Beeson podcast, Episode 428 Dr. Lucas Stamps January 22, 2019 https://www.beesondivinity.com/podcast/2019/Baptist-Renewal 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 the Beeson Podcast. This particular podcast is coming to you from Denver, Colorado. The Rocky Mountains are just outside our window. It's a beautiful blue sky day with snowcap mountains. Why are we in Denver? Well, this is the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. That's a group of theologians committed to the scriptures and the historic Christian faith of the Evangelical tradition that meets once a year. We have hundreds and hundreds of paper that are given. There are plenary talks. It's just a good time of fellowship and renewal and learning. One of the people who's come to this meeting is Dr. Lucas Stamps. I knew he was going to be here, so I wrote him and said "Lucas, would you be willing to have a discussion with me on the Beeson Podcast?" Timothy George: He said yes and so here he is. Welcome, Lucas. Lucas Stamps: Thank you for having me. Timothy George: Let's begin by maybe just asking you to tell a little bit about your own story, your pilgrimage of faith, how you came to faith. Lucas Stamps: I was born in a rural Alabama town, Northwest Alabama. I had Christian parents, took me to church, and at a Vacation Bible School when I was seven-years-old was confronted with the claims of Christ and felt the conviction of sin. After talking with my parents and my pastor, prayed to receive Christ as my Lord and savior, was baptized later that summer and by God's grace, I've walked with him ever since. Timothy George: Was this a Southern Baptist Church? Lucas Stamps: Southern Baptist Church, yes. Timothy George: You've continued in that same denomination? Lucas Stamps: I have. Timothy George: From age seven at Vacation Bible School and your baptism, now you're a theologian. You're teaching at a Baptist university, Anderson University in South Carolina. Lucas Stamps: That's right. Timothy George: Fill in the gap. Lucas Stamps: After high school, I actually went to Auburn University and was intending to be a chemical engineer. That's what I went to Auburn for. Between my freshman and sophomore years, I felt a call to ministry. Again after talking about that with my parents and some pastors, sort of confirmed that call and so I actually switched majors to history, finished in history as a way of sort of preparation for seminary and then did seminary at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, did an INDIV there and had the bug from the very beginning. In order to do a PhD, was really interested in systematic theology, so I stayed on to do PhD in systematic theology there. From there, my first post was at California Baptist University in Southern California. Lucas Stamps: I was there for five years and then this opportunity at Anderson, a bit closer to family for us. Our family is still in Alabama, so moved to Anderson just last year. This will be my second year. Timothy George: Now, I want to get on to some of the other projects you've been involved in. But just you mentioned your PhD dissertation, might be interesting for folks to know what you wrote about, why you chose that topic, and what you had to say about it. Lucas Stamps: Right. I wrote on Christology is the general area, but I was specifically looking at a controversy that arose in the seventh century of the church as to whether or not Christ has one will or two. By that time, most of the people debating these things agreed that Christ had two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. Timothy George: That was a Chalcedonian decision. Lucas Stamps: For people working within that Chalcedonian framework, but then the debate became a what about the will, the faculty of volition. Some said the will was a property of his person and therefore by Chalcedonian logic he has only one. Others said no, the will is in here as in his two natures. By that same logic, he has two wills and so the church met in council at the sixth Ecumenical Council during that century and decided in favor of the two wills view, which became the orthodox position both east and west. In recent decades though, some Christian theologians and philosophers have called that into question and have kind of sought to rehabilitate the old one will view, so my dissertation was a response to those contemporary one will proposals trying to retrieve the best of the two wills tradition. Timothy George: Now, I know after Chalcedon there were a number of churches, the Coptic and other churches, who adopted a less than fully Chalcedonian understanding of the two natures. Is that also true of the two wills? Lucas Stamps: I think the church was fairly unanimous in the little orthodox churches in both east and west. There really wasn't a lingering one will view until really the modern era, so the rise of Kenotic Christology and protestant liberalism were some of the first places where people called it into question. Timothy George: I guess if there's a danger in the two will view, which is you say is the standard orthodox Christian position on this, it's that it can push us in a way toward a Nestorian. Lucas Stamps: Right. Timothy George: Just what is that and why is that a problem? Lucas Stamps: Right. The Nestorian heresy essentially states that there are two persons or it tends in the direction to see the humanity and the deity of Christ so separated that they essentially constitute two persons. That certainly is the danger on the two wills side. On the other hand, if you adopt a one will position, the danger on the other side is of course apollinarianism. The idea that perhaps the person of the son simply took the place of the human soul or will of Christ, in which case he wouldn't be fully human. Timothy George: And therefore couldn't make the sacrifice for our salvation. Lucas Stamps: That's right. Timothy George: Because we'd need to be saved entirely. Lucas Stamps: Gregory of Nazianzus from the fourth century, really his famous axiom that that which is unassumed is unhealed. That figured probably in the two wills debate. If Christ doesn't have a human will, how can he be the savior of those with fallen human wills. Timothy George: This topic you've developed out of our dissertation is going to