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Southern Baptists to pull out of ‘leftward’ world body
by Bill Bowder
THE Baptist World Alliance (BWA) is facing the loss of one third of its members. The 16-million-strong Southern Baptist Convention is planning to withdraw from the 48-million-strong BWA because of what it calls “a leftward drift”.
A key element in the rift is a report of the BWA study committee prepared for the Southern Baptist Convention by Professor Paige Patterson of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Southern Baptists were not being given a fair hearing, said Professor Patterson. The BWA showed a “leftward drift”, which included an anti-American tone, continued emphasis on women as pastors, and no open discussion about abortion.
Those and a “host of other facts” had led to the decision not to support the BWA, as it no longer represented world Baptists, he said.
View of Germany As an example of the drift, Professor Patterson cited a meeting at which “a German Baptist theologian” said: “I am not sure that there is any such thing as the Great Commission, but if there is I am confident that Jesus never said it.”
Professor Eric Geldbach, a visiting professor at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in the Czech Republic, believes he is the theologian referred to, and claims to have been misquoted.
“All your allegations are totally unsubstantiated,” Professor Geldbech said in a letter to the Southern Baptist Convention’s committee chairman, Dr Morris Chapman, quoted in this week’s Baptist Times. “Your committee is therefore guilty of trespassing at least two commandments: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’, ‘Lie not one to another.’ ”
Religious games The Southern Baptist Convention expects to withdraw its financial contribution — $300,000 in this current year — to the BWA by 1 October. Its president, the Revd Jack Graham, said at the end of last month: “In a world full of terrorists and extremists, we do not have time to play religious games or become bogged down in the quagmire of Baptist debates. It is time for Southern Baptists to move on.”
Dr Denton Lotz, the BWA general secretary, has called the decision “a sin against love”. It brought schism into the life of Baptists worldwide, he said in a statement last week.
The BWA leadership had “bent over backwards to accommodate the concerns of the present Southern Baptist leadership, but, alas, now to no avail”, he said.
“What message is this schism against love sending to the non-believing world?”
Illiberalism confirmed He rejected the “false accusation of liberalism” made by the Southern Baptists against the BWA. It did not have a liberal agenda and it had rejected the theology of liberalism, he said.
Dr Billy Kim, president of the BWA, said that SBC had pioneered the establishment of the BWA nearly a century ago. “It is essential that we remain united to fulfil the Great Commission before Christ returns.”
The final decision over a split will be taken at the Southern Baptist Convention in June.
