Michael E. Williams, Sr., serves today as dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and professor of history at Dallas Baptist University; as vice president of the Baptist History and Heritage Society; and as book review editor for the Society's journal, Baptist History and Heritage. Recently, he invited me to review for the journal Cecil Sherman's new autobiography, Cecil Sherman: By My Own Reckoning. In due time, this review will be printed in the journal. However, I have decided immediately to forward the review via email to members and friends of the Baptist History and Heritage Society.
Here's why. I have reviewed books by and about Baptists for thirty-five years. Never has a book in Baptist studies charged my intellect, memory, and emotions as much as this one. If you care about being Baptist, this book is must reading. Up front, I urge you to buy this book...
Wil Platt has written a superb, fact-based review of this book. I encourage you to read his review at centerforbaptiststudies.org. My review offers a complementary, but more interpretive slant.
By My Own Reckoning reveals a Baptist leader who possesses the honesty of Thomas Helwys, the courage of Roger Williams, the persistence of John Clarke, the writing skills of John Bunyan, the missions drive of Adoniram and Ann Judson, the preaching power of Shubal Stearns and Martha Marshall, the prophetic intensity of Walter Rauschenbusch, the sacrificial spirit and passion of Martin Luther King, Jr., and E. Y. Mullins's ability to communicate Baptist values. Ultimately, Sherman comes across as a teacher; he teaches through everything he writes, says, and does. And he combines faith and intelligence in unusually effective ways.
Sherman comes across as a highly capable Baptist pastor, teacher, and writer who invests himself heavily in the broader scheme of Baptist life as a state convention president, agency trustee, and fellowship leader. Driven by Baptist ideals, he challenges racism, hypocrisy, and denominationalism when it constructs theological parameters and denies freedom. In relentless fashion, he hammers home the biblical imperative of liberty, marshals evidence against biblical inerrancy, questions the judgment of self-serving denominational bureaucrats, and builds an alternative fellowship for the dispossessed.
Sherman provides inside perspectives on background influences on his character and training, on his pastoral strengths and weaknesses, the controversies that emerged in his churches and denomination, the SBC Peace Committee on which he served and from which he resigned, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship that he helped to create, his retirement experiences as teacher, writer, and interim pastor, his long-term care giving role for his wife, and his assessment of coming to terms with last things.
If you want genuine and highly personal insights into the nature of freedom-based pastoral servanthood, read this book. If you have any remaining questions about the true nature of SBC fundamentalism, read this book. Sherman calls it wrong, immoral, theology-demanding, intentionally divisive, power-oriented, and out of step with Baptist history and polity. If you want to learn more about the SBC controversy and the inner workings of the SBC Peace Committee, read this book. If you care about the origins of CBF, read this book. If anyone you know faces Alzheimer's disease as a patient or a caregiver, read this book. If honesty and courage appeal to you, or if you need a good dose of either or both, read this book.
If you are tired of reading secondary-source treatments of modern Baptist history, read this book. The author is more than an eyewitness to key developments; he is a primary driving force. He does not have to document much (though he does); he is the documentation. No student in Baptist theological education should be allowed to graduate without having read, studied, and carefully thought about the contents of this book.
Sherman's influence saturates the Baptist experience in the South and West for the past half century. Although he refuses to say it explicitly, he has exerted an extraordinary impact on Baptist development, particularly on the preservation of key Baptist values. I ponder, for example, the surging independence of the Baptist History and Heritage Society in the mid-1990s. Why did the Society do that? Surely, the initiatives of Sherman and other persons like him fed into that development. And today, the Society flourishes on the Atlanta campus of Mercer University, just a few miles away from where Sherman became pastor of his first full-time church, First Baptist Church of Chamblee, in 1956, and on the same campus where he served as the first coordinator of CBF in 1992-96. And soon, CBF will move its offices into the same building occupied by the Society.
Sherman comes across as human. He grieves when his daughter leaves for Baylor. He weeps at pivotal points in his life: when the Glorieta Statement causes him to resign from the SBC Peace Committee, when he leaves Broadway Baptist Church, and when his wife's Alzheimer's disease sets in. He hurts when SBC friends desert him while he is fighting for their rights and freedom. He wishes that he had expressed better relational skills at key points in his life. He shows love for his daughter, Genie, her family, and his broader set of friends. He even admits that he sometimes wonders about the afterlife and states that he wishes he knew more about heaven, but he reaffirms his faith despite any occasional doubts.
For the record, Sherman has accomplished more in retirement than some of us pull off in a career: 11 years of teaching at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, many years of writing Sunday School commentaries for Smyth & Helwys, 10 interim pastorates, and 11 years of serving as a caregiver to his wife, Dot (who died on August 1, 2008).
My hat is off to Smyth & Helwys for producing this highly readable, 280-page hardcover volume. It is an excellent model for helping Baptists and non-Baptists understand the heart and soul of a faithful Baptist leader who writes plainly, convincingly, and unapologetically. In fact, Sherman can share more constructive thoughts in fewer words and simpler language than anyone I have ever read or heard preach.
Special Note: Many wonderful connections exist between me and my family and Cecil Sherman and his family. In the mid-1960s, my wife, Mary Jane, while a high school student in Asheville, North Carolina, babysat the Shermans' daughter, Genie. I often heard Cecil's sermons when Mary Jane and I dated as students at Mars Hill College in 1965-67. In 1967, he co-officiated our wedding at First Baptist Church, Asheville, along with Perry Crouch. Dot Sherman, Cecil's wife, gave Mary Jane a framed wedding prayer as a wedding gift.
Cecil and I often ate breakfast together when Mary Jane and I visited our families in Asheville while I worked on two degrees at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1967-1973. We even played golf together on one occasion. When I finished graduate school in 1973, Cecil wrote letters in my behalf to potential employers. At my request, Cecil advised me on several possible job changes after I launched my career with the Historical Commission, SBC, in 1973. At my invitation, he led a workshop at Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center for the Historical Commission in the late 1970s or early 1980s.
My father-in-law, Murray Eisenhauer, tailored Cecil's new suits and sports jackets for many years. My mother-in-law, Mary Eisenhauer, often entertained Cecil in their home when Mary Jane and I visited Asheville. In 1997, First Baptist Church, Asheville, released its official history, which I had been invited to write. I titled Chapter 6, which focused on Cecil's ministry at the church in 1964-84, "Challenging the Status Quo." Cecil obviously influenced me and my family in significant and personal ways. I wonder how many other thousands of people he has helped throughout his ministries?
After reading this, you may question the objectivity of my review. I can understand that. But I assure you that the review is an honest appraisal. Cecil would want it no other way.
