Today we were saddened to learn that Dr. Charles Page, pastor of First Baptist Church, Nashville from 1985-1990, has died of cancer in Charlotte, NC. He was 66.

I thought it would be good to call attention to Dr. Page's legacy because of the way that he handled the first election and ordination of women as deacons at First Baptist Church. "Neither a moderate nor a fundamentalist," but "a Christian," he told the pastor selection committee that "he personally did not favor women deacons, but he approved the church's plan to study the matter provided the issue did not divide the church hurtfully." (Herring: Valleys, Plateaus, Peaks: A 170 Year History of First Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee, p. 71) First Baptist did indeed elect a slate of deacons that included women, a practice that has continued until the present.

How many of us could learn from Dr. Page's example, and choose to abide by the decisions of the church, the people of God, whether or not we happen to agree? Our temptation, whether we be fundamentalist, conservative, moderate, or liberal, is always to enforce conformity with our own views. Dr. Page, however, did the Baptist thing, and allowed the people to speak. That's the kind of minister that I want to be.

"It is more difficult to maintain a middle-of-the-road stance than to be aligned with any faction," he said. It's true! Those who "pursue peace with everyone," as the author of Hebrews suggests we should, often find themselves with no ground left to stand on... an issue I hope to trace further in the coming weeks.

Today I had the poor fortune to read several pages of Michel Foucault, the French philosopher best known for his description of the relationship of knowledge and power, and the ways in which society is regulated through power relationships mediated through the most mundane aspects of life, such as economics, religion, and sexuality. I did, however, find one idea, which he in turn stole from Nietzsche. Foucault says that history should not be written as if there is some grand "transcendent" idea floating above it which directs it and gives it meaning. Rather, history should be written in the form of genealogy. Ideas are not connected to each other because they have some given characteristic or set of characteristics. Instead, they are grouped together because they flow into and from each other and are therefore related. At least, I think that's what he said.

This is good news for the Baptist historian. Baptist history need not be a catalog of instances in which people, wearing the name "Baptist," follow a set of rules (advocating the separation of church and state, adult believer's baptism, etc.) that are provided by the historian after the fact. It is possible, of course, to discern these marks of the Baptist people, but it might be best if we did not convert these observations into ironclad rules that help us determine who to include and who to reject. In other words, an "is" shouldn't automatically become an "ought."

Perhaps this is why McClendon has so much trouble finally deciding what it means to be "baptist." His family tree sprawls so far that some of the branches have precious little in common... and yet, we are still family!

Today I was crossing 21st Avenue to go to the drugstore with another employee here at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing to grab some drinks to go with the pizza that we had ordered for the moving men that were moving the dean's office. On the way back across the street, with Pepsis in tow, I caught a whiff of a breeze that reminded me of so many trips that I have taken, to Havana, to London, to Rio de Janeiro, to Philadelphia and New York. The first thing that I noticed about any of these places was the smell: never a bad smell, but always a mixture of fry grease and automobile fumes. And I smelled it today in Nashville.

Later, in the hallway, I smelled something else, somthing that remimded me of the school where I went to kindergarten, and it took me back. I remembered crayons and green grass and blocks and yarn. So I went back upstairs and got back to work.

I guess that home is no different than any other place, and the present no different than any other time, except for our circumstances: our happening to be here, now.

Today, as I was looking for some hymn lyrics to be sung to the tune "Thaxted," taken from the middle of the fourth movement of Gustav Holst's "The Planets," I found these words which I encourage you to peruse. My sister and I decided that when she gets married, we will sing a hymn to this tune; and reading these words in that context really touched me: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/o/o153.html

My favorite part of any worship service is the opening hymn, the ones like "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise," "Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven," hymns where we offer praise to God but don't really get around to ask for anything. I became so suspicious of asking things of God while in college that I guess I went the other way. Praise, and thanksgiving to a certain extent, comes easy, but petition seems almost vulgar. No, it does seem vulgar. Does anyone else every feel this way?

Many thanks to my one reader for considering my query.

Today in class, we talked about Jacques Derrida, and Deconstruction. The readings and following discussion caused me to think of two questions, which I will pose to you, hypothetical reader:

1) Mark Taylor contends that Deconstruction is all about realizing that every system leaves something out at the end of the day, like a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces. Only by leaving behind our obsession with systemizing can we avoid throwing certain ideas (and certain people) away like garbage. Is that always the case with systems of thought? Theodicy somes to mind.

2) Derrida says that Deconstruction is not a "method," rather, it's really just about reading texts very closely. Whereas a method of interpretation is something laid over a text like a chemical that changes it, Deconstruction just reveals what is already there (in Derrida's case, a system of binary oppositions in which one part is always preferred to the other, for instance, themes of light and dark, where light is assumed to be preferable). As we interpret texts, including the Bible, do we apply methods of interpretation that are foreign to the text? If so, is that acceptable? How reliable are the results which are obtained? Is it possible to study the Bible in such a way that we can merely see what is already there? Or is that a fool's errand?

I never, in all my life, thought that I would have a blog, must less post to it. Anyway, I'm a graduate student in American Religious History, and I am hoping that some of you out there in the untamed wilds of the Internet will hook me up with your opinions about the things that keep me up at night. They are peculiarly Baptist questions, but I am looking for input from other Christians, and non-Christians as well.

For starters, I have been wondering: what does it mean for a church to be a "free church?" If it just means that a church is free from government interference, then EVERY church in the United States, and other places as well, would be free churches. Perhaps being a "free church" means that a church is free from interference from an ecclesial body outside the local congregation. What do you think?