Is It Time to End the "Babylonian Captivity" of Evangelicals in the Mainline Denominations?

Today, I read some fairly strong criticisms of an evangelical Baptist. This stimulated some thinking on my part. The following is offered tentatively, fearfully, and provisionally. I solicit the feedback of those sisters and brothers more astute than me who may be willing to add or subtract from these thoughts.

Early on in the Reformation, Martin Luther’s friend Spalatin asked him to write about the sacraments. Luther did not tentatively embark upon his mission but quickly attacked the papacy for its system of sacramental observance (or wrong headed misunderstanding of it as Luther saw it).

The title of his work, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), refers to the time the Jews spent under Babylonian rule in the sixth century B.C. Similarly, Luther argued that Christians had been carried away from the Word of God and made subject to the papal system. Luther opined that because of this abuse Rome was "identical with the kingdom of Babylon and the Antichrist itself.”

Luther’s impulse was away from slavery to freedom. In his mind the Roman church had subjugated the people of God with a system both unbiblical and onerous. How can anyone compare this to the current controversy in the ABC? How can an evangelical revolt against Valley Forge be construed as liberating? Should we not associate the trajectory of freedom with the left and its embrace of human rights, civil rights, and the courage to recast traditional sexual roles in more humane and humanistic directions?

As Paul would say, "Me genoito" (“May it NEVER be!”)! The fault line separating evangelical Baptists from the Valley Forge establishment concerns more than interpretation and hermeneutics. It relates to the very authority of Jesus Christ, himself. The mainline impulse in the past few decades has pointed toward an inclusive vision bordering on syncretism and a revisionist program partaking of denial of essential Christian tenets held virtually universally in the church for nearly two thousand years. That the American Baptists are perhaps the most traditional of the seven mainline sisters does not deny the significant drift from historic orthodoxy in our ranks as well.

Our commitment to Jesus Christ and to shared mission cannot be reconciled with radical revisionism of the church’s sexual ethics without doing violence to the Bible and to the authority of Jesus Christ in the process. Paul, the great pioneer charged with fleshing out the meaning of “radical discipleship” began his greatest epistle declaring that homosexual practice was not only “incompatible” with Christian teaching (as the ’92 ABC resolution would have it), but that it stands under the eschatological wrath and enduring judgment of God.

Unless we are willing to strip the kernel from the husk and remove the “trappings” from what we take to be the central meaning of the Bible, we cannot dismiss Paul as a raving culture-bound homophobe of the first century. And, if Paul stands as an accurate communicator of the Word of God, we cannot easily parse the unanimous teaching of the New Testament on human sexuality in any other way without denying the authority of Jesus Christ who clearly believed “Your Word is truth.” That difference, for example, separates this issue from questions of slavery and women in ministry where the witness of scripture shows some ambiguity of precedent and teaching.

Freedom is an intoxicating construct, particularly in our present day world. But, just as being “liberated” from oxygen results in asphyxiation and “freedom” from food leads to starvation, the open-minded revisionism of the left will result in alienation from God and standing under his eternal judgment, not the promised utopia.

Insofar as the leadership of the ABCUSA has repeatedly declared itself willing to live in the tension and cognitive dissonance of being personally “traditional” while simultaneously “holding on” to those who reject the Word of the Church’s Christ, perhaps the time has come to identify the “freedom” of the revisionists for what it is. This is not the “soul liberty” of our early forbearers. It represents a deadly “liberty” or separation from truth, from life, and from Christ. As Paul told the Galatians: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).

At this point, evangelicals in the ABC have more in common with traditional Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, and Congregationalists than they do with their own denomination. The issue cannot be reduced to narrow mindedness or the ultimate shibboleth, "fundamentalism." With no realistic prospect of changing the culture or policies of Valley Forge, maybe the time has come to end the “Babylonian captivity” of evangelicals willing to submit to the freedom of truth who have been suffering at the hands of those embracing the spirit of this age.

[Editorial Note: My affection for EVERY one of the leaders in Valley Forge (having met and shared meals with all of them) should preclude the assumption that one reader made that my reference to the Babylonian Captivity implies that I think VF people are the "antichrist"!!!]

[His Barking Dog reminds readers that these howls against the revisionists are my own opinions only. I do not pretend to speak for ANY organization or entity or structure or modality or sodality or coffee club or coven or investors' club or gang or prayer group.]