were to walk into the modern-day Church, He would not be concerned with issues such as whether baptism is a sacrament or an ordinance, however; He would be concerned with whether His commandment to "love one another" were being carried out.[9] The act of loving others is the keynote of the Gospels. Doctrinal issues often shift the focus away from the mission of the Church and onto petty disagreements among denominations.
An exemplar of the Baptist ideology-one who perceived the purpose of the Church correctly-was Letty M. Russell. Russell affirmed the concept of "humanization," which draws its roots from "the Old Testament concept of shalom wherein togetherness with God and his purposes restores the relationship of created personhood."[10] Russell approaches Christianity from a perspective of "liberation theology" that includes women as well as men in theology.[11] She regards the addition of women to theology as a completion of it that restores it to wholeness. This idea is consistent with the Biblical concept of shalom
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