Beeson Podcast, Episode 345
Matthew Emerson
June 20, 2017

Announcer:	Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, your host, Timothy George.

Timothy George:	Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. My guest today on the Beeson Podcast is Dr. Matthew Emerson. He is the Dickinson Assistant Professor of Religion at Oklahoma Baptist University. He has a Master of Divinity and a PhD from Southeastern Seminary, but he has roots right here in Alabama. Aren't you from Huntsville?

Matthew Emerson:	I am from Huntsville, and I went to Auburn University.

Timothy George:	You went to Auburn. That's qualifies as-

Matthew Emerson:	War Eagle.

Timothy George:	War Eagle, there you go. Well, anyway, we're not here to talk about football in Alabama. We're here to talk about something that you are involved with, as one of the leaders of it, called the Center for Baptist Renewal. This is a new phenomenon in Baptist life. I think you launched this about two or three months ago, and I have been invited, kindly, to be a fellow of your group, and, because I so much resonated with what you're about, I agreed to do that. I want to talk about the Center for Baptist Renewal: what it is, how it came to be, how you came to be involved with it, and what you're up to. Can we begin just by saying, what is the Center for Baptist Renewal?

Matthew Emerson:	Yeah, so the Center for Baptist Renewal is an attempt to provide local Baptist churches with resources that connect them with the larger Christian tradition, both in terms of understanding the doctrinal history of the church and then also the liturgical history. We want to help churches find ways that they can connect themselves to that larger Christian tradition and, obviously, doing so, keeping their Baptist identity fully intact, as well. That's our basic mission. Our basic goal is to help those local churches connect themselves liturgically and doctrinally to the larger Christian tradition.

Timothy George:	Now, in the term you have used ... You didn't invent this term, but you've given it a distinctive flare, I think, Baptist catholicity. Now, that's a bad word for most Baptists, “catholicity,” and most people would assume immediately you're talking about the Roman Catholic Church or the pope or the blessed virgin Mary or something like that. When you use the phrase Baptist catholicity, what do you mean by it?

Matthew Emerson:	Well, when we use the term catholicity, we don't mean Roman Catholic. We're using the word catholic in its older sense, to mean universal or worldwide. Catholicity, in this sense, is one of the four marks of the church, that's confessing the Nicene Creed; believing in one holy, catholic apostolic church, and we just mean by that, that while the New Testament speaks of the church in local terms, it also speaks to a universal church, that there is one body of Christ. When we talk about the church's catholicity, we're basically saying, we recognize, we acknowledge, we embrace that the church is universal, it's worldwide, and it transcends space and time. When we say that it's a Baptist catholicity that we're looking for, we're trying to demonstrate, proclaim, encourage a particular Baptist vision for the church, local churches, within that worldwide catholic church. We see ourselves ... We see Baptists as a renewal movement within Protestantism, and so what we want to do is we want to call our local Baptist churches to continue to be faithful to Scripture, continue to operate on their Baptist distinctives, but also to see how they can learn from that worldwide church, of which they are a part.

Timothy George:	You're doing this without sacrificing or compromising, really, Baptist distinctives. Is that right?

Matthew Emerson:	That's right.

Timothy George:	Things like our commitment to religious liberty, to believer's baptism by immersion, to regenerate church membership, congregational polity. All of those things you affirm, the truthfulness of Scripture in every way. You believe all of that, right?

Matthew Emerson:	Absolutely. We don't want Baptist churches to compromise their Baptist distinctives. We fully affirm and are convictional about all the things you just mentioned. We want Baptist churches to continue to practice, and only practice, believer's baptism. We want them to continue to emphasize regenerate church membership and congregational polity, we want them to continue to emphasize and believe in, and we want to provide resources for them to do these things, and freedom of conscience, religious liberty, et cetera. We want our local Baptist churches to be fully Baptist, while also seeing how they're a part of that universal, worldwide, historic church.

Timothy George:	In some ways, that's what's distinctive about your vision, in that you want to hold these together really quite tightly, but explore the deepening and the enriching of the Baptist tradition through this renewal, this catholicity that you're talking about.

Matthew Emerson:	That's right. We want to help churches see how the church, throughout space and time, has given us things like the classic doctrine of the Trinity, classic doctrine of Christology, lots of worship practices that we sort of assume, but we want to help them realize that those worship practices that they're participating in are things that have been done for a millennia now, and we just want to help Baptist churches see how their own Baptist distinctives are part of this renewal movement within the larger body of Christ.

Timothy George:	Now, can you tell us how the Center for Baptist Renewal came about? How did it get started?

