Tag Archives: Mark Baker

Weather, links, a new header

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Mid-August, the days noticeably shorter, the nights cooler, and we’ve got more tomatoes ripe on the vine than we can possibly make sandwiches of. Yes, it’s the feel of autumn in the air.

Which reminds me — I was chatting with an editor/writer friend yesterday who was telling me about an article she’s working on, how she’s trying to get the “hook” (first sentence, paragraph) right. Which reminded her of how often people who write for publications like the educational newsletter she edits will simply begin with the weather. Late summer and signs of fall, principals and teachers are beginning to think about school, etc. etc., and in spring, well, the weather’s heating up and the kids are restless, ready for their holidays, etc. etc. Weather is just so convenient as a place to begin, whether it’s conversations at the supermarket or in our writing.

For readers, who are often busy and mostly grazing through all those pages of print we writers and publishers impose on them, opening with the weather is generally boring and won’t “hook” anyone. Which is why good editors like my friend simply scroll a few paragraph into the piece and see that there it is, the beginning — the hook! (Yes, this often works, especially with new or inexperienced writers.)

My inner editor being lazy or off-duty this morning, I started with the weather too, but what I actually had in mind to say was just a couple of disparate things, and that’s it for this lovely sit-outside-on-the-deck perfection of a Friday.

1. Back in April, I reflected on an article in the MB Herald concerning the B.C. conference and Mark Baker. Here’s a news update on that subject.

2. Someone over at CMU Press put together a great set of questions about This Hidden Thing, for book club discussion or study. My thanks to them, and this simply as an FYI for anyone interested.

3. I may (or may not) come back to more postcard excerpts from my grandfather’s postcard album in the header of this blog, but for now, a slice of a photo our daughter-in-law took recently. Her husband (our son) was posing beside his grandmother (my mom) when they were here in Winnipeg several weeks ago to attend a wedding. She caught their faces, yes, but also their hands. I think it’s a beautiful photo and very evocative too of my blog title and theme, of that awareness that we build our lives out of what’s given to us in so many ways, including intergenerational bonds. Of the bones of inheritance (for better or worse) and love.

Here’s the larger photo. (You can view more of D.’s work at her blog, listed under my “Family and Friends.”)

Hands, grandson S. and grandmother T. Credit: Dayna Dueck

The pieces we’re missing

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A news article in the latest MB Herald, with the headline “MB seminary professor apologizes for remarks,” reveals that B.C. conference minister Steve Berg sent an email to the MB seminary (MBBS) board in November expressing “his concerns” that “Mark Baker states that penal substitutionary atonement is unbiblical.” The email also said, “In what is already a very challenging time for MBBS, we are concerned that there is a disconnect underway between BCMB churches and MBBS, and the atonement debate is accelerating the process.” 

The article describes and quotes Baker’s response to the B.C. executive and pastors. Baker sounds gracious and thorough in explaining what he believes and what he wishes he’d communicated more clearly, what he wishes he had not written. The content of it sounds very much like what he stated at the MB study conference in Saskatoon in October — the same affirmations, clarifications, attempts at nuance — though he goes further to address a number of his responses at the conference itself. At that event, he stated his first book will be revised. He also clearly affirmed the MB Confession of Faith, Article 5 on Salvation, and does so again in his letter. I attended and reported — here — on the Saskatoon conference. I don’t recall “‘unbiblical’ rhetoric.” I do know that Baker felt himself rather on the block, so to speak, which is never an easy place to be, and I do recollect that he responded carefully and with integrity to the challenges raised to him. 

My opinion on whether an apology is necessary is beside the point, however. He made it, and it needs to be received.

But, will it be received? Has it been? Maybe that’s what’s bothering me about this article. It’s not what’s here, but the pieces we’re missing. The back story. And what happened next.

Re. the back story, I’m wondering why Berg sent this email to the seminary board after the October conference, when Baker’s views had been clearly indicated there. Berg himself led the session in which Baker presented. Is there other pressure coming to the B.C. executive? From the two people Baker says he wishes he had responded to more affirmingly? From those who did not attend? What’s going on?  Berg notes an accelerating debate, but it’s hard to believe that Baker is responsible. And, to be honest, I’m queasy, fearing he’s being made the fall person. 

MBBS president Lynn Jost is also quoted in the article. He thanks the B.C. executive  for communicating their concerns directly with the seminary, and reminds of the seminary’s commitment “to biblical authority and to interpreting the Bible in a way consistent with the MB Confession of Faith.” This commitment, truly said and truly meant, is also not new. Has it been heard and truly received? I can’t help recalling Jost’s words at the MB Forum recently, about “the difficult position that a culture of suspicion raises for the Seminary.” 

Yesterday, I happened to be sorting through a pile of papers and came upon the candid words of a young B.C. pastor to the recommendation on women in ministry at Calgary some years ago. He intended to support the motion, he said, even though it hadn’t gone as far for full and equal participation as he wished. Because of that, it would require his own “self-control and respect of people who believe very differently.” He went on to say, “It will also require some of you to stop labeling me and others who believe similarly, as heretics or on a slippery slope to liberalism, or as being soft on ethics, or whatever other label you might use to write off people who hold a reasoned opinion that disagrees with your own.”

His words felt oddly familiar within this new context. There’s been labelling, baiting, mollifying of behaviors that foster a culture of suspicion, withdrawing of financial support. (The latter has always struck me as the most pernicious, and I’d even say ungodly, strategy individuals or churches can use to exert pressure, because it’s so powerful and puts others into danger not just economically but spiritually.) 

The letter has now been reported. But is there more we should know? And will there be other, good, responses to come?