BIRMINGHAM, England (ABP) — About 13,000 Baptist Christians from around the world celebrated a century of togetherness July 27-31 in Birmingham, England.
With vibrant music, vivid pageantry and stirring stories of faith, the Baptist World Centenary Congress Baptists gathered believers from 100-plus countries, posing a stark contrast to the terror alerts that rattled the host country.
Returning to the land where it was formed in 1905, the BWA, now an international fellowship of 32 million believers from 200-plus unions, set about the hard work of building unity in a world where, leaders admitted, religion often divides.
The BWA also clarified its theological identity, discussed ways to combat global ills, and recognized a shift of Christianity's center of gravity to Africa, Asia and South America.
A century ago when BWA first met in London, 85 percent of the world's Baptists were in Europe and North America, said Denton Lotz, general secretary of BWA. Now 65 percent of Baptists are in the Third World, Lotz told the delegates.
“This is the new paradigm shift,” Lotz said as he asked delegates from Africa, Asia and South America to stand. The Southern Hemisphere may lack money, political freedom or clout, he said, but “they are going to re-evangelize the world.”
The church in the Southern Hemisphere is “exploding with growth,” said California pastor Rick Warren, author of the international best-selling book, “The Purpose Driven Life.”
“Africa, Asia and Latin America will lead us in the 21st century,” he said. “That's what God is doing.”
Warren called for “a new reformation” to adapt to the 21st-century world. “The first Reformation was about belief; this one needs to be about behavior,” he said. “Most of the time we're just talk,” he lamented. Warren said the deeds of a new reformation will require mobilizing Christians, multiplying churches, evangelizing the world and eradicating global problems.
The Baptist World Centenary Congress, one of the largest Baptist meetings ever, was played out against the backdrop of terrorism and increased security in England. In the days leading up to the congress, London was struck by four suicide bombers and four attempted bombings in its transit system. Headlines about England's manhunt for the bombers screamed across the region's daily newspapers during the meeting, and law officers made arrests in Birmingham itself.
But delegates apparently swept aside any concern about terrorism. They endured heightened security measures and several days of England's famous rains to rejoice in their common bond in Jesus Christ.
“We prayed that you would come, despite the bombings and the terror alerts,” said David Coffey, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the hosts for the meeting. The high attendance despite the terror alerts was a sign of “visible solidarity” among Baptists, said Coffey, who was elected BWA president during the congress.
The 13,000-plus delegates were aided by almost 1,000 volunteers from the United Kingdom, making for the second largest BWA gathering ever. An earlier congress in Toronto drew 15,000.
Robert Green, a Baptist deacon from Wales, said the high attendance also sends a message to non-believers — Christians do not waver when evil events occur; they continue trying to follow God's calling in their lives. “I think it shows the non-Christian world that we are willing to stand up for Jesus Christ in the world,” he said.
During the opening celebration July 27, a procession of banners from BWA member nations, interspersed with colorful 20-foot streamers and delegates in native dress, wove their way around the National Indoor Arena as delegates sang. Participants experienced the traditional music and dance from various countries. And they sang hymns, praise choruses, and other musical styles representative of their diversity.
As a demonstration of their theological unity, the delegates were invited to recite together the Apostle's Creed, a centuries-old declaration of orthodox faith used in many historic Christian traditions.
“Unity, unity, unity” was the recurrent theme of the five-day meeting, said Denton Lotz, BWA general secretary.
Ben Chen, a native of Hong Kong now living in the United States, said Baptist togetherness accepts differences. “I … was impressed with the way the Baptist World Alliance brings nations of the world together, to listen to each other. We may not always understand how people arrive at their positions, but we can share with each other and gain an understanding of what God has for us as a family.”
“Unity is a gospel imperative, and disunity is always a major hindrance to evangelism,” said Coffey after his election as president, succeeding retired South Korean pastor Billy Kim.
“Too often, the world is more aware of what the church is against than what it is for, and this is no strategy for winning lost people to Jesus Christ,” Coffey said. “We need to be more like Jesus, to earn the reputation of being friends to sinners and to give ourselves in sacrificial service for a broken world.”
One of the world's most prominent Baptists, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, said the desire for oneness is a powerful force for global good among all Christians. “There is an intense hunger among Christians around the world for a healing of the differences that now separate us from one another,” Carter, one of the keynote speakers, told reporters.
Those Christians “are looking for a single voice, a common understanding and friendship, and [want] to put aside the divisions that plague our faith,” said Carter, a keynote speaker for the congress.
Differences of belief — even among Muslims, Jews and Christians — are outweighed by a common commitment “to truth, to justice, to benevolence, to compassion, to generosity and to love,” Carter said.
In a Bible study for all delegates July 31, Carter said division is like a cancer that is metastasizing within the body of Christ, presenting a negative image of Christians to the world that is “directly opposite the gentle aspect of the one we have chosen to worship.”
It is a common mistake “either to liberalize and dilute the gospel so it becomes meaningless” or to add to the gospel, constructing creeds, and imposing them on others, he said. He warned of the “rigidity, domination and exclusion” that typifies fundamentalist movements but which tempts all Christians.