Matthew Emerson:	Sure, Luke Stamps, who's also an Alabama boy--he's from Winfield, which is a small town south of Tuscaloosa, that other place in Alabama--he and I met at California Baptist University in 2012, on faculty there. Just through getting to know each other, fellow Auburn fans, Auburn graduates, we came to realize that we both had a love for more liturgical forms of worship. We had a passion for retrieving interpretive and doctrinal resources from our Christian and Baptist forbearers. At the 2014 ETS Annual Meeting, he and I were fortunate enough to be able to give a paper, which, actually, I think you were scheduled to give, but I think you had to be in Rome during that meeting, on "Baptists and the Catholicity of the Church" at the Baptist Studies session at ETS.

Timothy George:	Just for our listeners who may not know what ETS is, tell us what that stands for.

Matthew Emerson:	Yeah, that's the Evangelical Theological Society. It meets every year, and it's a society that evangelicals can present academic papers to one another. They can explore issues. At this particular meeting, in the group that studies Baptist life in particular, they had a session on the four marks of the church, that it's one holy, catholic, and apostolic, and so Luke and I gave the paper on "Baptists and the Catholicity of the Church."
	Around that same time, our two other directors for CBR, Brandon Smith and Winston Hottman, had encountered Baptist catholicity at Criswell College, and so the four of us ... They approached us, and the four of us began brainstorming how to promote Baptist catholicity in 2015. Basically, over the next year and a half to two years, after we, sort of, got together with the initial idea, we were in the planning phases. We began to ask people to be fellows, got the site running, and then, finally, we were able to launch in early March of this year.

Timothy George:	You have a website. You're largely, at this point, an online presence, right?

Matthew Emerson:	That's right. Yes, for now we're mainly an online presence, blog content, so far. We do plan on trying to expand from just the website to other resources, as well, but right now we're just a website.

Timothy George:	Matt, tell us about the future of the Center for Baptist Renewal. Where are you going with this movement?

Matthew Emerson:	Yeah, so we have a number of short-term and long-term goals. Right now, because we're just launched, we're sitting with our online blog presence, but we hope, first of all, to have an in-person lunch or breakfast launch at this year's meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, which is actually in Providence, Rhode Island, which is where Baptist life began in America, so that's perfect.

Timothy George:	The first Baptist church in North America, we say, right? First Baptist of Providence.

Matthew Emerson:	That's right, so we're hoping to launch in person at ETS this year, and then we hope to do a few other things. We hope to actually start a podcast, where we're going to discuss some of the issues that we're going to talk about today. Luke and I hope to write a little booklet on the manifesto, where we expand on the points that are in the manifesto on the website. We hope to, of course, pursue some individual writing projects that we each have that are related to retrieval. Luke and I both are writing on retrieving certain doctrines that have sort of fallen out of fashion these days. Then, we hope eventually to have conferences, maybe even a journal. I mean, some of those things will take a while, and they may not ever come to fruition, but, Lord willing, those are the kinds of things that we're talking about trying to accomplish with the Center.

Timothy George:	All of which, I think, will stimulate the kind of renewal at the local congregational church level that you're very much concerned about, I believe. 

Matthew Emerson:	Absolutely, yeah, we want to make sure that we're not having our heads stuck in the clouds. We want this to be something that helps local churches. At the bottom level, sort of the ground level of this thing, our goal is not to just talk to each other about doctrinal issues or about the definition of particular words. Our goal is really to help local churches appropriate things that will help them grow and be healthy. We want to help pastors and churches in that, so we don't want this to ever stay at an academic level. We want academics to bear upon, to help, to encourage local churches.

Timothy George:	In particular, as one of your fellows, I would give you some advice. Include preaching as a part of that and missions. Those are two things dear to Baptist hearts, so if you can show how Baptist catholicity enriches preaching and extends the mission of the church, I think you'll be doing great.

Matthew Emerson:	Absolutely, that's great. That's a great point.

Timothy George:	Now, I want to talk about some of the specific things you have written about, you and your colleagues in the Center. I'll start with two of your articles. You have an article called "The Benefits of Reading the Creeds Together." Now, we all have heard the expression, "There is no creed but the Bible," and some people think that that originated with Baptists and that it stands for the whole Baptist tradition, but you offer a critique of that, and you present a different view of creeds. Say a little bit about that.

