Can Baptists Cooperate?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of educators and pastors from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.\u00a0 I delivered my stump speech on 10\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2008\/03\/10\/can-baptists-cooperate\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Baptists Cooperate?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of educators and pastors from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.\u00a0 I delivered my stump speech on 10\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2008\/03\/10\/can-baptists-cooperate\/\" \/>\n<meta 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{"id":493,"date":"2008-03-10T14:13:10","date_gmt":"2008-03-10T20:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theoblogy.wordpress.com\/?p=516"},"modified":"2015-03-13T17:09:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T22:09:47","slug":"can-baptists-cooperate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2008\/03\/10\/can-baptists-cooperate\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Baptists Cooperate?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of educators and pastors from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship<\/a>.\u00a0 I delivered my stump speech on 10 Dispatches from the Emergent Church and got some excellent feedback.\u00a0 Then I was thoroughly questioned by Bo Prosser<\/a>, who really raked me over the coals.<\/p>\n

The folks who make up the CBF are primarily expatriates from the Southern Baptist Convention \u2014 at least that\u2019s how they identified themselves to me.\u00a0 The fellowship formed in the early 1990s when the conservatives in the SBC completed their takeover.<\/p>\n

In some ways, I felt great resonance with the CBFers, in that they are generally moderates\/centrists\/independents.\u00a0 They also practice congregational polity, which means that each church is autonomous and voluntarily in fellowship with other churches \u2014 thems my people.\u00a0 They do struggle with not becoming a denomination; one person said, \u201cWe did what we knew, which looks a lot like a denomination.\u201d<\/p>\n

One interesting conversation, however, caught my attention.\u00a0 The CBF is not moderate about baptism: It\u2019s believers\u2019 baptism only, no exceptions.\u00a0 I found it interesting that an otherwise non-ideological group is hard and fast on that one element of Christian practice\u2026<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"