Reflections

A summer upon which to reflect & remember

By J. Brent Walker

July-August 2007

Looking back over the seven decades of the life of the Baptist Joint Committee — the big picture — one sees an arc that traces a steady growth in resources and effectiveness in the fight for religious liberty. However, when viewed year by year — a series of snapshots — that trajectory reveals fits and starts, successes and failures, two steps forward and one step back (and sometimes one forward and two back), the happy marriage of now 14 Baptist bodies and an acrimonious divorce (Southern Baptist Convention).

Every now and then we experience a major breakthrough, a quantum leap forward, a coming together of God’s providence with faithful friends to spur breathtaking advances in the BJC’s ministry. The past month — anchored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly and American Baptist Churches Biennial in Washington, D.C. — is one of these rare, kairos moments.

It started off with a highly successful Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill. More than 200 champions of religious liberty gathered early in the morning to hear religious, educational and political leaders read portions of that famous sermon delivered by George W. Truett from nearly the same spot in May 1920, eloquently expounding on the importance of religious liberty and church-state separation and the role Baptists have played in advancing those principles over nearly four centuries. (I knew things were going well when, although overcast, the rain waited until 10 minutes after we finished!)

Holly Hollman led a CBF workshop, titled: “You’re in Washington. Be an Advocate!” that was attended by an overflow crowd. This insightful instruction on how to more effectively advocate for the BJC and religious liberty was accompanied by numerous BJC-arranged meetings on Capitol Hill with members of Congress and their staff.

At the joint CBF/ABC plenary session, the BJC was honored and humbled to receive the first ever American Baptist Religious Freedom Award, along with a generous gift to advance our capital campaign to establish a Center for Religious Liberty. The nice things that American Baptists’ BJC board members — Aidsand Wright-Riggins, Valoria Cheek and Sumner Grant — said about the BJC and a spontaneous ovation from the 5,500 Baptists gathered in the Washington Convention Center were truly heartwarming.

The annual luncheon of the BJC’s Religious Liberty Council kept the ball rolling. More than 550 RLC members and BJC supporters were inspired by Randall Balmer’s rousing address. But they were astonished by what happened next. Having the night before handed me a check for half-a-million dollars for our capital campaign, Babs Baugh arose to challenge the crowd (and all BJC supporters) to do the same and agreed to match every gift or pledge that was made to the capital campaign by July 15.

That part wasn’t planned. I don’t know who was more surprised — me or Babs’ husband, John Jarrett. Babs later told me that the “matching offer just popped in my head while I was listening to Randall Balmer’s speech. I knew that either God or Papo [her father, John Baugh, who passed away in March] put it there. So I had better do it or I’d be in serious trouble with one of them — and neither is a good choice.”

Others must have felt the same way. By July 15, $688,372.73 had been pledged or given by you — our generous and faithful supporters. The bottom line —these pledges and gifts, the matching funds, the half-million-dollar-gift and nearly a million dollars previously raised — add up to more than $2.5 million dollars. This is more than half of what we need to reach our $5 million dollar goal for the campaign!

I hope you were able to be a part of the rally, the advocacy workshop, the CBF/ABC joint meeting, the RLC luncheon and the matching campaign. If you were not, you missed something special.

We simply must seize the momentum of this moment to press forward to greater heights. Won’t you be an advocate for religious liberty in your community, encourage and pray for the BJC in its ministry, provide financial resources — for our annual budget, endowment, and the capital campaign — to allow us to garner the resources we need to effectively defend and extend religious liberty for all?

If you do, the next 70 years will see the BJC soar to a level we now can only imagine. The stakes are too high, and the freedoms we enjoy too fragile, to do anything less.