KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (ABP) – Conversations between Baptists and Pentecostals are scheduled in December to explore formal dialogue between the two large Christian traditions.
Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, announced at leadership meetings July 7 in Malaysia that a team of scholars would meet Dec. 13-15 in Birmingham, Ala. Another team, meanwhile, will explore similar talks with the Orthodox Church.
The BWA executive committee authorized Callam in March to identify a small team "to explore the commencement of BWA/Pentecostal bilateral dialogue." On Thursday Callam told the committee that team members will include Timothy George, chair of the BWA Commission on Doctrine and Christian Unity.
Joining George, dean and professor of divinity, history and doctrine at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, are William Brackney, director of the Acadia Centre for Baptist and Anabaptist Studies in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Curtis Freeman, professor of theology and director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University. Rounding out the team are Fausto Vasconcelos, director of the BWA Division of Mission, Evangelism and Theological Reflection, and Callam, who assumed leadership of the Baptist World Alliance in 2007.
Callam’s predecessor, Denton Lotz, first expressed desire for dialogue with Pentecostals in 2001. The BWA has held four inter-church dialogues since 1973 with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Lutheran World Federation, Mennonite World Conference and the Roman Catholic Church.
The Commission on Doctrine and Christian Unity exists to promote greater understanding with other Christian communions about Baptist distinctives such as believer’s baptism, religious liberty, mission and evangelism. Interfaith talks also advocate for Baptists in the world who are oppressed by a dominant church and seek areas of possible cooperation.
The ultimate goal, according to a position paper, is to seek to fulfill Christ’s prayer in John 17 that his followers “might all be one” in order that the world might believe.
BWA leaders acknowledge there are drawbacks and risks to such dialogue. They take a lot of time and resources. They do not always achieve their potential, and sometimes they alienate Baptists who are opposed to ecumenical contact either in general or with a particular group for reasons of theology and history.
On balance, however, BWA leaders say ecumenical conversations are important because they “decrease tension, develop trust and minimize misunderstanding between believers in Jesus as the Christ, Son of the living God.”
“It is important to meet and talk with Christian communities to better understand the similarities and differences and to explore areas where Christians can agree to be in fellowship and to cooperate together,” the program description explains. “Such meetings have the added value of helping to strengthen the situation of small, minority Baptist communities in certain parts of the world as the theology and history of the Baptist movement is explained.”
The most recent dialogue, a second round of conversations with the Roman Catholic Church, ended last December.
Another team led by George and Callam along with European Baptist scholars will meet with representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Crete in November to discuss the possibility of future talks.
“Pre-conversations” with the Ecumencial Patriarchate, head of the Eastern Orthodox Communion, took place in the 1990s. In 2009 the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic, was host to a conference aimed at increased understanding between Baptist and Orthodox believers.
Parush Parushev, academic dean at IBTS who spearheaded that effort, is one of the four team members assigned to explore further dialogue. Paul Fiddes, professor of systematic theology in the University of Oxford and formerly principal of Regents Park College in the United Kingdom, is the other member.
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press. This story includes reporting by Eron Henry of the Baptist World Alliance.