This is from a facebook post I made, and posting here for posterity.
A couple of you have probably seen this coming for a little while, but last night I did something I never actually thought I’d do. I had a lengthy one to one, face to face meeting first with the Pastor and then the Associate Pastor of my church, to let them know I was leaving the Baptist Tradition, in favor of the Anglican Tradition.
I loved that church and have considered it home for the last couple years, and I love and respect them enough that I felt I needed to let them know rather than just ghosting or sending a short message. But it was a very, very difficult thing to do. They took it well, though they obviously disagreed (the Associate Pastor was rather vehement, which was expected, because if you think of a stereotype elderly firebrand fundamentalist Southern Baptist preacher, he’s the image you get in your head), but they respected that I had come to tell them in person. No burned bridges, door is always open should you desire to return, let’s pray one last time together and that was that.
I have grown up in the Baptist Tradition all my life. Sure, not all that much of it was within a specific Baptist Denomination, but we all know 80% of ‘Non-Denominational Bible Teaching’ churches are really just Baptist churches without any official affiliation (the other 20% being Pentacostal).
If I were to point to a single point in time that kickstarted this rather radical change, it would be May 19, 2022, when I visited The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Amiens, in Amiens France. I didn’t realize it at the time how fundamentally changing visiting that Cathedral would be. It wasn’t just the beauty and grandeur (though it is still easily the most grand and beautiful building I’ve ever seen in person), but that every square inch was fully designed and dedicated to turn the mind of the people toward the things of God, to tell Biblical stories to a populace that generally couldn’t read. It’s a building that could only ever be built by Christians, who were fully dedicated to build something great in the name of and for the glory of God. It was the final nail in the coffin that yes, contrary to what a sadly large number of Baptists I’ve known adamantly believe (including me for a good chunk of my life), Roman and Orthodox Catholics are just as much Christian as any Protestant denomination is -even if I do have some rather serious issues with them, most notably in regard to Marian Doctrines and practices.
It was an eye opening experience because of the realization that there was more to the “Christian Church” than just what exists within the box of a single denomination’s belief structure. It led to active and interested learning of other denominations and what makes them all different, the things that unite them all, an introspective into my own beliefs, and ultimately, consideration of what I think an “ideal” Church would look like.
I came to the conclusion (well, re-affirmation I guess since I have always believed it) that firstly and most importantly, Scripture is the ultimate authority of Biblical Truth and Doctrine, and any teaching that contradicts or contravenes Scripture must be removed. So to me, Roman and Orthodox Catholicism are not something I’m interested in, due to placing an equal or greater amount of authority on Tradition and in the RCC case, the Papacy. So my ‘ideal’ Church would be some form of Protestant.
Secondly, if the Holy Spirit has been guiding the Church since the beginning, it stands to reason the traditions built up and used universally within it for the first 1500 years of its existence are at worst ‘merely’ acceptable and allowable. I have come to the belief that emphasis on historical Church Tradition is not just good, but important (again, so long as it doesn’t supplant, contradict, or contravene actual teachings of Scripture), as it is a valuable resource to guide and ensure correct interpretation of Scripture, doctrines, and prevent heresies. Of all the major denominations, Baptists probably place the least emphasis on historical Tradition, if not outright reject it wholesale. This has essentially made them the red-headed stepchild of the major Protestant denominations as Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian Traditions all ascribe to its importance to some varying but not insignificant degree. I found out that a very large chunk of Baptists straight up don’t believe the Holy Spirit has been guiding the Church since the beginning, and the only work the Holy Spirit has done on the Church as a whole was spark off the Reformation which eventually led to the ‘one true New Testament Church that is the Baptist Church’ as the Associate Pastor put it last night. I flatly reject Restorationist belief (belief that Christianity lost its true faith during the “Great Apostasy” almost immediately after the death of the 12 Apostles, and needs/needed to be restored to its original form).
Back in August I attended a nearby Anglican Church, which is part of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and not The Episcopal Church (the spiritual degradation, apostasy, and outright collapse of the ‘mainline’ churches of Protestant Denominations in the west, like the PCUSA, TEC, United Methodists, and certain individual Baptist churches, are a whole other topic and this post is long enough as it is). I did it because I was curious to see what a high church Anglican service looked like, and I was blown away. I had never gone to a “high church” service before (closest I can remember getting is Lutheran weddings and funerals, and a Presbyterian Christmas service, due to family). The liturgy was overwhelming, even with the literal 20 page bulletin they gave out. The thing that stood out the most though, was how incredibly active the service was. There was a lot of standing and sitting, and even kneeling (for the Eucharist). The Congregation was an active participant in the service by way of Call and Responses, singing, recitation (including the entire Nicene Creed!), and prayer. This was in very stark contrast to the liturgy I was used to, where the only congregational participation in the service is in song, with everything else being passive. This really gave me a lot to think about, in regards to what exactly a “Sunday Church Service” should be, and what the role of the Congregation should be within it, and it really didn’t take much convincing at all to ‘buy in’ to this new (well to me, the liturgy itself was drawn from across early Church History) way of doing things. The Rector (Pastor for the Baptists) has a much shorter sermon (they call Homily) than I’m used to, only speaking for about 20-25 minutes, but the shorter time felt like it was laser focused on the specific short passage of scripture he’s teaching from, and didn’t even have time to get a little ‘long winded’ or side tracked onto some other tangentially related topic.
And I loved it. Back at the Baptist church the next Sunday and it felt… empty? silent? Definitely deeply passive in comparison. And I wanted to go back, so we did. After that it wasn’t a “Let’s check this out” it was “We need to go back” and it was inevitable that our time at the Baptist church was going to end. It was a significant process of thought and prayer, because we did love our church family, and there were some things (infant baptism) that I had/have significant struggles with due to my Baptist upbringing, but it was one of those periods in my life I could truly feel the call of the Holy Spirit, even if I was somewhat afraid to let go of the comfort and deep familiarity of the Tradition I had held to my entire life. But I truly believe I have made the right decision. I don’t think the Anglican Tradition or really any specific denomination is ‘the one and only’, there’s good and bad, pitfalls to watch out for in them all. The very high liturgy that draws me closer to God on Sunday, may be someone else’s ritualistic crutch hampering or halting their growth with the Lord and they would be better off in a “low” Church that does not have it to such an extent.
Anyway, believe it or not this is a very brief and short summary, because it was not a quick or easy process and was a long time coming. But I think it’s important.
