Last week, Baptist News Global reported the removal from the Baptist World Alliance Commission on Interfaith Relations and another BWA commission of a gay man whose sexual orientation and same-sex marriage were known at the time of his appointment.
Much remains unclear about what has happened at the time I am writing these reflections. It seems the removal has something to do with as-yet-unreported actions by the BWA Executive Committee at a meeting March 7-10 at the BWA headquarters in Falls Church, Va. It seems a past BWA General Council resolution has been invoked as expressing the BWA’s position on a matter in question. And it seems whatever has transpired may potentially threaten the unity of the BWA as a Christian world communion and thereby diminish its capacity for serving as a means for international ecumenical engagement with other Christian world communions.
Steven Harmon
I am especially concerned about potential implications for global Baptist unity and Baptist ecumenical engagement as a Baptist ecumenical theologian who has served for five quinquennia (2000-present) as a member of what is now known as the BWA Commission on Baptist Doctrine and Christian Unity. I also have served as a member of BWA delegations to international dialogues with the Anglican Communion, two phases of dialogue with the Catholic Church (and as co-secretary for Phase III of the Baptist-Catholic dialogue), pre-conversations with the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, and as the BWA representative to a plenary meeting of the World Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order.
That concern and the perspective I’ve gained from these experiences motivate the following reflections, which like my fellow Baptist theologian Richard Wilson I offer not in the official capacity of any of these BWA roles but rather as an invested individual participant in and contributor to the life of the BWA.
Not a new question
The BWA is not the first Christian world communion to experience controversy over same-sex unions. The Anglican Communion, for example, has experienced ongoing strife over the matter since the 1990s and was in the midst of worsening conflict when the BWA engaged in a dialogue with Anglicans from 2000 to 2005.
But the Baptist ecclesiology that historically has made the BWA reluctant to speak authoritatively on behalf of its diverse membership offers resources that in theory can help it navigate such controversy in ways that may not be readily available to other communions.
“I am aware of only one instance of the BWA publicly addressing same-sex unions.”
I am aware of only one instance of the BWA publicly addressing same-sex unions: BWA General Council Resolution 1994.3, “1994 International Year of the Family,” adopted in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1994. It includes this statement: “The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance meeting in Uppsala, Sweden, from 18-24 July 1994 … PROCLAIMS the biblical definition of the family, a permanent, monogamous, heterosexual union, as the original divine plan for family life which must continue to serve as foundation and ideal for an ordered and effective society.”
Like all resolutions of the BWA General Council, Resolution 1994.3 is the product of a resolutions committee that drafts and proposes to the General Council resolutions that speak to particular issues at a particular time. Note that it is framed as the voice not of the BWA but rather of “the General Council of the Baptist World Alliance meeting in Uppsala, Sweden, from 18-24 July 1994.”
While the resolution spoke only for that particular General Council meeting at that particular time, it is likely that it reflected a viewpoint held by the vast majority of the membership of the BWA then — but even in 1994, there already was considerable diversity in the BWA constituency regarding the morality of same-sex relationships.
The earlier resolution may well represent the convictions of a majority of global Baptists today, too, but there is also greater diversity of convictions on the matter among the BWA membership now than in 1994.
Now, a ‘Beliefs Statement’
The only other BWA General Council-issued statement that approaches touching on the matter of same-sex relationships is the statement of Baptist identity embedded in the 2005 “Message from the Centenary Congress,” which now appears on the BWA website as a “Beliefs Statement.” It includes the statement in article 8, “We affirm Christian marriage and family life.”
While one might be able to read into this affirmation a particular configuration of Christian marriage and family life, notice that this statement says nothing about the genders of people who are joined together in Christian marriage.
“This statement says nothing about the genders of people who are joined together in Christian marriage.”
Is Resolution 1994.3 now being invoked as the key to the meaning of the 2005 affirmation of “Christian marriage and family life?” It seems the 2005 statement of Baptist identity, which was the fruit of work by global Baptist theologians beyond the General Council and incorporated feedback solicited from Baptist leaders in each member communion of the BWA, intentionally refrained from specificity about the configuration of Christian marriage and family life at a time when this was being bitterly contested within and beyond Baptist life.
Both Baptists who believe same-sex unions may live fully into God’s intentions for marriage and family life and Baptists who are not able to grant this would agree in being able to confess, “We affirm Christian marriage and family life.”
That the “Message from the Centenary Congress” did not define the nature of Christian marriage and family life in 2005, more than a decade further into the intensification of global Christian conflicts over same-sex unions beyond the state of the question in 1994, is noteworthy and possibly instructive as to its proper interpretation and utilization today.
The context of the affirmation of Christian marriage and family life in the 2005 identity statement provides further clarification of its function. It appears in the section on “The Church and the Kingdom” as part of an explanation of what is entailed by the declaration that “through the Holy Spirit we experience interdependence with those who share this dynamic discipleship of the church as the people of God.”
In the flow of this section of the Centenary statement, the interdependence of the people of God is embodied not only in marriage and family life but also in working to fulfill Christ’s prayer for the unity of the church (Article 9) and in believers’ baptism as a disciple-making practice (Article 10).
Furthermore, the final paragraph of this Centenary identity statement recognizes it is “a partial and incomplete confession of faith,” declaring the fulness of “the truth is found in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.” This broader context of the affirmation of “Christian marriage and family life” suggests it was not intended as a boundary-defining statement of how Christian marriage and family life should be configured.
Whatever may be the intention of the affirmation of Christian marriage and family life in the identity statement issued in the “Message from the Centenary Congress,” the question remains: Would it be proper to invoke Resolution 1994.3, or any particular General Council resolution, as a boundary-defining statement of an official position of the BWA?