Matthew Emerson:	Yeah, so "no creed but the Bible" really shouldn't be traced back to Baptist life particularly, but to Alexander Campbell and the Campbellite Movement. In fact, early Baptists, both Particular--that is, more Calvinistic Baptists--and General Baptists readily affirmed creeds. For instance, in the General Baptist confession, called the Orthodox Creed, there's an article in there that very clearly affirms the three ecumenical creeds, that is, the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian, and there have been many Baptists throughout Baptist history that have been ready to affirm creeds and confessions. Of course, E. Y. Mullins, in the '20s, saw what was happening in the Northern Baptist Convention and wanted to make sure that Southern Baptists had a way to guard their doctrinal integrity and suggested the formation and the writing of the Baptist Faith and Message.
	Creeds and confessions are not opposed to Baptist life historically. To say, what I would articulate as the benefits of reading the creeds ... I mean, creeds and confessions, reading them together as a congregation, it helps to teach the church. Creeds and confessions, historically, have been ways to help Christians, especially newly baptized Christians, to understand the faith that they're confessing, and so reciting these weekly, or however often a local church decides to do that, helps to teach your people what to believe about God and His world and what He's done in Christ.
	It also helps us to center our Bible reading on who God is and what He does. It's interpretive. That is, it helps us to read our Bibles in a way that focuses our attention on what really matters: who God is and what He does. Then, it also--and this is really particularly important for us at CBR--it also promotes visible catholicity, that is, a visible connection to churches worldwide, because churches worldwide, on Sunday, are also confessing those same things.
	Even when we differ on issues such as baptism, even when we differ on issues such as polity, and again, we want to emphasize that we want Baptist churches to keep their Baptist distinctives, but when we differ on those Baptist distinctives, we still are confessing, with other Christians, these same truths that are found in the historic creeds and confessions of the church. We feel like it teaches the people in our local churches. It helps them to interpret their Bible. It also just promotes visible unity with other Christians worldwide.

Timothy George:	I've often thought of the creeds as, certainly, not a substitute for the Bible and not on the equal level with the Bible, but, in some ways, as a faithful summary of the Bible, as a way of declaring the pattern of redemption that we read in the Bible, and it constitutes the heart of what the New Testament calls "the faith once delivered to the saints." Certainly, good Baptists, who believe the Bible, ought to be able to affirm those great truths of the Gospel. Thank you for that emphasis on creeds. I think it's a wonderful thing and something that I find is coming back now.
	In some ways, I think the work of the Center for Baptist Renewal has to be seen in a broader context. There are other people and other voices out there, who are saying not exactly the same thing and not from the same place as you, but in similar ways. I think of my friends, Scott Swain and Michael Allen, who are at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, or my friends, people like Steve Harmon, who teaches at a Baptist college in North Carolina, or Curtis Freeman, who's at Duke, and others, who've written about Baptist catholicity and, in particular, a recovery of the creedal and liturgical life of the church. It seems to me that this is happening in a number of different places today, and I see your effort, in a way, as being a distinctive voice within that broader ... What do you think about that analysis?

Matthew Emerson:	Yeah, I think that's right. I think that you definitely see emphases on recovering doctrinal history, on recovering more liturgical forms of worship. I think that you see that from a variety of denominational perspectives. You have both theologically differentiated Episcopals--I'll say that as best I can--from, say, conservative Anglicans, but both groups are trying to recover their emphasis on historic liturgy, at this point in time.
	As you mentioned, there is another group of Baptists that have been working on this for quite some time now, led by Steve Harmon and Curtis Freeman. You've got Presbyterians working on a Reformed catholicity. This is not something that's unique to us. On the site, when we mention this, we particularly mention Steve Harmon and Curtis Freeman, because they're fellow Baptists with us and have been an inspiration to us, in some ways, in terms of Baptist catholicity.
	What we want to say is we appreciate the work that they've done, because we also have a similar desire to retrieve the resources of the church from our past, but we also want to make clear that we're not approaching this from exactly the same direction as them. Part of catholicity is being clear about our differences. One of the main differences we have with Steve and Curtis is that they're approaching biblical authority, they're approaching even creedal authority, and those other kinds of things, from a different theological perspective than we are as conservative evangelicals. We want to very clearly begin with the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture. We want to very clearly begin with the Bible's exclusive authority and those sorts of things.
	They're coming at it from a bit of a different theological trajectory. This is definitely a movement that's happening elsewhere, but we still feel like what we're doing is unique, in the sense that, to our knowledge, in North America, this Center is providing the segue into a particularly conservative evangelical approach to Baptist catholicity. Obviously, you and others have been working on this for quite some time, so I don't want to say that we've started it, by any means. We haven't. What we're building off of ... We're standing on the shoulders of giants like you in this task, but it is different from, sort of, the published attempts by Steve and others in some theological ways.

