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From Churches in Cultural Captivity to the Church Incarnate

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From Churches in Cultural Captivity to the Church Incarnate FROM CHURCHES IN CULTURAL CAPTIVITY TO THE CHURCH INCARNATE IN A CULTURE: ECCLESIAL MEDIATION AFTER THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST SUBCULTURE Dissertation Submitted to The College of Arts and Sciences of the UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology By Coleman Fannin UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON Dayton, Ohio December, 2014 FROM CHURCHES IN CULTURAL CAPTIVITY TO THE CHURCH INCARNATE IN A CULTURE: ECCLESIAL MEDIATION AFTER THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST SUBCULTURE Name: Fannin, Coleman APPROVED BY: ____________________________________________________________ William L. Portier, Ph.D. Faculty Advisor ____________________________________________________________ Kelly S. Johnson, Ph.D. Faculty Reader ____________________________________________________________ Brad J. Kallenberg, Ph.D. Faculty Reader ____________________________________________________________ William V. Trollinger, Ph.D. Faculty Reader ____________________________________________________________ Curtis W. Freeman, Ph.D. Outside Faculty Reader ____________________________________________________________ Daniel S. Thompson, Ph.D. Chairperson ii © Copyright by Coleman Fannin All rights reserved 2014 iii ABSTRACT FROM CHURCHES IN CULTURAL CAPTIVITY TO THE CHURCH INCARNATE IN A CULTURE: ECCLESIAL MEDIATION AFTER THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST SUBCULTURE Name: Fannin, Coleman University of Dayton Advisor: Dr. William L. Portier This dissertation is an analysis of how my tribe of moderate Baptists arrived at a state of theological paralysis, unable to go forward together but unwilling to critically assess their own history or constructively engage with the broader Christian tradition, and a proposal for how they might seek consensus and renewal. It resembles quite a few recent Baptist projects in that it attempts to make sense of the past in order to be faithful in the future, but it is distinct in that it focuses on the roles of southern culture and especially the Southern Baptist subculture in shaping theology and ethics. It argues that the dissolution of the subculture has distanced moderates from one another and the universal church, thereby impoverishing their thought and action and deepening their captivity to culture. However, it also argues that by exposing flaws in their conception of freedom, the dissolution of the subculture presents an opportunity to develop a robust ecclesiology and theology of tradition with the goal of again incarnating their faith in its own culture, one that both inhabits and transcends American culture. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to the faculty of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Dayton and to the members of the Region at Large of the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion for their guidance, professional and personal, throughout my doctoral studies. I am particularly indebted to the members of my committee for their insights and suggestions as I developed and refined this dissertation. I am also grateful for my fellow students at UD for their friendship as well as the many hours of stimulating conversation inside and outside the classroom and for the members of the First Baptist Church of Dayton for providing a welcoming community of faith while we lived in Ohio. Finally, I could not have completed this dissertation without the love and support, and even the occasional distraction, of my wife and our two children who were born in the midst of the writing process. For their sake, I hope it contributes to a renewal of the Baptist tradition within the context of the church catholic. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. v INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 Soul Freedom and Its Discontents .......................................................................... 1 Baptistification Takes Over Baptist Identity ......................................................... 13 Overview ............................................................................................................... 22 I. CULTURAL CAPTIVITY REVISITED ...................................................................... 25 A Cultural Establishment ...................................................................................... 26 Revivalism and Democratization .......................................................................... 36 Autonomy and Discipline ..................................................................................... 44 Sectionalism and Nationalism ............................................................................... 52 The Construction of the Subculture ...................................................................... 59 II. THE MYTH OF SOUL COMPETENCY .................................................................... 64 The Enigma of Baptist Belief ............................................................................... 64 The Centrality and Certainty of Experience ......................................................... 75 The Inevitability and Invisibility of the Church ................................................... 84 The Harmony of the Individual and the State ....................................................... 94 The Contradictions of Soul Competency .............................................................. 99 III. THE MEDIATION OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST SUBCULTURE ................. 107 Two Senses of Mediation .................................................................................... 107 The Grand Compromise ...................................................................................... 114 Subcultural Expansion and Cultural Captivity ................................................... 122 The Dissolution of the Subculture ...................................................................... 131 The Theological Bind of Post-Subculture Baptists ............................................. 140 IV. A POSTMODERN BAPTIST VISION .................................................................... 149 The Struggle of Baptist Theology ....................................................................... 150 vi The Postmodern Turn in Theology ..................................................................... 156 The Future of the Baptist Vision ......................................................................... 164 The Powerful Practices of Baptist Communities ................................................ 173 Baptist Catholicity .............................................................................................. 181 V. THE CATHOLICITY OF THE BAPTIST TRADITION ......................................... 193 Baptists and Tradition ......................................................................................... 193 Tradition as a Version of Moral Inquiry ............................................................. 197 Tradition as Argument ........................................................................................ 204 Tradition and Catholicity .................................................................................... 211 A New Oxford Movement .................................................................................. 221 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 232 The Exact Opposite of Catholicism .................................................................... 232 The Promise of Evangelical Catholicism ............................................................ 240 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 252 vii INTRODUCTION This dissertation is an analysis of how my tribe of moderate Baptists arrived at a state of theological paralysis, unable to go forward together but unwilling to critically assess their own history or constructively engage with the broader Christian tradition, and a proposal for how they might seek consensus and renewal. It resembles quite a few recent Baptist projects in that it attempts to make sense of the past in order to be faithful in the future, but it is distinct in that it focuses on the roles of southern culture and especially the Southern Baptist subculture in shaping theology and ethics. It argues that the dissolution of the subculture has distanced moderates from one another and the universal church, thereby impoverishing their thought and action and deepening their captivity to culture. However, it also argues that by exposing flaws in their conception of freedom, the dissolution of the subculture presents an opportunity to develop a robust ecclesiology and theology of tradition with the goal of again incarnating their faith in its own culture, one that both inhabits and transcends American culture. This introduction first describes the theological stance and cultural situation of moderate Baptists, then identifies the methodology of the dissertation and summarizes its content. Soul Freedom and Its Discontents The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), my ecclesial home, is over two decades old. Yet its members still tend to call themselves “moderates,” the name they
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