 2023 convention will be a watershed moment.

            Interestingly, I don’t hear many people talking about our problems this way.  The word de jure to describe us is “tribal” but I think our so-called tribalism is a symptom, not a disease.  Southern Baptists have never been the monolith portrayed by our detractors nor by those who would keep it together.  We are a theologically polyglot bunch who are generally coalesced around two main themes: missions and church autonomy.  When I finished my education at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I had several non-SBC people ask me when I would be assigned a church.  I had to then explain the wild, wild west nature of SBC ecclesiology (a fancy word for how churches are organized).  I have to find my own church or start one.  Most churches in the western world follow the general pattern of the Roman Catholic Church, with a top down authority structure.  While the Anglicans, Episcopals, Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians operate a little differently than the Roman Catholics, the basic premise remains similar: people at the top of the hierarchy make decisions that impact which church gets what pastor.  This is insufficient as a meaningful principle to maintain unity and fellowship.  With this in mind, a very brief history of the SBC will help provide some context.

A very brief and basic history of the SBC

            The SBC has always operated in a congregationalist manner: members of individual churches decide how that individual church will operate, what that individual church believes, who that individual church will employ as its leadership, how that individual church will divide its offerings and so forth.  The SBC itself operates only as a means of distributing funds through the Cooperative Program (known as the CP by many Southern Baptists), which, at least initially, was a means of funding missionaries.  The basic idea made sense enough: one church might not be able to afford to send a missionary by itself, but many churches, banded together in this effort, could send many.  Initially this allowed an otherwise loosely related group of Baptist churches in the south to operate with one accord.[1]  These churches never agreed on one, specific confession of faith.  The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (started just a few years before the Civil War) did have an “Abstract of Principles” to which its professors had to agree in order to teach.  This did not bind a single church.  In other words from 1845 until 1925 (we’ll get to that in a moment) the SBC mostly operated as a missionary sending organization with only one seminary for most of that time[2] and with no over-arching or programmatic requirements, or even suggestions for that matter, for its cooperating churches.  Those churches remained fully autonomous, cooperating partners in the missionary venture.

            In 1925 the SBC created the first Baptist Faith and Message (“BFM”), a limited doctrinal statement which coalesced around the 1833 New Hampshire Confession, making minor modifications and adding some matters.  The historical milieu here is important, as there was a significant shift on the American evangelical scene known as the Social Gospel and the 1925 BFM was, in part, an effort to make clear what Southern Baptists generally believed in the face of this growing movement away from traditional orthodoxy towards anti-supernaturalism.  It was originally intended to help bring northern and southern Baptist churches back together under a single, confessional umbrella.  That part failed miserably.  By the way, unsurprisingly, not all Southern Baptists thought the 1925 BFM was a good idea.  Overarching creeds were never close to the heart of American Baptists, as they seemed way too Roman Catholicly.  After all, why have a reformation if you intend to degrade back to what was reformed?

            The BFM was changed again in 1963 (the moderations here moved the BFM closer to what most Southern Baptists likely believed at that time, particularly a more robust accent on the free will of people to choose salvation).  Thirty-seven years later, in 2000, after the Conservative Resurgence (or takeover, depending on which side you were on) the BFM was again modified.  The changes reflected an effort to clarify the complete truthfulness of Scripture and added some elements regarding social matters that did not require discussion in 1963, particularly as relates to the roles of men and women and homosexuality.

            Now, here’s the hot mess that has occurred.  Churches which referred to themselves as moderate continued to operate under the 1963 BFM but still continued giving to the SBC.  More theologically conservative churches tended to adopt the 2000 BFM.  (A quick side note on this matter – it has been the author’s experience that SBC churches which adhere to a more theologically conservative view are very detailed about their beliefs whereas less theologically conservative churches tend to have a generalized statement about how they love everyone or something similar with little reference to the Bible).  In other words, while there was a generalized unity when the 1925 and 1963 BFM’s were adopted, this was not so with the 2000 BFM.