Timothy George:	Another person you at least make a reference to is another one of my former students, Barry Harvey, who teaches at Baylor University, and his book, “Can These Bones Live?: A Catholic Baptist Engagement with Ecclesiology, Hermeneutics, and Social Theory.” He's another voice out there that's articulating some of these same kinds of things, as is Jamie Smith, who's not a Baptist, but has written along these lines, as well, from his own tradition, the more Dutch Reformed background tradition.
	I think it's a good thing that this voice, this vision maybe, is coming from different quadrants within the body of Christ, not exactly echoing one another, each having its own distinctive voice to bear. Hopefully, somewhere along the way, there can be dialogue across these confessions, as well. That's a part of catholicity, too, isn't it?

Matthew Emerson:	Yes, definitely, and Luke and I have had, I wouldn't say regular contact, but we've had a number of conversations with, particularly, Steve Harmon and Curtis Freeman, as we've been trying to work on the Center and write about Baptist catholicity. While all four of us are on the same page, as far as where we disagree, we've also been encouraged by one another and helped by one another; at least I and Luke have been encouraged by Steven and Curtis. We're very clear on where we differ, but we also can see areas where we agree and where we're on the same trajectory, in terms of our goals and visions. Yeah, catholicity begins by being honest, and also by talking to each other.

Timothy George:	Now, we've talked about, particularly, the role of creeds and how important they are catechetically, hermeneutically. I wonder if you would say a little bit more about the liturgical life, because that's another word you use, liturgy, that's not commonly used among a lot of Baptist churches these days, but you use it in a very positive way. What do you mean about "The Practicality of the Liturgical Life"? That's an article you wrote.

Matthew Emerson:	Well, you just mentioned Jamie Smith, and part of Jamie Smith's project has been to show the positive and really fundamental work of habits in the Christian life. He focuses on habits particular to the church's worship practices, but he also has in mind a broader use of the term liturgy that is daily life, and that's related to higher education and things like that. What particularly helps us, when we talk about Jamie Smith's work is that the habits that we have, not just on Sunday morning as we gather together, but particularly on Sunday morning as we gather together, is that they're forming and shaping our identity in Christ.
	Repeated practices, repeated habits, form and shape us in a way that helps us to respond Christianly in the world. When we talk about liturgy, all we mean by that phrase, all we mean by that term, is repeated worship practices, so the things you do each week on Sunday morning. We think that it's very important for pastors and congregations to be very intentional and to be very discerning about what things they repeat and what things they don't.
	At the end of the day, our goal is not to ... Even if we wanted to do this, we couldn't because of Baptist polity, but I want to say clearly, our goal is not to tell other Baptist churches what they have to and don't have to do on a Sunday morning. I mean, at a very basic level, what we really just want to say is what you repeat is important, so think about it. If pastors in local churches come to different conclusions than us about what needs to be repeated and what doesn't need to be repeated on a Sunday morning, that's fine. We just want local Baptist churches to be discerning about what they repeat and don't repeat.
	But on a more positive note, we want to say that particular liturgical pieces, like having the Lord's Supper weekly, like having a time of confession weekly, like having a benediction that sends us out on mission, because, as you said, mission is a very clear way that we can say, "This is part of Baptist life" ... I mean, the benediction is intended to send us out to mission each week. Those kinds of additions that churches may not have right now: weekly Lord's Supper, weekly time of confession, a weekly benediction ... We just want to say, "Here's why we think these might be beneficial to you." Then, of course, it's up to that local Baptist church to decide if they think it is beneficial for them or not. We just want to say, "Let's think about these things. Here's why we think these are beneficial," and then let local Baptist churches decide what they want to do with that.

Timothy George:	Now, your fellow leader, I guess, with the Center for Baptist Renewal is Luke Stamps. You mentioned him. He teaches at California Baptist University.

Matthew Emerson:	He does, yep.

Timothy George:	He wrote an article called, "Considering the Church Calendar." I have noted myself, among Baptists and other free church people, a growing acceptance of things like the celebration of Advent and Lent. What about the church calendar? What would be the point to be made about reconsidering that?

