CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. (ABP) — Declaring that “the mission of God in this century of glorious mission opportunity needs as much unity as possible,” Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey is calling on his Baptist brethren in America to set aside their differences, for Christ's sake.
Coffey, who was elected in 2005 to a five-year term as BWA president, recently made a tour of the United States. He retired last year after 15 years as general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain.
In several stops to speak to Kentucky Baptist groups, he urged his brothers and sisters of Southern Baptist heritage to cooperate with others.
“The Baptist World Alliance needs Kentucky Baptists, and I dare to suggest to you that Kentucky Baptists need the Baptist World Alliance — because we are family,” he told an Oct. 24 crowd at Campbellsville University, a Kentucky Baptist Convention-related school.
Speaking candidly about the Southern Baptist Convention's 2004 withdrawal from the BWA, Coffey said, “I was very intimately involved in all the conversations that eventually led to the Southern Baptist Convention resigning from the Baptist World Alliance.
“The decision saddened me and I still have some very good friends on the other side of the decision,” he added.
Citing the separation and eventual reconciliation between the Apostle Paul and John Mark in the New Testament, Coffey noted, “I think Christians must always hold in their hearts the hope of reconciliation.”
Insisting that “very, very little should divide Baptist Christians,” Coffey said, “I'm proud to be a conservative evangelical in the Baptist tradition.”
Alluding to SBC leaders' charges of liberalism among some BWA member bodies, Coffey said, “Are there liberals in the BWA? When you have a family of 34 million baptized believers … inevitably you will have those who will cast themselves as liberals. The real question is: Is the Baptist World Alliance liberal? The answer to that is no.”
Warning that “an adherence to orthodoxy is no guarantee of spirituality,” Coffey affirmed fellow Baptist leaders who have “a passion for seeing the lost world come to know Jesus Christ … a passion for the Scriptures, a passion for spirituality.”
He added, “Christians who have sound minds and warm hearts are those who bless the world.”
Cautioning against the extremes of “cynical liberalism and sentimental evangelicalism,” Coffey declared, “I long for Baptists to learn the lessons of history, the good and the bad. We had a history before the Reformation.”
John Chowning, Campbellsville's vice president for church and external relations, described Coffey as a leader with “a passion for reconciliation, a passion for religious liberty and a passion for the cause of Christ.”
Noting that Coffey's address was part of Campbellsville's Baptist Heritage Series, Chowning said the lecture series “was set up in part to focus attention on Baptist diversity and emphasize distinctives of the Baptist faith.”
Citing BWA's role as “a worldwide organization of Baptists of great diversity,” he said Coffey's visit provided students and faculty the opportunity “to know more about what it means to be a Baptist in the 21st century.”
“It's an understanding of the larger church beyond the local church and that the Baptist family is a worldwide movement,” Chowning added. “We think as a university it's important to celebrate that and have a better understanding of it.”
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