            One might argue the fissure within the SBC began long before 2000 and this would be absolutely true.  Even in 1963 there were already concerns among some in the SBC that its seminaries were beginning to drift towards theological liberalism.[3]  But as a famous politician once said, loosely quoting Scripture, a house divided cannot stand.  The Conservative Resurgence was an effort to radically re-orient the SBC back towards its more orthodox roots; particularly toward an affirmation of biblical authority over any man made authority.

            I am personally aware of people who claimed Paige Patterson, one of the chief architects of the Resurgence, was demonic.  They hated him passionately.  I distinctly remember a church meeting at which a person affiliated with the Baptist General Assembly of Virginia actually claimed the 2000 BFM was, and this is a direct quote “taking Jesus out of the Bible.”  In any event, many of the “moderate” Baptists created something they called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) in 1991, which, at least in the beginning, was referred to as merely adjunct to the SBC and not an alternative or new denomination.[4]  It has long since abandoned any connection to or with the SBC.

            Interestingly, one of the cornerstones of CBF belief is autonomy: the autonomy of the believer to interpret and apply Scripture and the autonomy of the local church.  Adherents to these views often referred to them as Baptist “distinctives” and claimed the SBC was eschewing them when it created the 2000 BFM.  Oddly enough, I agree with them in what Baptists call the priesthood of believers – the idea that no hierarchical structure is required for anyone who is a genuine Christian to understand Scripture and to commune directly with God. That said, I also believe that the Bible teaches that elders (or if you prefer, pastors, I don’t care what you call it – gumdrops will work if it suits you) are to both lead and guide the local church.  It’s an odd thing to claim you allow for private, autonomous,  interpretation but then claim that this interpretation itself is somehow a guiding principle.  That doesn’t work (and hasn’t worked for the CBF) and isn’t biblical.  We operate within the church context in order to correct each other when error arises. Why should the SBC as a group somehow minimize this principle?

Why the SBC will split

            When I arrived in Louisville in 2011 to start my Master of Divinity degree at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), all seemed reasonably well.  Perhaps I was naïve (despite my advanced age of 48 and my occupation as a lawyer).  The SBC was, as much as might be called normal, united.  There was the ongoing bickering about Calvinism, but the raw truth is that all Southern Baptists are at minimum two point Calvinists (total depravity and perseverance of the saints) and many also accept some form of irresistible grace, even if they don’t call it that (think of all the times you’ve heard people praying for God to intervene in someone’s life so that the person would “accept” Christ).  However, as Dr. R Albert Mohler, Jr., president of SBTS liked to suggest, Calvinism was an intramural matter.  On the whole, things seemed relatively calm and stable.

            Under the veneer of unity lay a torrent of, apparently, unresolved problems.  It turns out that we never really squared away the question of women pastors, despite the 2000 BFM.  The ongoing debate seems to center around a distinction some make between preaching and the pastoral office.  Some have suggested Southern Baptists ought to take a “to each his own” view of this debate while proclaiming it’s not a fundamental issue because it’s divisive.  Balderdash.  If it were not meaningful, the 2000 BFM would not have needed to make any statement about it.  Were Martin Luther, Zwingli and Calvin divisive?  Was Spurgeon?  Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones?  How about we all go back and read Luke 12 to understand the divisive nature of the gospel message?  There are matters on which we took a stand in the 2000 BFM because Southern Baptists were trying to speak clearly and decisively precisely so there would be unity.  The idea of unity in diversity is a nice cheer, but it doesn’t work.  If we have significant differences on doctrinal matters (even so-called “secondary” issues like women pastors) it will inevitably create harmful division.  That’s why we have Presbyterians (many of whom plenty of Southern Baptists have meaningful agreement with on core doctrines)  and Baptists worshiping at different churches.

            In addition, despite the 1995 apology and ongoing and significant discussions, it turns out most Southern Baptists (or some large number) are allegedly racists in need of drastic correction.  Enter in the now infamous Resolution 9 proclaiming critical race theory and intersectionality as mere analytical tools by which to examine Scripture and the Christian life.  While I admit I’m not an expert on critical race theory and intersectionality, I know enough to recognize a Trojan Horse when I see one.  Far from helping mend any fences that require mending, these ideas unleashed more and greater division than we’ve ever seen before.

