What does ordination mean to you? Why have you elected to be ordained to the Gospel ministry or have your ordination recognized in the ABCUSA? What experiences led you to make this choice?
Much of my thinking on ordination is in the previous essay. Simply, it is a precarious walk. Ordination is granted and upheld through relationships of trust as the Spirit leads and promises.
I believe that God has asked me to be in the ABCUSA. With my understanding of denominationalism and my desire for inter-Christian reconciliation, some people are surprised. I have been asked on many occasions why I am not Episcopalian or even Roman Catholic. It is true that my theology as an individual may be more in line with those traditions than the Baptist. Personally, I find I tread a fine line. I was given an infant baptism, and yet I am a proponent of believer?s baptism. I think congregationalism has much to offer the wider Universal Church, and yet our congregationalism can divide us, making for perhaps as much strife as it originally tried to avoid. I perceive a singular Universal Church. I find the historic creeds useful tools to demonstrate Christian distinctiveness. I even believe in terms of sacraments and not ordinances. Molly T. Marshall, E. Glenn Hinson, Bob Webber and other such Baptist educators give me strength to live in this tension.
I also find myself relying upon my understanding of Baptist history and Christian ecumenism for answers to these challenges. We Baptists have historical roots. We possess the traditions and theologies for specific historical reasons. To deny that historical reality of both schism and oppression, the socio-religious pressures of the Reformation, and the challenges and freedom of American religious culture(s) is to deny why it is we are Baptist. To forget this can lead us into troubling water. We must remind ourselves why it is that we are not all Episcopalian?or Catholic for that matter. We must recall our relationship to one another. E. Glenn Hinson often spoke in class of the Baptist tradition within Christianity as opposed to the Baptist denomination as opposed to other denominations. We have a ?spiritual tradition.? In my thinking, this allows for us to gift Christianity with our distinctiveness. It is a less judgmental stance where we hold ourselves against the rest of the Universal Church or even deny the presence of Christ within other tradition. This has fueled much of how I relate to my own Baptist identity.
A problem I perceive in our contemporary setting is the idea of ?church shopping? where church ministries are relegated to a set of programs and the personality of a minister. I think it may be reflected in this essay question. This type of seeking only demonstrates to me a lack of understanding of the historical realities of denominations by both the seeker and the sought. I do not want to deny that God can lead someone through a variety of traditions until they find their spiritual home, or to programs that fulfill important needs that an individual may have. Nevertheless, it may be that we have made commodities of our traditions. It is this dynamic I wish to avoid in my own life. God has asked me to live in the ABCUSA. Here I shall stay. I believe that my leaving this tradition to join another is to deny the presence of Christ in the ABCUSA. That I will not do.
Through my grandfather, a Baptist minister, and the witness of North Shore, I have come to love the ABCUSA with all of its gifts and foibles. I am willing to stand in the tensions because it has been my experience that the ABCUSA will provide both challenge and support for my ministry. This journey of study and discovery is hardly over. The ABCUSA has been an excellent home for my growth to this point. I have no reason to believe it will not continue to be so.
Posted by tripp at September 11, 2004 11:32 PM