The BWA and resolutions
The BWA has issued numerous resolutions since its founding in 1905. BWA historian Lee Spitzer is in the process of compiling a complete electronic collection of these resolutions for the BWA website, where they are prefaced with this qualification: “In Baptist polity, resolutions and other collective statements are not binding on Baptist individuals or churches. They intend to share wisdom and raise consciousness rather than to demand or coerce conformity or hinder the soul freedom and responsibility of people to follow God according to the dictates of their own Christ-led conscience.”
“In Baptist polity, resolutions and other collective statements are not binding on Baptist individuals or churches.”
Recent resolutions issued by the BWA General Council include a 2019 resolution that called upon the membership of the BWA to learn and use “language that is affirming to both women and men in worship, communications and publications, including Bible translations” and to “work intentionally to create equal space for women in all leadership roles” in Baptist church life. Yet there are BWA member unions in various cultural contexts that decline to use gender-inclusive language for people and that bar women from serving in particular roles of leadership. It is likely some current members of BWA commissions from these contexts would likewise resist abiding by this resolution.
In 2022, the General Council meeting in Birmingham, Ala., issued Resolution 2022.4 on “Slavery Reparations.” It “calls on older Baptist churches, colleges, unions and other institutions to thoroughly study their own history and publicly acknowledge institutional and leadership ties to chattel slavery, and then explore ways to repair the damage from previous support for and profiting from slavery” and “urges Baptist individuals and institutions to participate in reparations conversations in their own communities and national governments.” One may wonder whether all BWA member unions and their individual members who serve on BWA commissions — especially in the United States, where even among professed Christians there is much entrenched resistance to proposals for reparations — would seek to abide by this particular resolution.
Covenant on relationships
Yet there is a document issued by the BWA General Council that might have a claim to a greater degree of authority for the membership of the BWA than any of the aforementioned resolutions, including Resolution 1994.3 on marriage and family life. It is the Covenant on Intra-Baptist Relationships (originally titled “Principles and Guidelines for Intra-Baptist Relationships”), unanimously ratified by the General Council in its meeting during the 2013 BWA Annual Gathering in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
In the wake of the withdrawal of the Southern Baptist Convention from the BWA in 2004 due to SBC frustration that the convictions and practices of large segments of the BWA did not conform to the increasingly more conservative SBC’s standards for Baptist faith and practice, former BWA General Secretary Neville Callam had appointed a Special Commission on Intra-Baptist Relations that proposed the principles and guidelines the General Council ratified. That document highlights the BWA’s “diversity as a God-given gift” in its preamble and then makes statements about the work of safeguarding this diversity that include the following principles and guidelines:
- “Our conversations, dialogues and debates must never degenerate into attacks on the personhood, humanity or the authenticity of one’s Christian faith and commitment.”
- “As a world community of Baptist believers, we remain incomplete until we have vigorously sought to hear, understand and respect the diverse viewpoints reflected by others.”
- “We acknowledge that Baptists are known to have a wide range of opinions and perspectives on many issues including what constitutes ‘truth.’ Yet, we love and accept one another.”
- The Covenant on Intra-Baptist Relationships concludes by calling all participants in the life of the BWA to “endeavor to respect the diversity and live into the unity that is the gift of the Holy Spirit to the BWA family.”
This document issued by the General Council seems to be invested with a significance for the life of the BWA that surpasses that of annual meeting General Council resolutions. It is prominently situated on the BWA website, which hosts translations of the Covenant on Intra-Baptist Relationships into 24 languages. In connection with the 21st Baptist World Congress in Durban, South Africa, in 2015, the BWA posted short Bible studies based on the Covenant on Intra-Baptist Relationships on its website.
The Covenant on Intra-Baptist Relationships is an important resource for navigating any controversy in the global Baptist family that may eventuate from this recent development. It offers an ecclesiological and ethical framework for respecting the differing ways forward that different Baptist unions, local churches and individual participants in the life of the BWA will reach in their own contexts in the constructive contestation of our differences regarding human sexuality, without rupturing our communion.
Theological anthropology
As I tell my students, the question of whether same-gender relationships may be regarded as participating in God’s intentions for covenanted marital relationships properly belongs to the division of systematic theology known as “theological anthropology” — what it means to be human, created in the image of God. Theological anthropology is the rubric of systematic theology that has historically been more shaped by a long critical dialogue — sometimes extending over several centuries — between the church and its cultural contexts than any other aspect of Christian doctrine.
We are still at very early stage in this long critical dialogue with the church’s cultural contexts regarding human sexuality — a dialogue that involves listening, in the fashion of the wisdom literature of Scripture, to what the World Council of Churches’ Moral Discernment in the Churches project calls “sapiential sources” that include the natural, social and human sciences and the lived experiences of people. We have not yet had the time it will take for this dialogue to yield fresh expressions of ecclesial consensus.
In the meantime, we should look for guidance not to a three-decade-old General Council resolution noting the designation of 1994 by the United Nations as the “International Year of the Family,” but rather to the 2013 Covenant for Intra-Baptist Relationships that calls us to “respect the diversity” of the BWA family. That’s a resolution worth making and keeping in the days ahead.
Steven R. Harmon serves as professor of historical theology at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity in Boiling Springs, N.C. His most recent books are Baptists, Catholics, and the Whole Church: Partners in the Pilgrimage to Unityand Seeds of the Church: Towards an Ecumenical Baptist Ecclesiology (co-edited with Teun van der Leer, Henk Bakker and Elizabeth Newman).
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