Dead canaries are not really a problem in and of themselves. However, they may reveal trouble below the surface and they are therefore worth paying attention to. These stories were used by God to inspire conversations and to incite dialogue about the nature of our association. We share these stories not to draw attention to these particular issues, but rather to illustrate the pressing need for deeper conversation about the Gospel truth we partner to proclaim.
Paul Carter’s “Canary In The Coalmine”:
About a year ago I was in India doing some pastoral training. Our church has invested fairly heavily in Leadership Development through our denominational partner CBM. This was my 5th trip in 6 years and I have always felt that it was a tremendous privilege to pour into the lives of these dedicated and under resourced servants of God. On that particular trip I had been asked to teach on Integral Mission. Integral Mission is a fairly common buzz word in missiological circles and I’ve discovered that it can mean many different things depending on how it is defined. Broadly speaking, Integral Mission simply means that our Gospel proclamation must involve both Word and Deed in some sort of reasonable relationship. I believe that wholeheartedly, in fact, we have that written into the Core Values of our church. Our 5th Core Value at FBC says:
We deeply believe that our Gospel presentation should balance Word and Deed, in a faithful and culturally relevant manner.
I taught out of that conviction. I taught that Gospel ministry should have at its heart a clear, unambiguous, Biblically faithful proclamation of the Gospel, which is the Good News of what God has done in Christ to secure our redemption. That Good News should then be adorned, demonstrated and commended through deeds of love and mercy. In each of the three regional workshops (each 3-4 days long) I spend a fair bit of time defining the Gospel and then suggesting ways to plan and execute adorning deeds of mercy. The pastors were very engaged and affirming and we had an absolutely wonderful time talking about the glory of the Gospel and the urgent need to proclaim it and adorn it as churches both in Orillia and in Orissa, Kakanada and beyond.
In the course of the workshop I asked the question: “Is there a Telugu or Orria equivalent of the saying: ‘Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary using words’, frequently attributed to St. Francis of Assisi?” Surprisingly, several of the pastors indicated that they had heard this phrase in English. I asked them what they thought of it and then I told them what I thought of it. I said something like: “There are several problems with that saying, first and foremost the fact that St. Francis never said it. It is an apocryphal saying from several centuries after St. Francis died. Even more problematic is the fact that it makes absolutely no sense at all. The Gospel is a message! How can you proclaim a message without words? How can you explain atonement without words? How can you explain the Sovereignty of a Creator God, the guilt of a rebellious humanity, the grace of God in the gift of Jesus Christ, the necessity of believing response or the ultimate end of God’s glorification in the display of his mercy in some and his justice in others? That cannot be mimed, drawn, painted or played. It must be spoken. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ, Romans 10:17. What then, is the place and power of deeds?”
We had a very lively and profitable conversation about how deeds of mercy were very important, indeed absolutely necessary, yet they must not eclipse Gospel proclamation through words. The pastors opened up and shared that they sometimes felt pressure from the missionary folks (CBM) to invest more heavily in these deeds of mercy and development projects then they wanted to. They felt like they were being pressured into a “deed first, Word second” approach and they were relieved to hear that this ought not be the case. I assured them that while I could not speak for every CBM staff member, those I had talked to seemed to understand and agree that the Gospel message must be at the very heart and centre of all truly Christian ministry. Word is primary, deeds adorn. It was a very fruitful day.
The workshops concluded and we began to make our way back to Kakanada and from there to Vizag, Hyderabad and home. On the way we ran into another team from CBM heading out, intending to cover much of the same ground that we had just travelled. We sat down and had dinner together and began to chat. One young man on the trip shared with me how excited he was to have the opportunity to pour into the pastors here in India. “What will you be teaching them?” I asked. He replied, “My philosophy of ministry is pretty simple and can be summed up by that old line from St. Francis, ‘Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary using words.’”
My heart dropped like a stone inside my chest. I felt like I was coming face to face with all the feared absurdities of global mission. One crazy white person goes through a village saying X and then another crazy white person goes through the next week saying the exact opposite. What foolish inefficiency! Even if I was wrong and he was right (which I don’t believe to be true in this case), the Indian pastors would be better served by one message or the other rather than suffering through contradictory teaching that does little more than frustrate and confuse. This episode disproved in an instance the idea that we can be a missiological association without also being a theological association. Kostenberger and O’Brien state the same:
"Without a well-defined, clearly delineated gospel, mission will become increasingly ineffective, if not entirely meaningless."[1]
As I reflected upon that experience on the flight home I went through a variety of emotions and perspectives. At first I felt like I had wasted valuable time and money engaged in conflicting and confusing cross cultural shenanigans. “This proves why white people should just stay home and send money!”, “This proves why coordination and administration are worth paying for!”, “This proves why volunteer labour is often worth exactly what you pay for it!”. As my heart settled, the conclusion that stuck was more reasoned: “This proves why missiological partnership HAS to be undergirded by theological alignment”. If we don’t agree on what the Gospel is and how the Gospel is shared, then what in the world are we doing trying to work and partner together? Can two walk together unless they are agreed? I don’t think Baptists need to agree on everything in order to do mission together, but I think we have to agree on some things – even many things. Gospel content and Gospel priority would be high up on that list.
Epilogue
In fairness to my friends at CBM I’d like to share an epilogue to this story. I had the opportunity to debrief my experiences in India with Terry Smith and he was shocked and mildly horrified by my account. He knew the fellow in question and was sure that he had either misspoken or that I had misunderstood and that very well may be. I want to give the benefit of the doubt and I myself have had the unpleasant experience of being misunderstood more than a time or two. He did say that the St. Francis quote captured his sense of ministry – that is a fact – but perhaps he meant something less malevolent than I understood him to mean. Sometimes people use terms that mean something very different to them then they mean to others.
