Why I have not remained a Southern Baptist....

Consider the statement below from a fiercely conservative prominent Baptist publication...emphasis is mine.

"Missouri Southern Baptists believe abortion should be prohibited. Only God has the right to take an innocent life. A large majority of Missouri Southern Baptists feel so strongly about abortion and how God views governments that condone it that it weighs heavily on our collective conscience come elections."

I'm not terribly keen on a traditional and limiting description of the deity (in fact I'm perhaps becoming a fully functional Anglican Deist with borderline pro-life tendencies although I remain a staunch opponenet of any such legislation). The statement quoted puts me into an absolute tizzy. My regular schtick in listed format follows:

1. I have no desire to believe in or worship a deity that has the right or feels it posesses the right to take an "innocent life". I thought that the whole idea behind God's creation of mankind (I'm not so left-wing as to feel that term is gender exclusive) was one of communion and redemption when that communion was impaired. Why any such deity would wish to destroy any part of its' creation, let alone an innocent, is beyond my comprehension.

In short, this answers the "Why do bad things happen to good people" question with "Because the Almighty needs entertainment every now and then, and you're a convienent victim. After all the Deity can do as it damn well pleases."

Don't misinterperit my remarks. I am and remain a believer in the Divine. I simply think that some "Christians" are worshipping a mythological deity that doesn't exist except for in their fractured understanding of the Divine. There's something remarkably human about that, and I expect I've missed the mark on most of the "divine" stuff as well. I hope that the real God of Abrahamic religions regards them (and I) as lovingly (and forgivingly) as I expect any such deity to do.

2. "...how God views governments..." That's an equally disturbing prospect, especially given the way governments have perverted what might be labelled as 'God's Ideas' and 'God's Will' and bent them to serve their own design. In fact, I would think that any puritan-derived denomination (i.e. Southern Baptist) would eschew this notion based on the concept of "Priesthood of the Believer". The years of persecution suffered at the hands of a Political/Government Established Church (Anglicanism) in the history of all such denominations should also come into play. The SBC notion of a personal God who is in communion with his [sic]people (individuals) seems to be the trump card in this case. God simply has no interest in relationships with and opinions of Governments in a "Priesthood of the Believer" defined world. Look up the Catholic notion of an 'interdict' and familarize yourself with it before it becomes officially sanctioned SBC doctrine and is added to the Baptist Faith and Message.

3. Whatever happened to the notion of the seperation of church and state? Whatever happened to the ability to divorce political issues from religious ones? I grew up in the SBC, in a family that was and still is very respected at the Associational and State level. I keep telling my family that the SBC they remember pre-1978 and the local congregation they worship with are both far out of touch with the dogmatic, politically pandering, and bureaucratic organization that now exists at the national and state level. Remember, there was a time when being a Baptist meant you were a free-thinker and that apart from dancing and drinking in public, you were allowed and expected to keep your mouth shut and vote your conscience in political things. Remember when congregations that differed on the application of doctrine (ordained women, deaconesses, dancing, open or closed communion)were allowed to coexist with each other and were lauded for doing so?

The SBC does care if you vote 'left', if you believe that abortion is an individual's personal decision not that of the government or church, if you believe that blacks and women and homosexuals are equal in value to affluent and conservative and straight white males. If you think that the SBC still allows people and congregations who have a differing opinion from their post-1978 orthodoxy to remain a member of the SBC as a dissenting voice and provide balance, those days ended long ago. Look at the churches expelled in the last 30 years and what they stood, and still stand for.

There remain a few of these 'free-thinking' individuals and congregations in the SBC, but their number is few and shrinking. Conservatives in the SBC have spent 30 years purifying the denomination from perceived errant thinkers and voices of dissent. To some of us, too much talk of "purity" has echoes of 1935 German polity in it to be even partially palatable.

May we have the widsom to care for the widow and the orphan, rather than hedge our own way of life in the pursuit of power and domination over others.