After more than a half- century in the pulpit, the Rev. Raymond Bailey, who served as senior pastor of Seventh and James Baptist Church of Waco, said preaching and pastoring remain “stimulating and provocative.”

The Rev. Raymond Bailey
Photo by Rod Aydelotte

“My goal as a preacher is to ask ‘Did someone meet God today as a result of something in the sermon and what was proclaimed?’ ” he said. Alluding to the story of Jacob, who wrestled with God in the desert, “Sometimes those who encounter God limp away from the experience.”

In May, the 72-year-old Bailey preached his last sermon in his pulpit at Seventh and James Baptist Church, located in the heart of the Baylor University campus.

The Dallas-born pastor has taken a thumping or two of his own in his walk with his Lord. He was one of several “moderate” professors drummed out of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., in the early 1990s after its takeover by a more conservative branch of the Southern Baptist Convention. He’d taught preaching there for more than 16 years.

During his tenure here, in October 2000, Seventh and James voted to sever its ties with the Southern Baptist Convention. It cited the SBC’s “exclusionary” pronouncements and increasingly rigid creeds. For example, the SBC that summer declared that women could no longer be called as pastors. It also made it an article of faith that wives “graciously submit” to their husbands as head of the household.

Bailey’s 1995 call to helm Seventh and James was a Baylor-centric homecoming of sorts. At age 18, as a student at Baylor in the late 1950s, he was pastor to a small congregation in the town of Ben Arnold (about 60 miles southeast of Waco in Milam County.)

“I wouldn’t advise it nowadays, calling a student as preacher,” he said. “I saw some of the sermons I delivered then: I took ’em out and burned ’em. What I inflicted on the poor people of Ben Arnold was unforgivable.”

Originally, Bailey recalled, he’d set out to become a lawyer. But the summer before his senior year of high school, he experienced “the call” from God and went to Baylor, graduating in 1959. He headed to seminary, but was not happy with the education he was receiving there, he said.

Following the example of one of his favorite Baylor professors, the late dramatist Paul Baker (1911-2009), Bailey went into acting. He also taught at the high school and college level.

“I have continued to have an interest in the arts,” he said. “Some of our best thinking (as a society) is found in our literature, arts and music. I have drawn heavily from literature for my sermon illustrations.”

But he couldn’t escape “the nagging of the Lord,” he said, so he headed to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He said he was enamored of the blend of scholarship and spirituality there. His intense study of sacred Scripture, Bailey added, led him to social justice issues and the prophetic ministry.

“The difference in real biblical preaching and what I call counterfeit preaching is that the real one stresses that we are created in God’s image,” Bailey said. “False preaching tries to create a god in our image. Preaching should be judged on the basis of content, rather than its form.”

The preaching pro decried the modern tendency of some clergy to blend “stand-up comedy and motivational speaking.” He said that is geared toward entertaining an audience rather than engaging a flock with a proclamation of the Gospel. Those who have achieved fame through such means, he added, build up cults that follow them, instead of following the path of Jesus.

Bailey is making sure that the transition between senior pastors at Seventh and James goes smoothly. The first two months of the post-Bailey era will feature a rotation of guest preachers from the religion department at Baylor University, he said. Church moderator Mike Long, administrative council leader Ray Deaver and other church members will initiate “a year of discovery” about the church’s wants, needs and eventual direction.

Meanwhile, Bailey said, the church’s “small, young but strong staff will continue to carry out the day-to-day business at Seventh and James.”

His plans are many.

“I hope to do some teaching and writing and to become a good grandfather,” Bailey said. His wife Patricia served as the executive director of the Waco Advocacy Center until her retirement in 2002. They have two married daughters, Hollie and Sarah; three granddaughters, Abigail, Olivia, and Yulie; and two grandsons, Bailey and Jack.

Early this month, the retired reverend began teaching a course, “Preaching on Justice,” at McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta. In the fall, he is scheduled to teach at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Ky. He previously taught at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, in addition to pastoring in churches in Florida, Indiana, and Kentucky, as well as other parts of Texas.

“We will miss Waco, a truly wonderful community,” Bailey concluded. “We’ll keep our Lady Bear (basketball) season tickets.”