Updated Monday, June 30, 2008

SBC to consider rejoining BWA

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

Not that it has a chance, but Larry Walker's motion to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) that the SBC consider rejoining the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) deserves serious consideration.

It was a mistake to leave that international fellowship of Baptist conventions and unions that Southern Baptists helped to start in 1905. Walker's motion for reconciliation is at least forcing us to reconsider the circumstances and effect. North Carolina Baptists kept BWA in their budget because we realized the value of supporting our isolated, persecuted brethren, even if some had a different perspective.

Currently 214 Baptist bodies with 36 million members affiliate with the BWA, most of them smaller than the Baptist State Convention, some smaller than a good-sized association. Some have no regard for the SBC and practice their faith outside of parameters the SBC has drawn for itself.

BWA's vision statement says it is "a global movement of Baptists sharing a common confession of faith in Jesus Christ, bonded together by God's love to support, encourage and strengthen one another, while proclaiming and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to a lost world."

In 2003 and preceding years, SBC leaders accused BWA of being "liberal." In fact, the BWA is not liberal. Nor is it conservative. Some Baptist unions that are members of BWA practice in ways that some other members would construe as liberal. Some Baptist unions perceive the SBC as liberal.

In January 2004 as the drums beat louder for the SBC to withdraw its membership and $425,000 contribution to the $1.6 million BWA budget, President Billy Kim warned against labeling as liberal churches that simply practice differently.

"Our church is much more conservative, fundamental, than probably the average Southern Baptist Church in the United States," said Kim, retired pastor of 15,000-member Suwon Central Baptist Church near Seoul, South Korea. "Everybody carries their Bible; everybody carries their own hymn book ... If you don't go to early morning prayer meeting, five o'clock every day, then (we) don't consider you conservative or biblical ...You cannot (say) that we are conservative and the U.S. church is liberal. We just practice different."

Southern Baptists pulled out as the BWA membership committee was recommending the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) for membership. Southern Baptist leaders were upset to think the CBF, which insists it is not a denomination, convention or union, could join the BWA. They interpreted BWA membership guidelines to exclude fellowships like CBF.

The SBC report recommending withdrawal acknowledged the CBF connection but said it was not a major issue, but merely "a confirmation" that the Convention cannot "allow the world to see us without having to look through a BWA lens," the report said.

The report, approved at the February 2004 meeting of the SBC Executive Committee, also said the BWA, "no longer efficiently communicates to the unsaved a crystal clear gospel message that our Lord Jesus Christ is solely sufficient for salvation."

Not wanting to "cast aspersion" on like-minded Baptists in BWA, it said the SBC intends to "continue to partner with our oldest and best friends worldwide and to develop new and vibrant friendships and joint endeavors to reach the world for Christ."

Former SBC president Bobby Welch now works full time as global evangelical relations strategist to re-establish those relationships as promised. Two other elements of his assignment are to promote evangelism and giving.

"We still intend to be involved time to time with Southern Baptists' lifelong ministry partners who themselves remain in BWA," Welch said in a mid-June interview. "They don't have to choose between us and BWA."

He mentioned Billy Kim's presence on the platform receiving an award at the SBC as an example that relationships with "like minded" Baptists still are welcomed.

"Like minded" is a recurring phrase in the conversation about whom the SBC should relate to overseas. Welch said "like-minded" will be reflected in similar views of the Great Commission, scripture, evangelism and discipleship.

He recognized there are "different opinions still whether we should have stayed connected with them or not." Those differences aside, Welch said the SBC must "build on where we are now and move forward."

Welch said there is a "huge desire and determination around the world for people to be connected and to be related to each other."

"There is no way to do the Great Commission without the 'great connection,'" he said. "We cannot 'commission' the lost without 'connecting' to the saved."

With refreshing candor, Welch said, "We do not know it all. It is going to be helpful to us to create a learner's spirit. There is a lot for Southern Baptists to learn about a spiritual walk and the Lord's work on planet earth."

I suggest a good classroom for Southern Baptists is in the school of the BWA.

While Welch's work "has the potential of being beneficial," according to Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board (IMB), ultimately it is "benign as far as our work."

Bill Wagner, one of six candidates for SBC president last month, feels strongly that Southern Baptists should rejoin the BWA. He fears the SBC's departure "left our conservative brothers who are still in these unions in a weakened position."

Wagner, a missionary in Europe for three decades, is president of Olivet University International with campuses in five nations. He said the effort to connect with "like-minded" conservative Baptist unions overseas puts conservatives "in a very bad place because it splits the union they're in."

Continuing to move as we are, he said, will leave "ruined lives and wrecked unions in the wake."

The BWA was "never a factor in our relationships with overseas Baptists," Rankin said. The IMB did not work through BWA. It did have relationships - primarily financial - with many of the individual unions, and some IMB missionaries staffed their institutions. When Rankin moved IMB strategy in 1997 to engage unreached people groups, and away from funding institutions, it was a difficult pill for some of those unions to swallow.

While Baptists worldwide have "complementary objectives," Rankin said, the IMB's client is "the lostness" that remains in the world. The IMB is "not isolationist" he said, but he discounts the oft-spoken notion that BWA's extensive reach gives Southern Baptists access to nations in times of disaster that they would not have otherwise.

Instead, Rankin said, "our extensive presence globally actually helps give BWA access."

BWA is not suffering financially since the SBC pulled out. As often happens, at least temporarily, sympathetic churches and conventions like the Baptist State Convention respond to make up the shortfall. Still BWA associate vice president for communications Eron Henry said, "It is our hope that breach would be healed."

Walker's motion was referred to the SBC Executive Committee, which will report its findings and make a recommendation to the 2009 annual SBC meeting.

Ironically, the Executive Committee president is Morris Chapman, who held the same position in 2003, which made him a vice president of the BWA at the same time he chaired the study committee that recommended withdrawing from the BWA.

The Executive Committee is charged to report its findings and make a recommendation to the 2009 annual SBC meeting.

Membership in the BWA does not carry with it a tangible "benefit" to the SBC. Time has proven that neither does the BWA depend on the SBC. In a world where connections and relationships are essential to achieve mutual goals - even if the partners don't chew their food with the same dentures - SBC membership in the Baptist World Alliance would encourage fellow world Baptists, imply mutual respect and fulfill goals of the global evangelical relations office without having to reinvent the wheel.