Dude, What have you done with my church?

I grew up in a Missionary Baptist Church. We read the King James version of the Bible and did not have a creed hanging on the wall of the building. We believed that each Baptist and each Baptist minister interpreted the Scripture and was guided by the Words of Jesus. My grandfather was a deacon and was a Democrat and was fierce about separation of Church and State. He was against prayer in school because he did not trust schoolteachers of other religions, Methodist for instance, to refrain from proselytizing his children and grandchildren. He saw the spiritual domain as the exclusiuve purview of the church and family and expected school and government to keep hands off.

He believed he was capable of reading his Bible and determining the will of God and the meaning of Christianity, and accepted leadership from his pastor. The government had absolutely no valid information for him on religion. Billy Graham was a pretty good preacher in his view, but rightfully had no authority in our church. My grandfather was disappointed in what he saw as a tacit endorsement of Richard Nixon and allowed that what Reverend Graham was "rendering to Caesar" was an abuse of his spiritual influence.

Our church was a member of the Muhlenberg County Baptist Association, which meant exactly that. Individual churches yielded no authority to the Assocoation, but used it as an instrument of communication and for the channeling of funds to missions and more remote levels of the Southern Baptist Convention. Each church was governed by the board of deacons and all business was conducted at a Wednesday "business meeting" after prayer meeting. The pastor had no role beyond that of a member in conducting church business; he was an employee.

The church I see today has the pastor, Chan Chandler, of East Waynesboro, North Carolina, Baptist Church inviting members to "repent or resign," it has the leader of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary leading "Justice Sunday," and Calvary Baptist Church invites the judge in the Schiavo case to "reconsider his membership." This is not your daddy's church, Alice!