be a book soon from Fortress Press Thy Will Be Done: A Contemporary Defense of Two Wills. Lucas Stamps: That's right. Timothy George: When can we expect to see that? Lucas Stamps: Hopefully next year. Just doing so edits and a little expansion in the last chapter. Timothy George: It'll be a wonderful major contribution to this topic and I'm glad you've taken it up. Not many Southern Baptists are experts in what we call monothelitism, the one willness of Christ. You're a rarity in that regard and I commend you for dealing with it. Now, I'd like to move our conversation to talk about another project that you've been integral to from the beginning. I think it's one of the most encouraging things I know about happening on the Baptist scene anyway called the Center for Baptist Renewal. Now, we had a podcast interview with Dr. Matthew Emerson some time ago, so we're aware of it. Some of our listeners have heard a little bit about it. But, you and Matthew were right there from the beginning, weren't you, as kind of the co-originators of this idea. Lucas Stamps: That's right. Timothy George: What is the Center for Baptist Renewal and what are you trying to accomplish with it? Lucas Stamps: Yeah. Matthew and I were colleagues at California Baptist University together several years ago and we realized we both, he coming from the biblical studies angle, me from systematic, realized we had a deep love for the tradition and for the history of interpretation and for the traditional forms of worship that we see throughout Christian history and believe that Baptists could benefit from retrieving those traditional elements of Christian faith and practice. We had this idea to start a center as a way of equipping pastors, churches, other academics like ourselves to think more carefully about what it means to be a Baptist. As we've often read, you put it Dr. George as a renewal movement within the church, within the one Catholic Church rather than simply seeing ourselves in this sectarian group. Lucas Stamps: The center is basically just a place where people of like mind can gain resources. We have a website that has a blog that has regular content. Matthew and I co-wrote a manifesto of sorts that sort of in 11 articles says what we're up to in terms of retrieving the churches, the creeds and confessions, and liturgy all while remaining distinctly Baptists. We are committed Baptists. We often try to convince people as much as we love all of the other traditions of the church, we're not just Baptists playing Anglian or something like that. We're committed Baptists, but we believe that Baptists have much to receive from these other traditions and from the whole history of the church. Timothy George: There's a movement now within younger generation of Baptists who desire greater liturgical worship, all the things that you're talking about, the creeds and confessions of the church. Some people with that idea find it necessary or desirable in their view to leave the Baptist tradition and become something else. You're kind of putting a marker in the sand and saying you don't have to do that. Lucas Stamps: That's right. Timothy George: We haven't done that and yet we appreciate liturgy, the church here, all of the wonderful things. I've often had this discussion with Catholics and I've said to people "Why should the Catholics have all the fun?" Lucas Stamps: That's right. Timothy George: "Why should the Anglicans have all the fun?" Your argument basically in this center is that this is not antithetical to the best of the Baptist tradition. Lucas Stamps: That's right. Timothy George: You want to retrieve that, reclaim that in a way for contemporary Baptists today. Lucas Stamps: That's right. We certainly don't begrudge anyone's spiritual journey. We have people. We have friends and know of others who've left the Baptist tradition for others. But, we do want to say you don't have to leave. That's part of the impetus behind this to say that there is a way for Baptist and there's even precedent in our own tradition for drawing on more ancient forms of doctrine and practice to say we can do this in a particularly Baptist way. Timothy George: Now, you and Matthew Emerson have come together in a project called Baptist and the Christian Tradition Toward an Evangelical Baptist Catholicity. Now, there is another term that is problematic for a lot of people, catholicity, because many people immediately associate that exclusively with Roman Catholicism. Of course, it has a much broader and deeper and longer history than that. What do you mean by Baptist catholicity? Lucas Stamps: Yeah. We would mean it in the little C catholic sense of the worldwide church, the church across space and time that would include all of the diversity even that we see. We don't necessarily conceive of catholicity as uniformity. Catholicity would envelope within it the whole church of Christ and all of its distinct expressions, but we want to see ourselves as a part of that, as a part of that one body of Christ. That's what we have in mind with that term. Timothy George: Now, you're not the only Baptist who think this way. There are other Baptists who say similar, not exactly identical points that you and Matthew and the Center for Baptist Renewal may. I'm thinking of my good friends Curtis Freeman for example, Steve Harmon, Elizabeth Newman. These are wonderful theologians, great Christian scholars themselves, and they also talk about Baptist catholicity. Have you had any conversation with them? How would you say your view is different from theirs? Do you see yourselves as allies or what? Lucas Stamps: Yeah. We've had some correspondence with Curtis and Steve and we certainly see them as fellow travelers along this pilgrimage towards a Baptist catholicity. Of course, some of their theological conclusions and even some of their theological method would be somewhat different from ours. I see it as a kind of encouraging sign that we from different sectors of the American Baptist movement can find some commonalities as we're seeking to again retrieve the Trinitarian faith, the Trinitarian and christological consensus of the [inaudible 00:12:54] church and those sorts of things. We certainly have been greatly helped by Curtis and Steve's work and Newman and there others who