Barnabas File

Every year our church’s Denominational Relations Committee leads a month-long emphasis on Baptist heritage. The approach each year is different, but the point is to remind us of who we are as a Baptist congregation.   Someone asked this year, “Why talk about denominations in a post-denominational age?   Aren’t we beyond all that?”   The answer would be “Yes” and “No.” To understand what we mean by post-denominational, we must consider how we use the term “denomination.”  If you are talking about judicatories, conventions, and bureaucracies when you use the term “denomination,” then we are well on our way to being post-denominational in the United States.  Even in churches that embrace a connectional or hierarchical approach to church government (Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, etc.), less attention is being paid to what the “denomination” (read national leadership and governing bodies) decides and what a church as a local expression of that...