Walter Shurden Receives Whitsitt Courage Award

July 2, 2009

Photo by J.V. McKinney

This morning, I attended the annual meeting of the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society.

Founded in 1992, following 12 years of denominational infighting among Southern Baptists, the William Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society was birthed by moderate Baptist historians concerned that fundamentalism endangered much of traditional Baptist heritage. The Society publishes a Journal, meets annually during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, and presents the annual Courage Award.

The recipient of the 2009 Courage Award is Walter B. Shurden.

Walter B. Shurden, the founding executive director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer, retired from Mercer University on 31 December 2007. Since his retirement he carries the title of “Minister at Large, Mercer University.” A native of Greenville, Mississippi, Dr. Shurden served at Mercer for almost twenty-five years as Callaway Professor of Christianity in the Roberts Department of Christianity in the College of Liberal Arts. During eighteen of those years, he served as Chair of the Roberts Department of Christianity and for almost seven years as Executive Director of The Center for Baptist Studies at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.

During his lecture, Shurden discussed Baptist Pavement (Baptist Strengths) and Baptist Potholes (Baptist Weaknesses). Shurden celebrated the Baptist strengths of personal religious experience, biblical authority, believers’ baptism by immersion, local church autonomy, freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, world missions, priesthood of the believer

Shurden correctly lamented the temptation of some to interpret the separation of church and state in a way that Baptists never meant, “that barters away our voice in the public square.”

Here are few rough quotes, rough because I’m not the fastest typist. Some are partial quotes, slight paraphrasing in some places:

An emphasis on personal religious experience is essential for Bible and dynamic religion of any kind. It can become, if we’re not careful, a kind of spiritual narcissism. Faith is not all about me.

Baptist weakness: Tendency (among Baptists) to ignore 2,000 years of Christian history

Local church autonomy as a Baptist Strength: “A local group of believers seeking to live under authority of the living Christ as express in the Bible”

Local church autonomy as a Baptist Weakness: “tendency toward self righteousness and isolationism. Despite weakness, I celebrate local church autonomy.”

On Freedom of Conscience: Emphasis on Freedom of Conscience is important for whole human race, but if not careful, it can morph into a kind of theological relativism. [Freedom of Conscience] never meant that one idea is as good as another.

I have been and remain today that the “freedom side” argument is more Baptist, more biblical and more human than the authority side of the argument. At the center of my being, there is something about being Baptist as I understand it that is freeing and fulfilling: it is the principle of voluntarism, it is the principle of freedom, it is the freedom of human choice.

…The highest form of freedom, perfect act of freedom is the freedom to give myself away to God and God’s Kingdom as I understand it. I know of no other higher freedom. Genuine freedom is the freedom to do as you OUGHT not as you WISH.

On Fundamentalist-Moderate Controversy: “It was a freedom issue that was at stake. The Bible was not at stake. We weren’t arguing over who was going to have the corner office with all the windows. Something far more valuable than institutions was at stake….To forget that freedom was the issue would be a hideous betrayal. For future generations to forget {that} would be an enormous tragedy.

the highest form of freedom, perfect act of freedom is the freedom to give myself away to God and God’s Kigndom as I understand it. I know of no other higher freedom. Genuine freedom is the freedom to do as you ought not as you wish.

On Fundamentalist-Moderate Controversy: It was a freedom issue that was at stake. The bible was not at stake.

We weren’t arguing over who was going to have the corner office with all the windows. Something far more valuable than institutions was at stake….To forget that freedom was the issue would be a hideous betrayal. For future generation to forget would be an enormous tragedy

…Being a Christian means taking seriously what Jesus of Nazareth took seriously. It is not about signing a creed. That’s easy church. It’s not about identification with institutions. That becomes too easily idolatrous…..What did Jesus take seriously? It was not believers baptism by immersion or the priesthood of all believers or a symbolic view of the ordinances….those issues contain the seeds of freedom in our denomination that blossom into much larger issues in our world. Jesus, so it appears to me, took freedom very very seriously. He took seriously the freedom to be included rather than excluded, the freedom to be appreciated rather than exploited, freedom to share rather than horde, freedom to love rather than to hate, fundamental freedom to anchor your life under God’s reign.

It’s much easier to be a Baptist than it is to take Jesus seriously.

…I never want moderate Baptists to minimize or forget the Baptist ideals of freedom. I want moderate Baptists to embrace the Jesus ideals of freedoms.

Photo by J.V. McKinney