Matthew Emerson:	Well, I think that, at a basic level, most churches have an implicit calendar, and it's in the sense that I can't think of a church that I've ever been a part of that doesn't celebrate at least Christmas and Easter. There are at least two days in the year that churches, along with other churches everywhere, celebrate together: Christmas and Easter. When we talk about the church calendar, this is one of those traditional worship practices that we want to try to explain from a Baptist perspective, and then say why it might be beneficial for a local Baptist church to adopt. Again, we're not trying to say they should or they have to, in order to be faithful, but just, "Well, let's think about this and see what the benefit might be."
	For us, the benefit of the church calendar is that it focuses the Christian year on the person and work of Christ. That's, of course, not to say that people who don't use the calendar aren't focused on the person and work, but it walks you through, the church calendar walks you through, the entirety of the Gospel narrative from incarnation and birth to death and resurrection, ascension and Pentecost, and then to Trinity Sunday, where you get to Ordinary Time, and we think that's beneficial for Christians to have their year ... In other words, their calendar, their internal calendar is set up to focus on the life and work of Jesus. Of course, that gives you six months to do that, because advent to Trinity Sunday is about six months, and then you get six months of Ordinary Time, where churches can decide what they want to preach on.
	They can, of course, use the lectionary to decide what they're going to preach through that six months, or they can just do what's called a continual reading, where they're preaching through a particular book of the Bible. We don't want to get rid of expository preaching. We affirm expository preaching. We think it is the best way to approach preaching for your people. We don't want this to be contrary to a focus on expository preaching. We just want to say, "Listen. We think that preaching expositorily through a Gospel and getting to Pentecost each year, for six months, would be beneficial for your people, and then ordinary time, where you're looking forward to Advent would be beneficial for your people, as well."

Timothy George:	Another one of your fellow travelers, a fine, young, superb writer, is Brandon Smith, and Brandon has written an article on "The Lord's Supper: More than a Memory." That's a wonderful note, but not one I would expect to come from a lot of Baptists today. What's the point there, more than a memory?

Matthew Emerson:	For Baptists, the emphasis on the Lord's Supper has typically been that it is a memorial, that we are looking back to what Christ has done or remembering His death and resurrection on our behalf. We absolutely want to affirm that it is a memorial, that it does remember what Jesus does, but we also want to point out that there are various places in the New Testament, where the Lord's Supper is spoken of in more than memorial terms, particularly in 1 Corinthians 10, where partaking of the bread and the vine is participation in the body and blood of Christ. The term that's used there is koinonia, fellowship, union, participation with Christ.
	It says the same thing about us, that as we eat the bread and drink the cup that we also are participating, fellowshipping with one another. We just want to say that Christ, because the Supper is a Gospel proclamation ... It is a visible proclamation, just like the sermon is a verbal proclamation of the Gospel. Christ works in His people through the Supper. They are seeing the Gospel in seeing and taking the Supper. We want to say that Jesus works through that, by His Spirit, because He is being proclaimed in it. He works in it, particularly as 1 Corinthians 10 says, to build fellowship, both with Him and with each other. We think it's beneficial for Christians to think about not just remembering what Jesus has done, but what He is doing right now, in taking that bread and drinking that cup.

Timothy George:	When you and Luke Stamps inaugurated the Center for Baptist Renewal, you issued a manifesto, a declaration, I guess, which consists of 11 different affirmations. We don't have time to go through all those, but I'm sure that this is available online, right? On your website?

Matthew Emerson:	It is, yeah. The website is just centerforbaptistrenewal.com, and then if you hover over the About tab, there's a link to Evangelical Baptist Catholicity: A Manifesto.

Timothy George:	I would encourage our listeners to go and check this out. It's a wonderful statement and includes a number of the things we've been talking about, as well as others. One of the things you said in that statement, that impressed me ... In fact, I'm going to read it. It's Article 6: "We affirm that all people, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, are created in God's image and, if they have repented and believed in Christ, are brothers and sisters in the one body of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. Because of this shared Imago Dei, and because of Christ's saving work among all peoples/nations, we believe one major task of Baptist catholicity is to promote racial unity, especially within the body of Christ." Racial reconciliation is a very important, major plank of what you're about, as an expression of catholicity, isn't it?

Matthew Emerson:	Absolutely, and we think that having an appropriate vision of catholicity can't happen, unless we include racial reconciliation within that vision, especially since racial reconciliation is, in some ways, at the very heart of what Christ has done in the Gospel work, according to Ephesians 2, where He breaks down the dividing wall of hostility between races and ethnicities. In an American context, we want to say also that, in many ways, catholicity has to begin with racial reconciliation, given not only the history of our nation but also the history of our own Southern Baptist Convention.

Timothy George:	My guest today on the Beeson Podcast has been Dr. Matthew Emerson. He, along with Luke Stamps, helped by Brandon Smith and others, have begun the Center for Baptist Renewal. We've been talking about that new initiative, which was launched this past spring. You can read about it on their website. I encourage you to check it out. You're going to hear more from this group of devout and deeply committed Baptist Christians, who are seeking to advance a vision of Baptist catholicity. Thank you, Matt, for this conversation today.

Matthew Emerson:	Thanks for having me. I've really appreciated it.

Announcer:	You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast, with host, Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website, beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational, evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope you will listen to each upcoming addition of the Beeson Podcast.