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Greetings from the Coordinator-- Abigail Hastings

Sometimes I wonder if the dye was cast at an early age. When I was just 5 years old and living in Dallas TX where I grew up, we went to a service at the large and imposing First Baptist Church downtown. Our family of seven took up the better part of a pew just a few rows back from the front and right under the flopping black Bible of one of the most famous of Southern Baptist pastors, W.A.Criswell. Normally a good natured child in church, happy to draw or lay my head in mother’s lap, this time was different – apparently I acted up the whole time.

I like to think that even at a tender age, I had a sense that something going on up in that pulpit wasn’t quite right. Years later I learned the name W.A.Criswell became synonymous with belief in biblical inerrancy and telling people what to do and what to believe. In the 1987 documentary, The Battle for the Bible, Bill Moyers interviewed Criswell who explained that though he couldn’t run the church without “the women”, the Bible tells us that they cannot preach the Word. Moyers followed Criswell’s interpretation with a conversation with my sister, Nancy Hastings Sehested, who spoke of the authority of her call, rooted in living out what she believed God had called her to do. Soul freedom. The bedrock of what it is to be Baptist. And a demonstration of what a vast difference of belief can be held under the name Baptist.

My life has been an exercise in living out soul freedom, finding God’s work to do in places I never would have imagined. After graduating from Samford University in religion and drama, I moved north, largely drawn by mission work I did on the lower east side of New York during college. I’ve lived here since 1978 in a loft in Soho, once an outpost of manufacturing and artists, now something commercially driven and unrecognizable. That in itself has been a lesson in how incremental change, just below the radar, in a few short years and right under your nose, can result in changes that are not necessarily for the better.

After six years working on social policy for the Presbyterians, I had a most wonderful child, Nate, who is now 16. I also started going to Judson Memorial Church and found there was life, and a really good one, after Southern Baptists. I’ve worked with our minister emeritus, Howard Moody, on a number of projects, including the start up of the mellifluously titled Religious Leaders for a More Just and Compassionate Drug Policy, a national organization of 1000 religious leaders committed to drug policy reform.

Then last fall Howard invited me to help with a meeting of the steering committee of The Coalition for Baptist Principles. I thought I was going to be “church lady” – bringing in coffee, making copies – but I was intrigued with these people who so clearly understood what it is to be Baptist, and how these fragile and precious tenets of our belief are now being threatened in the ABC(USA). While I am now learning the inner workings of ABC life, things I was blissfully unaware of before, I have always had a passion for the priesthood of the believer and recognize it is through the work of the Coalition that this and other Baptist values can be restored.

So I signed on through the Denver Biennial to be of help in whatever way I can. We have a website that has The Judson Declaration on it and will soon have additional materials, links and resources. The Coalition database is 800 members strong and growing. There are many who feel bereft about what is happening within the ABC, and having witnessed a similar disinformation campaign and takeover in the Southern Baptist Convention, that feeling is not misplaced. But ours is not to know or suppose the future – ours is to bear witness to what we see happening before us, to name it and push against it and help others know that there are profound issues at stake if the essence of our Baptist heritage is compromised. If you have any questions about our work or would like to contact me, please do so in any of the following ways:

email: coordinator@baptistprinciples.org
phone: 212.966.1815
address: The Coalition for Baptist Principles
c/o Abigail Hastings
548 Broadway #4H
New York NY 10012

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