For the occasion of the Annual Meeting and vote of inclusion to
the United Church of Christ in Central Ohio May 2, 2009
The “Baptist Church of Christ in Granville and St. Albans” was born in a barn in 1819 to a group of 7 men and 12 women with a pioneering vision. Granville was itself a fledgling community of people who had made their way from Massachusetts to settle in this "Western Wilderness." I’ve been given the task of introducing you to our long journey with Freedom of Conscience and Soul Liberty which Baptists embrace.
Our congregation has been closely aligned with Denison University from its first classes in 1831, which were held in our church building. By 1859 our pastor and his wife responded to Denison’s refusal to admit women by starting a college for women, again in our church building. Many early presidents of the college also served as pastor to our congregation, and the school itself was a Baptist institution until the 1960’s.
Our members were there to help the Underground Railroad steam through Granville under the direction of William Whitney, known in Granville as “an obnoxious abolitionist lecturer.” Our claim to the Underground Railroad lies in the understanding that a driven social activist would turn to his own congregation for help, drawing inspiration from his God and his spiritual family. Granville was a known stop on the Underground Railroad, and almost no one was writing about their own actions, so we make assumptions that some of our church members were also committed to rescuing slaves.
Whitney started his Granville career as a Denison student, then joined our congregation, whereupon we licensed him to preach the Gospel. By 1832 Granville was bubbling with anti-slavery agitation, and William Whitney jumped right into the pot. He was an early model for committee over-participation, and his name shows up everywhere in our early church records. It was his responsibility at one point to provide the meetinghouse with firewood “at 75 cents a cord”, and he was often involved in fundraising. William Whitney established himself early in life as a truth seeker, and he dared to speak out against social injustice. He died over 100 years ago, but his spirit is still tangible in our church today. He was one of us – and took part in forging our misfit mold.
In the early 1900’s we were the church home for dozens of children whose parents had left them in the care of the Fannie Doane Home for Children of Baptist Missionaries Serving Abroad. Some of these families were separated for as many as five years, parents able to communicate with their children only by infrequent letters from faraway lands. The children walked several blocks in single file each week to attend our Sunday School.
In 1978 we ordained the first woman to become an area minister in the ABC/USA, and since that time have ordained twelve women and three men into the ministry.
We learned how to respond to the prophetic call under the guidance of George Williamson. He was pastor of our church for 23 years until 2004, known for saying “Let’s do this,” with us against our more realistic judgment usually saying “OK,” followed quickly by “How are we going to do this?” In that spirit, in 1990 our church spearheaded a campaign of the Baptist Peace Fellowship to buy a school bus, load it with donated medical and school supplies, and put 3 of our church members behind the wheel to drive it to Nicaragua to present it to the students of CEPAD, an agricultural training university in Managua. This was my first experience with the prophetic voice of FBC, and it’s been an exciting ride ever since!
An entry in our records from the 1820’s describes how the congregation pitched in to build a cabin for a woman who was “destitute and alone.” 170 years later, a handful of members of our church who also held that spirit established a Licking County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and in 1998 our congregation took responsibility for building a Habitat house on our own in Newark, Ohio.
Over the years, we've provided various types of assistance to local homeless people as well as political refugees from Central America and Liberia.
Our local Baptist Association welcomed us with open arms in 1819, and it only took 176 years for them to change their minds. They voted to cast us out in 1995 after we became members of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists. During a series of public meetings, members of these churches openly compared homosexuality to cancer, heart disease, alcoholism, using crack, pedophilia, stealing, lying and being overweight. They implored us to “welcome everyone, but show them they are wrong.” Those difficult days became a crucible for us at FBC, each member soul searching to decide what we believe to be true and good and just, and how far we could each individually go to uphold those beliefs. Nobody coasted through that storm, and just about everything I know about the Baptists I learned that spring. Our sister churches in Columbus had taken Baptist autonomy into their own hands and concocted an illegal and ridiculously irregular vote (118 votes from 101 delegates, recount refused) with the goal of ridding themselves of our unsightly sins.
One of our contemporary saints, Bill Keucher, a pastor and Baptist scholar, responded to their action this way:
“To believe in freedom of conscience means to respect differences in understanding and in practice, while undergirding each other in love and prayer, remembering that all of us, the best and the worst, are sinners saved by Grace. Our sins are not nicer or better than yours; neither are they worse… Only those without sin should cast the first VOTE.”
We have since found an associational home with the like-minded rugged individuals of the Rochester/Genesee Region of the American Baptist Churches of New York, but it’s been a challenge to make it to the church potlucks.
After a kind of dry spell, the last year has seen three new projects breathe the fight for social justice back to life in our congregation. One is the vision of an artist among us, Carol Whitt, who has transmogrified our dank tiled basement into a community art studio full of color and life. Children and adults come there to learn and share about art and life, and take away more of themselves than they brought in the door.
Second, our Mission and Social action committee took months to identify what Licking County really needs from us and committed our church to making lunches to hand out free in downtown Newark on the last Sunday of every month, the day when whatever monthly income there is has just about run dry.
And the third is my own favorite because it involves all our kids. We chose to participate in an international curriculum that teaches our kids about Peace and Justice through studying the lives of Nobel Peace Laureates. “PeaceJam” was the brainchild of an artist in Denver, and written into existence by 12 Laureates who committed their time and energy to making sure our kids know exactly how to make a better world. We faced some internal opposition from those who said “This curriculum is not Christian”. My reply is that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. The Bible starts us out, but it doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about talking to community leaders and researching the newspaper. PeaceJam requires that each group choose a service project to employ the techniques of peacemaking, and after taking a look at poverty in Licking County, our kids have returned to Habitat for Humanity. We expect the kids to become the catalyst for our adults to get excited again about making peace in our world.
Members of this congregation have been abolitionists and activists – soldiers and conscientious objectors - missionaries, pastors and seminarians - teachers, farmers, doctors, lawyers and artists - a mix of unique individuals who share a common struggle to live out the Gospel. When we lived through the Columbus Baptist Association crisis, many of us debated whether staying with the Baptists made any sense at all. Did we really want to identify ourselves with such narrow-minded self-righteous bombasts? … Ah, but they’re OUR bombasts… and Soul Liberty and Freedom of Conscience are what we cherish as Baptists. We found consensus in our church that being Baptist means standing firm, not taking your bat and ball and running home.
As we join you on the journey, we don’t leave our Baptist roots, nor do we give up our autonomy. We look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you, welcoming God’s Kingdom on earth together.
Julie Reiswig
