Maybe Freethinkers are Branch of Baptists

One of my friends for 20 some years is a retired Baptist pastor. We we served together on a national board we spent many evenings discussing religion.

At the age of 90 he still writes a blog that engages my mind. Recently, he summarized his journey through the faith.

Born into a Baptist family, he learned as a young man he did not want to live under authorities such what he experienced in the military. He played football in college and went to Garrett Theological Seminary. It has a Methodist background but is ecumenical in reach.

When my friend graduated, it would have been expected he would be a Methodist preacher. But his Baptist childhood and military experience drew him back to the American Baptist denomination. He explained his journey in this way.

The Baptists rejected the church authority model of Catholics and Lutherans. Baptists rejected the authoritarian straight jacket of Calvinism. Baptists have one authority, the Bible.

But here is the interesting intellectual escape hatch. It is each individual, not authorities, who is free to interpret what the Bible means.

My friend knows, as do I, that Jesus may not have actually spoken the words attributed to him in the Bible. They are ideas written by someone. My friend takes the best ideas attributed to Jesus and preaches that these are helpful to both individuals and societies. Some 30 years ago, for example, he preached his own view that the Bible did not consider homosexuality a sin. He had to change churches because of this.

Freethinkers are merely one step further along the same journey. They not only reject the religious authority of the clergy found in Catholicism and Lutheranism and the Calvinist rules, they also reject the Bible as an authority.

Freethinkers join Baptists in rejecting authority. But, freethinkers find within humans, instead of the Bible, the ability to find positive and productive directions for our lives.

Comments

  1. gottabesure 7October 30, 2018 at 5:03 PM

    Re; "church authority model of ... Lutherans"---- "religious authority of the clergy found in... Lutheranism".
    Jon, you have much to learn on this subject, as you are highly self misinformed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jon LindgrenOctober 30, 2018 at 7:25 PM

      gottabesure 7 "Jon, you have much to learn on this subject, as you are highly self misinformed."

      I was using my friend's blog for that. He rolled Catholics and Lutherans into the same ball of twine. I'm sure you do not.

      Delete
    2. gottabesure 7October 30, 2018 at 7:32 PM

      @ 7;25; Then your friend is as misinformed as you are. Uninformed conflation is the enemy of integrity.

      Delete
  2. Jon LindgrenOctober 30, 2018 at 8:26 PM

    gottabesure 7 "Then your friend is as misinformed as you are."

    I posted this blog over on Face Book and got criticized there as well. Over there it was for what I wrote about Baptists. So, I'll be standing by to receive criticism over what I wrote about Catholics.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gottabesure 7October 31, 2018 at 7:00 AM

    @ 7;25 I'm surprised someone like you who is such an advocate of critical thinking would fall for that.

    @ 8;26; I'm not surprised. You should know by now not one's Baptist is not another's Baptist. There are at least 20 different kinds of Baptist. Only two things are required to be called a Baptist;
    1. against infant Baptism, 2. strong individual congregational independence. After that, the sky is the limit on beliefs and practices.

    Re. conflation, you should remember the little priest jimmy. Anyone not Catholic were all the same, and guilty of the same .

    ReplyDelete

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