Carter suggested that kind of spirit has infected the U.S.-based Southern Baptist Convention, which last year withdrew from the Baptist World Alliance, which it helped found, charging the group with liberalism.
“I have been grieved in the last few years because some differences which I don't totally comprehend have separated us from the Southern Baptist Convention,” Carter said. “None of these differences are enough to prevent reconciliation,” Carter said. “I hope and pray we will be reunited with them and with other Baptists,” he said, to applause.
The most important belief Christians share is “we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ,” Carter said. “This is adequate as a foundation on which every Christian denomination on earth can unite….”
Instead, he continued, “We start dividing ourselves over tiny definitions.” He cited as an example the “continued practice of discriminating against women, depriving them of their ability to serve God.”
Carter cited Paul's statement in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” If being Jew or Greek, slave or free does not impact one's equal opportunity to serve Christ, then being male or female shouldn't either, Carter said.
Later in a press conference, Coffey said Carter did not suggest BWA should promote women's ordination. BWA grants all member unions the “freedom of conscience” either to ordain women or not to, as Carter “rightly did affirm,” Coffey said. He added he did not know what fraction of BWA unions permit women's ordination.
Rick Warren, the other keynote speaker, likewise affirmed that Baptists from around the world can “have unity without uniformity.” Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., told reporters the withdrawal of Southern Baptists from BWA was a “silly” mistake. “I see absolutely zero reason in separating my fellowship from anybody,” he declared.
“God has called us to enjoy and fellowship with each other and work together. We're all in this together,” he said, adding Baptists can “celebrate our diversity and celebrate our unity.”
To mark their 100th anniversary, the Baptist World Alliance adopted a new identity statement that embraces traditional orthodox beliefs, and which BWA leaders hope will be used to clarify Baptist beliefs for other Christians and non-believers.
Titled “Message from the Centenary Congress,” it is the first statement of faith created by world Baptist leaders since one adopted in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1923, according to Keith Jones, who chaired a committee of Baptist theologians and scholars which formulated the statement.
“We, recognizing that this is a partial and incomplete confession of faith, boldly declare that we believe the truth is found in Jesus Christ as revealed in the Holy Scriptures,” the statement says in part. The Scriptures “have supreme authority as the written Word of God and are fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.”
The statement was adopted July 27 by the BWA's General Council, the world fellowship's decision-making body. It was “received” by the BWA's Congress on July 30, when a printed copy of the statement was distributed to delegates without debate.
Although the statement comes not long after the withdrawal of the Southern Baptist Convention, which charged the world organization with liberal theology, BWA leaders said it should not be regarded as a response to allegations. “This was on the stocks long before those recent events,” said Coffey.
But Lotz, in an indirect allusion to SBC's departure, stressed BWA must not allow others to define it. “We believe in Jesus Christ, the sole Savior sufficient for salvation,” he said. “To accuse the BWA of not believing the Bible is comparable to accusing a mother of not loving her child.”
Also during the General Council meeting, representatives approved BWA membership for three new unions — one from Africa and two state conventions from the United States.
The Baptist General Convention of Texas and Baptist General Association of Virginia have worked to achieve BWA membership since the Southern Baptist Convention started distancing itself from the organization. Because most churches in the Texas and Virginia conventions also affiliate with the SBC, its withdrawal left those congregations without a “channel of fellowship with Baptists around the world,” said Alistair Brown, who chairs the BWA's membership committee.
In withdrawing, the SBC also ended its $425,000 annual contribution to the BWA — overwhelmingly the largest contribution of any member union. But BWA executive Lotz said North American churches — most of them SBC affiliates — had given $500,000 this year, more than enough to replace the loss.
Virginia's annual contribution of about $150,000 now makes it the largest member giver to the BWA worldwide. Texas is a close second with about a $129,000 annual contribution.
Emboldened by the positive financial report, the General Council approved a 2006 budget of $2,345,275, an increase over 2005's $1,974,773 budget.
BWA also introduced a five-year emphasis on evangelism, under the theme, “Jesus Christ, Living Water,” which also served as the theme for the Birmingham congress. With drama, video and preaching, the delegates considered the centrality and life-giving nature of Jesus. “As water is essential to life, so is salvation,” said outgoing president Billy Kim in a sermon July 27.
The 13,000 delegates did more than celebrate their togetherness. They met daily for Bible study and attended daily workshops, which focused on church-based needs like evangelism and church growth, as well as some of the most pressing global problems — health care, poverty, AIDS, human trafficking and religious persecution. Baptists seeking solutions to those problems offered advice and instruction.
For example, in Calcutta, India, approximately 6,000 women work in prostitution, often sold into slavery by a family member, one workshop leader explained. A Baptist ministry called Freeset helps prostitutes find work by offering them another business — making straw bags. “If you were to hang out with Jesus, you would have to spend time with the poor,” said New Zealand Baptist Kerry Hilton, who moved to Calcutta to help the women trapped in the “human misery trade.”
— Marv Knox, John Hall, Tony Cartledge, Trennis Henderson, Ken Camp and Robert Dilday contributed to this article.