            Many white Southern Baptists who, like me, were brought up by parents who insisted that one look beyond skin color to the person’s underlying nature and character, are, I believe, rightly offended when some of the leadership come out with statements that suggest we’re all racists and need to repent.  That’s like saying we’re all drug addicts, or we’re all adulterers or we’re all . . . pick your sin.  It simply is not true and it has caused an equal and opposite reaction, as most such impudent pronouncements do. 

            The currents within the SBC are like a mish-mash of undertow, maelstrom, and tide all at once.  The controversy concerning sex abuse has taken on a life of its own; a recent president was caught up in a scandalous plagiarism problem; Resolution 9 remains extant with no real changes; and female pastors dot the landscape despite the 2000 BFM.  Any one of these would be, as Jesus said, sufficient for the day, but we’re dealing with them all at once.  They’re all symptoms of the underlying disease. We don't have a unifying principle.

            Ed Litton’s plagiarism problem represents a watershed moment.  The SBC president clearly engaged in what everyone now understands to have been ongoing plagiarism for a significant period of time.  That Dr. Litton didn’t see the need or seem to have a desire to resign bespeaks of either a crushing tone-deafness or stunning hubris.  Neither suits the office.  To his credit, I suppose, he bowed of serving the usual second term granted most presidents. It points to the cowardice of many within the convention to treat this as somehow a minor matter or to fail to speak publicly about it.  When we are insufficiently unified to agree (and some actually defended Litton's actions!) that plagiarism is a substantial moral and character issue, we've got a fundamental problem figuring out what exactly is supposed to be unifying us.

            The dust up regarding waiver of attorney client privilege among Executive Committee (EC for short) members resulted in several EC members resigning, the EC president resigning, and the long-time SBC law firm ending a roughly five decade long relationship with the convention.  This didn’t go as planned and created its own firestorm when many who are typically behind the pulpit suddenly decided they were legal eagles and took to social media and other places to explain how attorney client privilege works, despite their lack of a law degree or any meaningful understanding of such matters. As an attorney I could only shake my head - I tried to make suggestions to some but was typically disregarded because I'm a nobody within the SBC.  Okay, but I wonder how many of these pulpit-based lawyers tell their dentist how to fix cavities or tell their surgeons how to operate on them?  We can't be unified when people pretend (yes, pretend) they know things they don't.  I don't follow someone as a leader because they know everything, I follow someone as a leader because they know what they know well and they find others to help them with what they don't know.  I think that is often referred to as humility.  We can't be unified when so many seem to think they can talk down even to people who actually, really, do know a bit more about something than they do. (I get this is a little personal for me and I don't want to act with hubris here.  On the other hand, I am not a newby lawyer - been in practice since 1988 and I know a thing or two).

            Those who long wanted some kind of investigation of how the EC dealt with sex abuse claims among autonomous SBC churches became a strange and semi-Quixotic charging at windmills which ended in the Guidepost report. That document, it turns out, was a multi-million dollar piece of nonsense that ended up resulting in at least two lawsuits against various convention entities and entity employees.  What exactly was the otherwise powerless EC supposed to do about specific minsters or lay persons who committed sexual abuse at autonomous SBC churches?  Merely “investigating” the EC, in itself, sends a mixed message about how the SBC operates, as it, at least at some level, implies the truly powerless EC could have done something other than disfellowship churches.  It would be an odd thing to disfellowship a church which fires a pastor or worker who has engaged in sexual abuse.[5]  As we all know, the SBC and the EC simply cannot fire a pastor.  That’s just not how this operation works.  But we have NAMB and the ERLC signing on to a brief in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that could be used to claim the EC has precisely such authority.  We can't be unified when institutions within the SBC are re-defining how the SBC operates.

            Even if the EC sex abuse “scandal” only slightly cracks the door open for plaintiff’s attorneys, that, along with one judge who lets a case go beyond summary judgment, could end up having a devastating impact on SBC finances.  However, I have been told by my betters within the SBC this kind of thinking is harlotry at its worse – considering finances when lives are at stake – how unspiritual.  Yet, if the SBC finds itself stunned by multi-million dollar judgments over and over and it undermines the entire venture, what then?  What about all the missionaries who will become unemployed? What about the mission fields no longer being plowed, planted, sewed, and watered?  Do those lives not matter?  Apparently not.

