We're going to Atlanta for the hoedown!
Clarence Jordan, that fiery and folksy Baptist-on-the-edge, changed the spiritual center of the world from Jerusalem to Atlanta in his Cotton Patch editions of the Gospels. In a prescient move, that meant Washington was equivalent to ancient Rome as the capital of the empire! Badda-bing, badda-boom.
Years later, Tom Key's musical version of "Cotton Patch Gospel" featured a rousing song by Jesus' excited disciples after learning from their master that he had set his face to go to Atlanta. They understood him as meaning it was time to party, for surely their Messiah was ready to claim his rightful authority and light up the fireworks. The disciples rang out:
We're going to Atlanta for the hoedown!
We're going to Atlanta for the sho-o-ow!
We're going to Atlanta for the bright lights, big time,
sho' enough, it's time for us to go!
But Jesus, of course, knew that they were running headlong into treacherous waters and that his message of God's kingdom was not something that would be defended by force of arms. Jesus would willingly face the fury of the powers with no worldly armor. The price could be too steep. He began to sing softly and slowly:
What does Atlanta mean to me?
What does Atlanta seem to be?
In a moment he started to pray to the Father and concluded with the hope that "there won't have to be a lynching."
His hope was for naught.
Political pundits and speechwriters like to point out how, during this presidential election, the nation may be standing at a decisive historical moment. The "New World Order" optimism of the early nineties has faded amidst ongoing turmoil. Islamist radicalism, tribalism, the gap between the haves and have-nots, and climate change hang like ominous clouds over the cheery, and often false, promises of globalism. Are we at a crossroads?
I'm not sure where we stand globally, but I think the Christian communion is also at a very decisive point in history. Christian faith is growing rapidly in Africa and southeast Asia. The pope is sticking his scepter in the ground and taking a stand for re-Christianizing Europe. Meanwhile, the bright hope of ecumenism in the 20th century has largely given way to conflict over sexuality and biblical interpretation. The Christian world is also agitated (along the spectrum) between "traditionalists" who favor established liturgical forms and the wisdom of older communions seated at Rome, Canterbury, or Istanbul, and the "restorationists" who repeat the mantra that we must sing a new song and who favor the revivalism and fervor of the still-ballooning Pentecostal movement.
Here in America, efforts at unity such as the National Council of Churches, Christian Churches Together in the USA, and the National Association of Evangelicals compete for churches and for vision. The quest for visible unity and harmony is complicated by the incredible rise of nondenominational and consumerist forms of Christianity, which overlap but are not one and the same. Perhaps we're even witnessing the end of evangelicalism. I won't even go into the confusion caused by the emergent movement...
And yet...and yet...there's always the hope that things can be different. On Wednesday I and a couple dozen other students with the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School will depart for Atlanta, which is in fact a spiritual center for Baptists-in-the-South-who-happen-not-to-be-Southern-Baptist. We will join a projected 20,000 other Baptists for a celebration of the New Baptist Covenant, which is a statement of fundamental agreement of gospel ministry between Baptist organizations that are members of the North American Baptist Fellowship, a wing of the Baptist World Alliance. While there, we will supposedly discuss our unity, or much-needed unity, in evangelism, alleviating poverty, and overcoming racial divisions. Sadly, it took two former presidents (Carter and Clinton) to get Baptists to come together in this way.
At its worst, the meeting could be a rah-rah party for being Baptist, and for not being *that* kind of Baptist over there (i.e., fundamentalists). In that case, important theological challenges and the biblical imperative for unity might be left off the table. At its best, the meeting could foster the kinds of dialogues and questions that will encourage Baptists in North America to continue conversation and prayer to the end that "they may all be one." But I worry that old wounds from the battle over the Southern Baptist Convention will encourage many to accept our currently divided state, and even embrace it as a God-given blessing.
We're going to Atlanta for a hoedown, but we should go to Atlanta in the footsteps of Jesus. We need much prayer and confession. We need much yearning for something different. We need to see our present pain for what it is, and we need to envision hope in what Martin Luther King eloquently described as "the daybreak of freedom."
