Convictional. Resistant. Steadfast.

Sermon, Commissioning Service, Mercer University School of Theology, May 9, 2025

Note to Readers: This message reflects the profound challenges that I believe face all ministers of the Gospel at this moment in this context, and the kind of character and faith with which we must meet those challenges. It was presented to the graduates of the Mercer University School of Theology, class of 2025.

GREETINGS

Distinguished dean Greg DeLoach
Esteemed faculty colleagues
Honored graduates,
Proud parents, families, and friends—
Good morning.

I am grateful to my faculty colleagues for the invitation to address this most special gathering. It is truly an honor.

MEMORIES

I remember graduating from Southern Baptist Seminary in the spring of 1987. Throughout my three years as an MDiv student there was a spirit of defiance in the air. It was the time when fundamentalist Southern Baptists were gradually seizing control of all SBC institutions. Southern was still under moderate Baptist leadership while I was there, which included commitments to modern scholarship and full equality and blessing of women in ministry. But the approaching hoofbeats of a very different type of leadership and vision were able to be heard.

Nine years later I experienced my last graduation at Southern Seminary. I was leaving after a short three year stay as a junior professor. Fundamentalist leadership had been in place for those three years. One implication was the rejection of women in ministry, a main reason why I was leaving. Another was the closure of the school of church social work because of a supposed incongruence between the practice of social work and “biblical values.” A number of graduates came to the platform in protest with duct tape over their mouths. Other graduates were perfectly thrilled with the new direction of the school. Division and protest. That was what graduation 1996 was like.

I notice that none of you are wearing duct tape. I am glad to see that.

THEME

I submit to you that what happened in the Southern Baptist Convention 30 years ago has now happened in our nation. We experience a problem that can be described as intractable division but which many of us would also describe as extremist right-wing oppression. Some of the same impulses I first experienced in the 1980s are at work today, just on a broader scale. We witness a national resurgence of reactionary authoritarianism, shot through with patriarchal, xenophobic, and nationalist ideologies. Graduates of the McAfee School of Theology in the year 2025 will enter into (or continue) your professional careers in this climate.

You will offer spiritual care and mental health services to people, many of whom were already traumatized by toxic patterns in our culture and who are now daily re-traumatized just by opening their news app.

You will run nonprofits in a context in which government funding cuts are gashing even larger holes in the social safety net and creating even more profound needs in our communities.

You will write blogs and post videos and develop dissertations in a context in which major expressions of Christianity have been weaponized for dehumanization and for dismissal of empathy as a legitimate Christian virtue.

And some of you will enter (or deepen) your work in local churches that are fragile, politically divided, and under pressure both to speak and not to speak to the most pressing issues of our time. You will have to decide what you will do about preaching, worship, and public witness right now, in Atlanta and Edenton and Moultrie and Duluth and Charlotte and everywhere you go.

Welcome to ministry! Are we having fun yet?

SCRIPTURE: 1 PETER 3:13-18

It is agreed by NT scholars that the epistle of 1 Peter was written to churches in Asia Minor who were dealing with suffering, persecution, and social marginalization from hostile neighbors and at times from the Roman state. The epistle was written, one might say, to stiffen the spines of small, fearful congregations facing fearsome threats.

¹³ Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? ¹⁴ But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.

The author, possibly Peter, possibly someone writing in Peter’s name, begins this section by suggesting what ought to be the case, that the church will not be harmed for no good reason. We might extend that to us in this way – we enter ministry with every reason to believe that if we simply fulfill our vocation in a way we have been taught is responsible, nothing bad will come to us.

But Peter goes on to acknowledge that suffering for doing right may come. It’s true.

I think of one of our graduates under pressure because she speaks about social justice from the pulpit of her church and has exhibited her commitment to refugees.

I think of a pastor I know, another Mercer grad, who lost his job because he participated in an anti-racism event in his town.

I think of a youth minister who has decided to leave the duly aligned SBC/CBF church he was in because to stay would require accepting the SBC stance banning women in any pastoral role.

I think of the caregivers I know who in offering counseling to abused women and children have faced threats from abusers and taken risks with their own safety.

Suffering is no fun. Yet Peter says we are blessed if we suffer. How’s that? The answer is down in vv. 17-18:

¹⁷ For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit…

The author is saying something like this: when we pay a price for our ministry that can place us right in the middle of God’s will.

It is far better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil – a good reminder that if you get fired for stealing from the offering plate or misusing your power, that is not persecution, that is justice.