            Women pastors are beginning to be normalized in SBC churches. Almost universally women pastors prove to be less orthodox and more theologically liberal than their male counterparts. I don’t say this as an indictment but as an observation.  The oft quoted Galatians 3:28 as source material for women serving as pastors bends the verse from its context into a pretextual pretzel.  It’s also puzzling that the same Paul who wrote those words is disparaged for his words in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 by the same folks lauding him for Galatians 3:28.  Even more puzzling is how Colossians 3:11 never seems to come up in these discussions, even though it makes the same argument as Galatians 3:28 just without the “neither male nor female” part. Now we have one prominent pastor suggesting the Great Commission somehow speaks to who can pastor churches, despite there being zero mention of church order in that passage.  For crying out loud, even lawyers recognize the fundamental textual interpretive principle that specific words govern general statements!! Moreover, there is a rather bizarre distinction offered between “senior” pastor and pastor, yet the Bible just refers to elders generically.  In other words, either you qualify as an elder or you don’t.  Whether one elder serves as the superior or not is unrelated to the question of qualification in the first place.

This is the end, my friends

            If you have four horses all pulling in different directions, you can’t plow the field.  In fact, you can’t accomplish anything.  That’s where the SBC is right now.  We have too many people pulling in different directions for reasons that rarely overlap.  They’re focused on single “issues” as if the others either don’t matter or carry so little weight as to be virtually meaningless.  What then unfolds are variegated responses, none of which satisfy.

            For instance, we have so-called discernment bloggers, who are sometimes quite accurate in their observations, veering towards a sneering kind of analysis they claim is biblical despite clear statements sprinkled throughout Scripture about harnessing one’s tongue, or in this case, keyboard.  Others defend the status quo with a fierceness that borders on mere fandom rather than true Christian understanding or thought.  Still others try so hard to placate all comers that they begin to descend into a Cream of Wheat kind of theology – bland, modestly nourishing, but never offensive and certainly insufficient for robust church vitality. Having been in SBC churches regularly since 1978 and having served in a variety of positions, the most difficult problem is the utter apathy of so many church members – they think theology and doctrine are things the pastor does and, frankly, just don’t care.  By the way, NO, I am not naming names because it’s not important for my purposes here.

            None of these responses is biblical or helpful.  Arguing that sexual abuse or race relations or women pastors or LGBTQ issues (which I haven’t even discussed) are THE issue all miss the point, right?  The point is that we are the church – the body of Christ in its human representation.  We are supposed to show others how to live through our love for each other.  This does not mean we have universal agreement on every theological issue; it does mean that we must have some baseline agreement on theological matters.  We can’t remain in neutral and simply resort to “church autonomy” as a basis for engagement with churches that operate on very different theological planes.  This is a recipe for the very kind of disaster we’re seeing knocking down SBC’s front door right now.  Love doesn’t mean I agree with you 100% of the time.  I love my wife dearly, but we don’t see eye to eye on everything.  Yet, on the fundamentals, she and I agree on everything.  This has to be the same within the SBC.  The 2000 BFM was supposed to do this very thing.  It has failed, apparently.  We don’t even argue in love.  We veer towards condescension of one sort or another or we try to bulldoze the other side or we wimp out with weaselly nonsense about others being divisive when they point out problems.  Love doesn’t require we never disagree or never misunderstand each other or even that we never sin against each other.  Rather, love demands clarity, honesty, sufferance, forgiveness.

Unfortunately, It's the Money, Stupid

             I suspect much of the reason every faction desires to “stick it out” has much to do with the money.  Recall the 1992 presidential campaign run by Bill Clinton: it’s the economy, stupid.  Yes, the coarse lucre that drives the SBC bus is really what much of the so-called theological puffery is about.  Oh, sure, there are souls who really are dedicated to their theological beliefs about race and women pastors and other tangential but allegedly “gospel” matters.  But the folks in power within the SBC are concerned about what happens to all that money, especially if things fall apart.  Who will get what and why?

