| People have asked me why I
call myself the Bohemian Baptist. No, I’m not from Bohemia. And I am
not a gypsy.
I have adopted the moniker, in its two parts, to
convey how I view myself in the world. The usage of “Bohemian” is in
its less literal sense: I am simply an adventurer in the arts and
literature, traveling abroad to use my talents to express my life’s
experience and offer testimony to the present state of the world, and
more specifically, the church.
Secondly, I am Baptist. This name does not encompass
the whole of my faith and theology, but points to the historic Christian
heritage from which I align myself. I am Baptist, like that of Bunyan,
Gill, and Spurgeon. Yet more importantly, I am a sinner who, by the
grace of God, was made alive by the Spirit, healed of my spiritual
blindness, and given the faith to believe on Jesus Christ as my only
hope of salvation. I praise God for it.
The Bohemian Baptist, therefore, is a sightseer of the
world... by faith. As the name implies, I am not driven to comply with
the world’s standard of conduct, neither am I conformed to that of
today’s mainstream evangelical community. Instead I ground my life’s
course in the dictates of Scripture alone, and strive to live in
obedience to God’s will through the leading of the Spirit. To the
world, this is foolishness, unconventional, and in a sense, bohemian.
Yet as a humbled pilgrim who lives by and defends “the faith which was
once for all delivered to the saints,” it is my delight to serve the
Lord for His glory and not my own. |