Come, Lord Jesus. Come meet us in Atlanta and change us.
Years later, Tom Key's musical version of "Cotton Patch Gospel" featured a rousing song by Jesus' excited disciples after learning from their master that he had set his face to go to Atlanta. They understood him as meaning it was time to party, for surely their Messiah was ready to claim his rightful authority and light up the fireworks. The disciples rang out:
We're going to Atlanta for the hoedown!
We're going to Atlanta for the sho-o-ow!
We're going to Atlanta for the bright lights, big time,
sho' enough, it's time for us to go!
But Jesus, of course, knew that they were running headlong into treacherous waters and that his message of God's kingdom was not something that would be defended by force of arms. Jesus would willingly face the fury of the powers with no worldly armor. The price could be too steep. He began to sing softly and slowly:
What does Atlanta mean to me?
What does Atlanta seem to be?
In a moment he started to pray to the Father and concluded with the hope that "there won't have to be a lynching."
His hope was for naught.
Political pundits and speechwriters like to point out how, during this presidential election, the nation may be standing at a decisive historical moment. The "New World Order" optimism of the early nineties has faded amidst ongoing turmoil. Islamist radicalism, tribalism, the gap between the haves and have-nots, and climate change hang like ominous clouds over the cheery, and often false, promises of globalism. Are we at a crossroads?
I'm not sure where we stand globally, but I think the Christian communion is also at a very decisive point in history. Christian faith is growing rapidly in Africa and southeast Asia. The pope is sticking his scepter in the ground and taking a stand for re-Christianizing Europe. Meanwhile, the bright hope of ecumenism in the 20th century has largely given way to conflict over sexuality and biblical interpretation. The Christian world is also agitated (along the spectrum) between "traditionalists" who favor established liturgical forms and the wisdom of older communions seated at Rome, Canterbury, or Istanbul, and the "restorationists" who repeat the mantra that we must sing a new song and who favor the revivalism and fervor of the still-ballooning Pentecostal movement.
Here in America, efforts at unity such as the National Council of Churches, Christian Churches Together in the USA, and the National Association of Evangelicals compete for churches and for vision. The quest for visible unity and harmony is complicated by the incredible rise of nondenominational and consumerist forms of Christianity, which overlap but are not one and the same. Perhaps we're even witnessing the end of evangelicalism. I won't even go into the confusion caused by the emergent movement...
And yet...and yet...there's always the hope that things can be different. On Wednesday I and a couple dozen other students with the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School will depart for Atlanta, which is in fact a spiritual center for Baptists-in-the-South-who-happen-not-to-be-Southern-Baptist. We will join a projected 20,000 other Baptists for a celebration of the New Baptist Covenant, which is a statement of fundamental agreement of gospel ministry between Baptist organizations that are members of the North American Baptist Fellowship, a wing of the Baptist World Alliance. While there, we will supposedly discuss our unity, or much-needed unity, in evangelism, alleviating poverty, and overcoming racial divisions. Sadly, it took two former presidents (Carter and Clinton) to get Baptists to come together in this way.
At its worst, the meeting could be a rah-rah party for being Baptist, and for not being *that* kind of Baptist over there (i.e., fundamentalists). In that case, important theological challenges and the biblical imperative for unity might be left off the table. At its best, the meeting could foster the kinds of dialogues and questions that will encourage Baptists in North America to continue conversation and prayer to the end that "they may all be one." But I worry that old wounds from the battle over the Southern Baptist Convention will encourage many to accept our currently divided state, and even embrace it as a God-given blessing.
We're going to Atlanta for a hoedown, but we should go to Atlanta in the footsteps of Jesus. We need much prayer and confession. We need much yearning for something different. We need to see our present pain for what it is, and we need to envision hope in what Martin Luther King eloquently described as "the daybreak of freedom."
Come, Lord Jesus. Come meet us in Atlanta and change us.
Labels: Baptists
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