No, Peter is talking about innocent suffering, unjust suffering, one might call it vocational suffering. Like the kind that Jesus endured, who suffered and died not for his sins but for ours, and whose suffering bridged the gap between humanity and God.

And here is Peter’s call to action:

Do not fear what they fear,^* and do not be intimidated, ¹⁵ but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, ¹⁶ yet do it with gentleness and respect. Maintain a good conscience so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.

That first line may mean do not fear what they fear, like suffering and marginalization and even death, or it may mean do not fear them. That seems more likely. Do not be afraid. Do not be intimidated. Lean in with Jesus. If challenged, offer a winsome defense of your convictions and your actions. Live clean and above reproach. Do not give enemies of the church, of the Gospel, and of your ministry any legitimate ammunition.

CONVICTIONAL. RESISTANT. STEADFAST.

Three words have been coming to mind as I think about what ministry requires in this apocalyptic time. Those three words are the title of this address: convictional/resistant/steadfast. Let me say a bit about each one.

First: This is a time for convictional ministers. Baptist theologian James McClendon defined the word “conviction” as follows:

“A conviction is a persistent belief such that if a person held it and discovered it to be false, he would experience a significant change in his behavior or identity.”

For McClendon, convictions are not mere opinions or preferences; they are core beliefs that shape who a person or community is, and how they live. If a conviction were overturned, it would disrupt the very narrative or coherence of one’s life.

People with convictions are people with life-defining, death-defying core beliefs that are utterly determinative for how they live. They are people like Nelson Mandela who, when on trial for his life in 1964, said this. He used the word ideals, which also means convictions:

"I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

There was a time when many on the liberal and progressive side were kind of allergic to sturdy convictions because they associated them with right wing fundamentalism. Progressives were about questions, not convictions.

But the problem, it turns out, was not convictions per se – it was the nature of what was believed. If you are absolutely convinced of the call to justice, and absolutely opposed to dehumanization, by golly, you are convictional.

I call on you, graduates, to be convictional – to enter ministry with core beliefs that are so strong that they will define your ministry and so strong that you are willing to suffer for them.

Second, this is a time for resistant ministers. For a while I thought the right word here was “resilient,” that is, having the capacity to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adversity, stress, or challenges.

Not a bad word, not a wrong aspiration, but what comes to mind these days for me is resistant, that is, having the capacity to withstand, oppose, or not be affected by something—such as force, influence, or harm.

In 2025 we need resistant ministers. Ministers who withstand the pressure to conform to social norms when social norms are themselves immoral. Ministers who oppose trends, ideologies, and policies that are simple and clear violations of biblical norms. Ministers who are not affected by the fear of something bad maybe happening to us if we do X or Y brave thing. Ministers who are more committed to faithfulness to Jesus than we are to our own job security or reputation.

Third, this is a time for steadfast ministers. Steadfast means being firm, unwavering, and loyal in purpose, belief, or allegiance, especially in the face of difficulty or change. Steadfast ministers cannot be intimidated into silence, cannot be seduced into compromising convictions, cannot be pressured to be disloyal to the people and groups whose marginalization and suffering cries forth to us as a call from God for our solidarity.

A steadfast person is one fixed firmly in place, immovable when immovability is what is required.

That raises this essential question:

Who stands fast? This was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s question during the Nazi era. In a time when everything is so challenging, who stands fast? Who holds firm to core convictions when the incentive to compromise is so strong?

This question of Bonhoeffer’s was also related to another one: Where shall we find solid ground under our feet? It is hard to stand fast when we cannot seem to find solid ground because the earth quakes and the ground shifts every day. Bonhoeffer knew about this. He put it this way, also in his 1942 Christmas essay: “Have there ever been people in history who in their time, like us, had so little ground under their feet, people to whom every possible alternative open to them at the time appeared equally unbearable, senseless, and contrary to life?"

Bonhoeffer’s ultimate answer was that Jesus is the only solid ground. Fixing our feet on the teachings of Jesus, following the way of Jesus, preparing to endure sufferings like Jesus, this is solid ground. This is the path to convictional, resistant, steadfast ministry.

Graduates, you enter a very challenging context. But I am confident from having been your teacher, as I know my colleagues would also agree, that among us today in this graduating class are convictional, resistant, and steadfast ministers of Jesus Christ. May Jesus bless you and may you be a blessing, as you go forth into your ministries.