produced their own manifesto in the '90s that has been a kind of inspiration for us. Lucas Stamps: We see our expression of Baptist catholicity as more distinctively, I suppose you can say, conservative evangelical. We are committed to the [inaudible 00:13:17] scripture and a more conservative expression of the Baptist vision. Timothy George: Most of the members, I guess is true of the Center for Baptist Renewal, are Southern Baptist. That's not a prerequisite, I don't think. Lucas Stamps: No. That's right. Timothy George: Seems to be that's the way it's worked out. Lucas Stamps: Right. We start where we are and then it's a lot of our connections have been in the Southern Baptist world, but we certainly would wish and welcome for there to be Baptists from other denominations, other continents. Timothy George: Well listen, I want to talk to you also about your interest in a person I have thought was just a great thinker. He's been the pope. He's now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger. Tell me about your interest in him and his thought and why is that important for all Christians and maybe especially Baptist Christians to be aware of? Lucas Stamps: Yeah. I started reading Ratzinger several years ago with his two now three volume Jesus of Nazareth and was so struck by how very little disagreement there was for any protestant to find in this. A deeply biblical treatment of the gospel accounts of Christ's life and death and resurrection and deeply rooted in the traditional interpretation of the texts. I gained an interest in Ratzinger and some folks at Lexham Press were putting together a volume of protestant appreciation of Ratzinger's theology and they knew that I was interested in Ratzinger, so I was asked to do a chapter on Ratzinger's theological anthropology. I did a lot more research to all of his treatment of that, which is voluminous, as you know. Lucas Stamps: They are and I think he's one of the greatest living theologians and there's so much to gain for any protestant reader, really. Timothy George: A couple of my colleagues at Beeson have developed an interest in Ratzinger's theology. Dr. Paul House, Dr. Grant Taylor, I don't know if you know their project. They're working with Roman Catholic scholars like Scott Hahn and others to shine the light on Ratzinger's theology and reclaim for the whole church if we can. Lucas Stamps: That's great. Timothy George: That's another wing of the movement you might be interested in getting touch with. Back to the Center for Baptist Renewal, what's the future of this movement? Before you answer that question, answer this one. What you're doing is, let me say, a little bit unusual and maybe even gutsy, but I've been pleasantly surprised as I look at it that you're still alive and kicking and you haven't been squashed out of existence. Have you had opposition? Lucas Stamps: We've really had no major opposition. No one has really called into question. Almost universally the feedback we get is positive. I suppose maybe someone out there could be critical and just not be telling us. We get emails on a regular basis from pastors in Maine or Texas or places like that who tell us things like I've wanted something like this for years. Ever since I took church history in seminary, I've had an interest in the history of the whole church. That's a great encouragement to us that there and not just among younger Southern Baptists and other Baptists. I think there is an appeal to this among younger Baptists, but we've had older Baptist pastors tells us that this is something they sort of wish that had been fostered before now. Lucas Stamps: A lot of positive feedback and we're deeply encouraged by that. Timothy George: A few years ago, my good friend Collin Hansen wrote a book called Young Restless and Reformed. Maybe, you ought to write a book called Young Restless Reformed Baptist and Liturgical. Lucas Stamps: That's a great idea. Timothy George: That might be a bestseller. Well, what's the future for the Center for Baptist Renewal? Lucas Stamps: Yeah. We have plans. We would like to eventually have a conference to gather together similar minded scholars on this sort of thing and the pastors and so on. A podcast is another interest of ours. Right now, we have the website, which has lots of resources. Matthew and I have been writing a commentary of sorts on the manifesto, which we hope to put together into a book, maybe just even an eBook that we can distribute to sort of show people this is what we're after and the kind of vision that we see. We'd like to continue to expand the content on the blog, maybe book reviews, that sort of thing. Yeah. Our time is sort of constrained by all our other responsibilities. At this point, I feel like we're sort of still gathering interest as a sort of beacon to say who might be with us ... Timothy George: Yes. Lucas Stamps: ... As a part of this vision Timothy George: If a person is interested in knowing more about the Center for Baptist Renewal, how would they go about it? Lucas Stamps: They can to the centerforbaptistrenewal.com and see all the information there. Again, we have a blog with regular content. Timothy George: I think this is just a wonderful encouraging movement of the Holy Spirit in our time. It's not limited just to Baptists. There are retrieval movements among Presbyterians. I think of Scott Swain and Mike Allen down at RTS in Orlando and among Methodists, Wesleyan, think of the great work of Tom Oden and the legacy that he has left us, and Lutherans also. This is something the spirit is nudging the church toward, so I wish you well with it and count me in as a cheerleader. Lucas Stamps: Thank you. Of course, you're one of our senior fellows in the center and been a great help in helping promote the work of the center. We really do appreciate that. Timothy George: My guest today on the Beeson Podcast has been Dr. Lucas Stamps. He's a theologian. He teaches at Anderson University in Anderson, South Carolina and he along with Matthew Emerson founded the Center for Baptist Renewal. I encourage you to go to the website and check it out. I think you'll be pleasantly pleased with what you find there. Thank you so much, Lucas. Lucas Stamps: Thank you for having me. 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.