LYNCHBURG, Va. (ABP) — Conservative and fundamentalist Baptists in February reportedly formed an alternative to the Baptist World Alliance, the 100-year-old worldwide fellowship of Baptist bodies that Southern Baptists have maligned as too “liberal.”
The International Baptist Network had its “first public meeting” Feb. 9 at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, drawing “representatives from more than three dozen denominations, theological seminaries, colleges and mission boards, and individual churches,” according to an article in the April 2005 issue of the National Liberty Journal, published by Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.
Although some Southern Baptist Convention leaders were involved in the February meeting, SBC chief executive Morris Chapman told Associated Baptist Press the International Baptist Network does not take the place of the “alternative” organization Southern Baptists pledged last June to form or join.
The International Baptist Network, meanwhile, named Southern Baptist Gene Mims, former vice president of LifeWay Christian Resources, as executive director-president, the article said, and already has a confession of faith, membership policy and office in Atlanta.
The February organizational meeting included Mims and former SBC president and seminary head Paige Patterson, said Falwell in a statement on his website. Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., called the International Baptist Network a “remarkable new venture.”
The Southern Baptist Convention, which helped form BWA in 1905, withdrew its membership and financial support last June, citing a “leftward drift” in the organization.
Denton Lotz, general secretary of BWA, has denied the charges of liberalism and said an alternative organization would be a “slap in the face” of worldwide Baptists and contradict the stated intentions of SBC leaders.
The National Liberty Journal article, written by Liberty University co-founder Elmer Towns, says the SBC's withdrawal last summer from BWA “set the stage” for organization of the International Baptist Network. But the article does not claim SBC involvement or endorsement.
In voting to leave the Baptist World Alliance last June, the SBC agreed to use some of the funds withdrawn from BWA to form or support an alternative for “like-minded” Baptists. But the International Baptist Network is not that group, said the SBC's Chapman.
In an email interview with ABP March 30, Chapman said he was aware of formation of the IBN but Southern Baptists have not joined or pledged support.
He confirmed that members of the SBC's Great Commission Council “are participating in an exploratory meeting in Warsaw [Poland] to talk about how best to fellowship with conservative Christians around the world.” After the July meeting, the council will advise an SBC task force, which will recommend “how best to proceed in building a fellowship of like-minded Christians around the world,” he said.
The recent IBN meeting in Atlanta apparently involved only Baptists from the United States. Towns' article named John Rawlings, former pastor of Landmark Baptist Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Randy Ray, pastor of North Florida Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Fla., among participants. Ray was described as a member of the IBN executive committee.
The article notes: “So it was when the historic Baptist World Alliance traded its evangelistic fervor in favor of more leftist social policies, a new tide of conservative Baptist cooperation began swelling through the International Baptist Network, an emerging movement of Baptist groups that is committed to remaining faithful to the authority of Scripture and fostering a passion to evangelize the world.”
In “an earlier organizational meeting in Atlanta on April 24, 2003,” Towns said, a “handful” of Baptist leaders adopted “a foundational accord for their cooperation” — a revised version of the seminal 1833 New Hampshire Confession which they dubbed “the Georgia Baptist Confession.”
“The Fundamentalist Southern Baptists and Independent Baptists discovered each other and determined that they have vastly more things in common than they have differences,” Towns' article continued. “Even though they had systematically avoided each other over the years because of their negligible differences, they had not ignored their common beliefs.”
“What splintered the former Baptist World Alliance was compromising doctrine,” Towns wrote. “Correspondingly, what will hold together the International Baptist Network is fundamental doctrine. And what doctrine is fundamental to Christianity? First, the Bible is the inerrant, inspired Word of God without error, and is the only authority for Christians and churches. Second, Jesus was born of a virgin and is the God-man. Third, the sinless Son of God died a substitutionary death for sinners, and those who believe in Him can be forgiven of their sins and guaranteed a home in eternity with God. Fourth, the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead gives new life to all believers. Fifth, the bodily return of Jesus Christ at the end of this age will complete God's plan and purpose on this earth.”
In a statement, Mims said of the new organization: “With the changes in our culture and how they affect Baptist denominations, fellowship and associations, the IBN is the perfect vehicle to allow like-minded Baptists to cooperate fully with one another to evangelize the earth.”
Mims, 55, resigned Sept. 30 as vice president of church resources for Lifeway, the Southern Baptist curriculum and publishing arm, saying he wanted to return to the pastorate.