            From Frank Herbert’s The Children of Dune: “I mean to disturb you!” The Preacher shouted.  “it is my intention.  I come here to combat the fraud and illusion of your conventional, institutionalized religion.  As with all such religion, your institution moves toward cowardice, it moves toward mediocrity, inertia, and self-satisfaction.”  The SBC is there – we are cowards with mediocre thinking, inert institutions, and self-satisfied leaders who care more about turf than about the gospel.  If we were otherwise, Ed Litton would have resigned immediately, we would not be kowtowing to worldly ideas like critical race theory and intersectionality, and we’d be standing firm on matters like women in the pastorate and LGBTQ matters.[6] 

            Yes, I know there are some out there who are calling out that we must return to biblical fidelity and must rid ourselves of these travesties.  I badly want to believe they will find ways to keep the SBC from taking the path of least resistance followed by the various main line denominations. Many of them now don’t even care to offer biblical arguments justifying the sub-Christian garbage they dump on their congregants.  Yet, what I frequently see from my SBC “betters” is genuflection to societal demands and setting the rigging to sail with the cultural winds rather than a serious-minded, soul inspiring, heart infusing stand for the gospel message even when the Greeks think we’re foolish.  Worse, some of my SBC “betters” appear to me as nothing more than grifters who like the power and money they control with little Christ-likeness to be found.

            Here is the final word I will offer:  barring a supernatural intervention the SBC will fracture within the next five to ten years and there will be massive and devastating effects on many ordinary and decent people who work at seminaries and other SBC institutions. We have no unifying principle to avoid this result and without leaders who have the courage and the fortitude to demand it of us we simply cannot persevere.  I fear the end of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” will be our final refrain (paraphrased here):

This is how the SBC ends

This is how the SBC ends

This is how the SBC ends

Not with a bang but a whimper. 

---

[1] I am well aware the SBC started because of the split between Southern and Northern Baptists regarding whether Southern slave owners should be allowed to be missionaries and the impact that has had on the SBC.  This reality, while it ought not be overlooked, has little to do with the current issues the SBC is facing.

[2] Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary were added to the SBC umbrella in 1908 and 1917 respectively.  The Sunday School Board was started in 1891 to publish Sunday school literature. None of these entities told churches what to believe.

[3] This is not to be confused with political liberalism, although there are some points of commonality.

[4] At least this was my understanding – I could be mistaken.  I suspect the CBF creators thought their views were much more prevalent than they turned out to be.  It is an enormously smaller group than the SBC.

[5] I don’t know of a single person who supports the idea of continuing fellowship with a church that continues to keep a pastor or layperson who has admitted to or been convicted of sexual abuse.  I suppose there might be some, but they’re certainly on the fringes.

[6] I know there are those within the SBC who think women can serve as pastors and cry “autonomy” when discussing it.  The 2000 BFM language is plain. If the BFM language doesn’t matter, then why have it?

A Mom Just Like Jesus - Redux

Here’s the thing I always tell people about my Mom: she’s the closest thing to perfect you’ll find aside from Jesus.  Mom’s gentleness is her defining feature.  I don’t recall her ever saying anything bad about anyone (even people who were pretty doggone rotten).  I hardly remember her ever yelling, even at us kids. I alone gave her plenty of ammunition for yelling had she chosen to use it.  I only remember her cussing once and that was because a certain younger sister who shall remain nameless (all of my sisters are younger than me) was complaining about something and Mom was up to her eyebrows with it.  I don’t think Mom knew I was there.  Frankly, as I recall the event, Mom didn’t even really directly cuss at my sister, but simply suggested all she did was complain (using a different, but not so nice word for complaining).  The whole thing lasted maybe two minutes. That was Mom’s worst day ever (in my experience), so far as I’m aware.  How many of us would give our eye teeth for that to define us at our worst?

Mom was super smart.  She read widely (when she could see well enough!) and learned as much as us kids as we went through school.  She could converse about the solar system, politics, religion, math, history, and health with equal aplomb.  I remember she and I reading the James Herriot books when I was about 14 or so – we both often laughed so much we had stitches at some of the silly things that happened.  Mom understood better than me having been a farm girl for much of her life.  She always enjoyed learning new things and was a pretty decent Trivial Pursuit player in her day!

