Dear Church Family,
Earlier this week, Paul Baxley, the Executive Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, sent out an encouragement and challenge in the light of the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump. I share it below so that you also may be encouraged and challenged as you continue in your prayers for all of our leaders, for all those grieving, and for our nation. May we at Aiken’s First Baptist Church continue to discover and to live out God’s more excellent way.
Grace and Peace,
John Carroll
July 15, 2024
On Saturday’s Violence and the Call to be Bold Peacemakers
By Paul Baxley, CBF Executive Coordinator
Saturday evening brought an act of horrific violence, as a gunman attempted to take the life of former President Donald Trump.
On Sunday morning, believers gathered for worship in congregations across our Cooperative Baptist Fellowship family and far beyond. Prayers were offered for President Trump, for the family of Pennsylvania firefighter Corey Comperatore who died, for the others who were injured, for all who witnessed this horrific act and for our nation so badly torn apart by a bitter partisanship that too long has paralyzed us and now threatens to destroy us. These are the prayers that I have been offering since learning of this terrible act and encourage us to continue praying in the days to come.
As these horrific events unfolded Saturday, I was among hundreds of Baptist leaders from all over the world who were returning home from the Annual Gathering of the Baptist World Alliance in Nigeria, in which we considered our common calling to be peacemakers in a world of violence.
Today our nation is entering an even more intense phase of the 2024 election cycle as the Republican Convention opens today and next month the Democrats will follow suit. The debates will be intense, and the differences will be stark. I believe we Cooperative Baptists are called to be bold peacemakers in this difficult time. Can we insist on a politics that respects the image of God even in those with whom we disagree? Might we model an approach to difference that speaks the truth in love and conviction rather than in fear and domination? Can we encourage one another, and all our fellow citizens, to enter this season not by speaking destructively but rather by voting from our deepest places of conscience and insisting that this freedom and responsibility be afforded to all?
As I shared in our General Assembly just weeks ago, even as our world is becoming more and more fearful of difference and is even more likely to retreat into echo chambers of sameness, God is in the process of making our Fellowship more diverse. Most of our partner congregations have been politically diverse from our earliest days. I believe this diversity equips us uniquely to model a more excellent way and be instruments of God’s peace. Let us do so not only for the sake of this nation but even more for the mission of Christ in the world.
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