Terry assured me that CBM remains committed to the centrality of the Gospel proclaimed. While Terry prefers to use different terms than mine (I speak of deeds of mercy as adorning and commending – words drawn from Titus 2), he said that he is quite certain we mean more or less the same thing. He further assured me that CBM is committed to mission that is Gospel driven and that strives to balance word and deed. Terry said he likes to make one word of those two – “worddeed”. I take that at face value. Maybe my canary wasn’t all the way dead, maybe he was just in a coma and could have been resuscitated with a little mouth to mouth. Or maybe not. We’ll only know for sure if we invest in the conversation that CLRA seeks to facilitate. The episode in that hotel dining room in India screams out the need for a robust conversation within the Canadian Baptist family about the extent of our agreement on Gospel essentials. Maybe we have more in common then we think – I pray that is so. But I want to know what CBM means when they say Word and Deed. I want to know what they mean when they say: “God invites us into his Shalom through Jesus Christ”. That could be fantastic or it could be neo-gnostic mumbo jumbo – I need that defined!
I am prepared to take CBM at its word. We are moving forward on some projects with CBM and some of those projects could grow and become central features of our global mission portfolio, but, we still need to talk. WE need to talk. WE the churches and pastors of CBM need to talk. What do you understand the Gospel to be? What did Jesus do to secure our redemption? How do sinners come to Christ? How are the benefits of the cross applied to individual people? What is the role of good works? What is the danger associated with integral mission and what is its advantage? Lets talk about these things. The more agreement we can generate, the greater our reach in global mission. It is my sincere prayer that CLRA will deepen – not destroy – the basis of our theological and missiological partnership. God grant that it be so.
SDG
Pastor Paul Carter
February 2014
Marc Bertrand’s “Canary In The Coalmine”:
As I was concluding my term as Association Moderator I was made aware by another CBOQ pastor outside my association that the teaching of one of the pastors in my own association had caused difficulty at Camp Hermosa.
On the church web-site I listened to the three sermons preached to the congregation in response to the question, ‘What does Jesus have to say about sexual orientation.’
The first sermon dealt with what the Old Testament has to say about the issue and concluded that the Old Testament has nothing to say about sexual orientation. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah was dismissed as judgment on a city that failed to show proper ‘hospitality’ to strangers. The teaching of Leviticus was dismissed on the basis that it is no longer relevant to the church.
The second sermon addressed what the Apostle Paul had to say in regards to sexual orientation. Romans 1; I Corinthians 6 and I Timothy 1 were each considered and each dismissed, as posing no true opposition, because they were each marred by Paul’s own bias. I was particularly disturbed by the suggestion that Paul would have been shocked to think that we think everything he wrote was infallible.
The third sermon addressed what Jesus has to say on the issue. This sermon concluded that Jesus never addressed the issue of sexual orientation. In lieu of some teaching from Jesus, the pastor set forth the teaching of Acts 10 where Peter is sent to Cornelius with the gospel. The command given Peter, when he declines to eat unclean creatures, ‘Do not call unclean what the Lord has called clean.’ Is re-interpreted in this sermon to apply to those of homosexual orientation. The sermon closes with the conclusion that homosexual men and women are entering into relationship with God every day, whether we wish to accept it or not.
I was deeply disturbed by the conclusions of these sermons, and the effect of rejecting the necessity of repentance for those living a homosexual lifestyle. But I was equally disturbed at the way in which the writings of scripture were rejected as either irrelevant, or, in the case of Paul’s epistles, biased, bigoted and fallible.
I expressed my concern personally to the pastor who had preached these sermons in a couple of face to face encounters. Our congregation then sent a letter to our sister congregation asking them to repent of this teaching and demonstrate humility towards scripture. We, my congregation and I, were prepared to make a motion before our Association to disassociate this church from our common fellowship. However, at this time the CBOQ became involved with concern that our action was out of step with the understanding of our shared Association.
The content of those meetings was stated to be confidential. However I was asked to make no motion against this church and scolded for taking such an action against the autonomy of another church.
When I was under the impression that this was an aberrant teaching within a single church in our denomination, it seemed right that we act locally to remove this church from fellowship. But after dealing with the CBOQ leadership on this issue, it became evident that there was no will at the denominational level to oppose this rejection of clear biblical teaching.
Providentially, I crossed paths with Paul Carter and we began speaking about our distinct experiences and concerns. Both of us have considered whether we should leave the denomination, but it seemed better that we should attempt to call the denomination to renewal and reform through a voluntary renewal association; and so the CLRA was founded.
Below are a few concerns that have troubled me in the wake of this experience.
1) I am troubled by the number of good pastors who are unwilling to take a stand on this issue, and who have even questioned whether we have any right or responsibility to say anything about what is preached in another Baptist church.
2) The CBOQ’s persistence in dealing with this as a regional concern between two feuding churches, rather than an issue that concerns every church in the denomination. (I have repeatedly urged different denominational leaders to be proactive on this issue, but they have denied responsibility for addressing the matter denominationally.)
3) The CBOQ appears to be more concerned about a potential motion to disassociate one church than they are with a departure from orthodoxy and truth.
Pastor Marc Bertrand
[1] Kostenberger and O’Brien, Salvation To The Ends of The Earth (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 231.