She was a registered nurse who had worked in the emergency room and between that and the farming there was little that bothered her.  I made some effort to test her, though.  In my skateboarding days she repaired me again and again.  I remember one time she had patched me up with some gauze and bacitracin.  I went back a few days later for her to look at it and the gauze had actually started growing into my knee!  She clipped around the edges and told me not to worry about it!  Being 13 years old, I thought it was super cool, so I didn’t care.  Mom knew it wouldn’t hurt me and it wasn’t infected, so she didn’t care either.  When I got bit by a dog and wouldn’t use my leg because it was too tender, she forced me to walk around the block, heel to toe, until I stopped limping.  When I complained that it hurt, she just said she knew, but assured me if I toughed it out, I would be glad.  She was, of course, right.  I once let a friend shoot me in the face with a pellet gun (too long a story to repeat here) and  Mom acted like I had just nicked myself shaving (even though it required an ER visit).  I’m convinced I could have had a limb dangling with blood spurting and she would have just wrapped it, iced it, and calmly driven me to the emergency room, all the time suggesting (not yelling) I might want to reconsider ill-advised use of chain saws!

Mom wasn’t the kind to dispense unasked for advice.  To my recollection she never once told me “I told you so” even though she could have so many times.  More often than not, what I got from her was just a look – the kind that says “really, now, did you think that was a good idea and aren’t you glad you’re okay even though you might have gotten yourself maimed, killed, or psychologically disfigured?”  It was enough.

The other thing that amazed me was her patience.  Mom had five children in a span of seven years.  I can recall long trips in our various station wagons (for those of you under about 40 that was what people drove before minivans) during which any ordinary human being would have torn out most of their hair.  Dad didn’t have any (hair that is), so that was never a big problem for him.  Mom, however, had plenty (although she always kept it short because it was “just too much” which I now realize is euphemistic for “I have five kids, I don’t have time for hair”).  Nonetheless, despite herding the five of us during long trips, Mom never seemed frazzled or out of sorts.  Around the house, somehow the laundry always seemed to get done, the dishes were always clean, and the house was always clean (my sisters did help out with some of this as they got older – I was exempted due to lawn mowing and other outside duties).  During the numerous times we moved Mom never seemed to even twitch about all the packing and cleaning that went along with leaving one duty station for another (my Dad was an Air Force lifer – almost 30 years).  It seemed like Mom never got tired, never failed to make dinner, never got sick, and never said she didn’t have time for us.

Mom died recently.  She had become more fragile than in the old days, but, as we learned, she was one stubborn gal!  She didn’t give up anything easily. When I would call and talk to her she still had an ever present sense of “life is good.”  Many of her older relatives lived into their 90’s.  My grandmother died at around 80 years old but ONLY because she had been fighting cancer for years.  There is a toughness in those genes and Mom represented it well.  Her unfailing good cheer while dealing with some very tough blows in the past ten years was truly remarkable.  Dad drifted into dementia and finally went home in 2019 and Mom suffered some very serious health problems herself.  Yet, to have heard her tell it, life remained an ever blessed gift from God for which she was always thankful. 

Gentle, kind, patient, loving, caring, smart, tough but tender – I think when Mom entered heaven, there were people pointing and talking, in a good way, because they were saying there’s that lady who looks just like Jesus.

 

 

 

America's Lost Middle Ground - originally posted in 2017

 

America has lost its middle ground.

As a result, no one truly talks anymore.

I have a friend with whom I conversed often regarding issues upon which we had significant disagreements, politically, socially, and theologically.  Yet, while some of our exchanges were certainly impassioned, neither of us ever felt the other was any less a friend.  Speaking for myself, I would do pretty much anything this friend asked of me.  I believe he would feel the same about me.

I am a Christian – my friend is agnostic.  I am socially conservative – my friend is socially liberal.  I generally vote Republican – my friend generally votes Democrat.  I like to read mostly non-fiction – my friend prefers fiction.

How then could we ever manage to get along?  Middle ground.

