Today we hear the story of John the Baptist in the wilderness. I once served as rector of an Episcopal Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh. The church’s patron and namesake was John the Baptist. Now the town of Wake Forest was the home of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary … part of the Southern Baptist Convention. Wake Forest was also home to 18 Baptist churches. It was hard not to see “Baptist” everywhere in the small town. Well, every year there was a street fair on Wake Forest’s one-block-long downtown, and the women from St. John’s would sell baked goods to raise money for our church school program. One year I went down to the street fair to support them and the sign in front of their table read:
The Baptist Episcopal Church.