Don’t misunderstand me – I’m not talking about middle ground in the sense of either of us giving up our sincerely held beliefs about anything.  I’m talking about the two of us finding certain things upon which we could agree and using those as a springboard for recognizing that whatever our differences, we could, nonetheless engage in a civil conversation.  Interestingly, often we found our differences were not nearly as profound as might appear.

For instance, we might not agree on the best way to relieve poverty, but we both accepted the general notion that relieving poverty, locally, nationally, and internationally was a laudable goal.  Middle ground.

We didn’t agree on whether invading Iraq was the right thing to do back during the Bush years, but we both agreed that those who brought down the Twin Towers needed to be brought to  justice, including any state that may have participated or helped in financing, planning or executing the attack.  Middle ground.

Does this mean I softened any of my Christian beliefs in order to keep my friend happy?  Not at all.  In fact, in an ironic way, our friendship did nothing but strengthen my Christian commitment.  He made me think more carefully and more profoundly about why I believe what I believe and why Christianity makes sense.  I suspect I made him think more carefully and profoundly about his agnosticism.  Middle ground.

You see we accepted and tolerated each other’s differences, as deep as they sometimes were, knowing that there was mutual respect and, yes, even love for the other.  We didn’t have to agree on everything to be friends.   In fact, our differences often made for some of our most enjoyable discussions.  Middle ground.

Along the way we found out there were some things we did agree on wholeheartedly.  Our college alma mater’s football team was a source of much discussion, enjoyment and heartache.  We both love soccer and both understand that the US will have a hard time fielding a great international team until it changes much about its entire structure of developing soccer players.  As lawyers, we both acknowledged justice was often less glorious than people believe and frequently a matter of time and chance rather than truth and law.  As men married for many years, we both recognized that figuring out our wives was still sometime mysterious, but we were nonetheless pleased who our wives were.  We both enjoyed a good cup of coffee in the morning and neither of us was afraid to eat a hamburger once in a while.  Middle ground.

The middle ground doesn’t mean that I quit being who I am and you quit being who you are.  What it does mean is that we recognize a common humanity.  What it does mean is we recognize that we are all fallible.  What it does mean is we act graciously towards others, even when we have disagreements.

My sense is that much of our current public upheaval has less to do with real divisions in our country and more to do with a complete unwillingness to recognize that differences need not end relationships.  For crying out loud, as much as I love my wife, I don’t want her to be a mirror image of me!  That would be exceedingly boring. 

Until we determine as a society that we are going to reclaim that middle ground, then the current divisions and distrust will continue to run unabated.

There are many who thrive on this division and distrust and ironically, many of the most vitriolic purveyors of this division and distrust are those who claim most loudly that it is the other side which is causing it all.  I could name names and you’d nod your head in agreement.  My sense is many of us (most?) find all this unpalatable and unappetizing.  We long for a willingness among our political, social, and spiritual leaders to reclaim that middle ground.

What this means is that even though I think Bill Maher is going to hell because of his atheism, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have a cup of coffee with him and talk about whatever was on his mind.  What it doesn’t mean is that I would soften my views on abortion or gay marriage or belief that Jesus was God in the flesh to somehow get him to warm up to me.  I wouldn’t demand he soften his views on any of those issues either.  That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try to persuade him to change and I wouldn’t take offense at him attempting to persuade me to change.

As I recently told a friend who has a habit of using profanity, which I simply don’t do, I don’t take offense as long as he’s not intending for the profanity to offend me.  I don’t mind telling him I don’t care for profanity, but I’m not letting that stop me from engaging with him, even on issues over which we might not agree. 

The middle ground doesn’t mean any of us give up our convictions.  The middle ground does mean we give up our right to be offended that others have convictions different from ours.  The middle ground doesn’t mean we don’t debate vociferously for what we believe is true.  The middle ground does mean that after the debate we acknowledge the other’s humanity and recognize none of us knows everything (or are even close).  The middle ground doesn’t mean there aren’t winners and losers.  The middle ground does mean we stop acting like sore winners and sore losers.

Perhaps it’s gone forever?  Probably I’m engaged in a pipe dream.  Still, here’s to hoping those of us who believe in the middle ground will reach out and claim it again.