By Greg Warner
About 20 former Southern Baptist leaders met in Atlanta Dec. 4 to try to find ways to rebuild financial support for the Baptist World Alliance, which lost its largest member and funding source in October.
The leaders, which included several former Southern Baptist Convention agency heads and state convention executives, called themselves “Advocates of the Baptist World Alliance.” No formal organization has been formed, however.
Last June the Southern Baptist Convention voted to withdraw its membership and final $300,000 in funding from the Baptist World Alliance, an international umbrella organization representing 211 Baptist bodies. The convention's conservative leaders said the BWA harbors theological liberalism, a charge denied by the BWA and many of its member groups worldwide.
The Atlanta meeting was organized by Duke McCall, retired president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a former president of the BWA.
“Our purpose is to retain Southern Baptist participation in and support of the Baptist World Alliance,” said McCall, who also was president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and chief executive of SBC before conservatives rose to power.
“We function within Baptist freedom and the autonomy of every Christian church,” McCall said in a statement. “The BWA has inspired and instructed world Baptists in their intention to be biblical Christian witnesses to our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Other participants included Grady Cothen and Lloyd Elder, both former presidents of the Baptist Sunday School Board (now called LifeWay Christian Resources), and three former chief executives of the SBC Woman's Missionary Union-Alma Hunt, Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler and Dellanna O'Brien.
Two BWA staff members were present-Denton Lotz, executive director, and Ian Chapman, development director.
The group did not establish a strategy or fund-raising goal in support of the BWA but agreed to encourage churches and individuals to support the international organization, which is based in Falls Church.
McCall told Associated Baptist Press a formal organization was a possibility going into the meeting “but it never crystalized. I didn't hear this crowd wanting an ongoing organization.” Nonetheless, he said he was “impressed with the vigor of the support” for the BWA.
McCall said the best hope for raising money for the BWA is from churches and individuals. Although the SBC has withdrawn from the international organization, Southern Baptist churches and individuals are not required to do the same, he said.
Most support for the Baptist World Alliance traditionally has come from member Baptist bodies around the world, but the BWA recently added categories of associate membership for churches and individuals. Supporters are hoping to replace the money lost from the SBC-$425,000 annually until recent years-from churches and individuals who disagree with the SBC's action.
“The nature of the case is that's where you have to go now,” McCall said. That's because most state Baptist conventions that are likely to support the BWA already are, he said. That includes conventions in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri. McCall said the Kentucky Baptist Convention might yet approve funding, even though it elected a conservative president last month. “We'll try to win Kentucky over, because it is still up for grabs in my judgment,” he said.
Proposals that could have resulted in more funding for BWA recently were defeated in the Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia Baptist conventions. But two moderate-controlled conventions-in Texas and Virginia-acted to increase their support.
Catherine Allen, former president of the BWA Women's Department, said many “rank-and-file” Baptist churches have quit participating in the SBC and state conventions but still want to support the BWA.
“There are a lot of churches that are SBC-identified who are going to have to make a decision about the BWA,” Allen, who also participated in the Dec. 4 meeting, told ABP. Encouragement from those former Southern Baptist leaders can be a persuasive factor, said Allen, former WMU associate executive director and now treasurer of Global Women.
Other participants included former executives of state conventions: Jere Allen, District of Columbia; Charles Barnes, Maryland; Bill Causey, Mississippi; James Griffith, Georgia; Jack Lowndes, New York; and Don Widemon, Missouri. Other former state executives who expressed support but were not able to attend included Earl Kelly, Mississippi; Ken Lyle, New England; Reggie McDonough, Virginia; William Pinson, Texas; and Roy Smith, North Carolina.
Also attending were Emmanuel McCall, former director of black church relations for the Home (now North American) Mission Board; Bill O'Brien, former vice president of the Foreign (now International) Mission Board; Truett Gannon, professor at Mercer's McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta; and three Georgia pastors-David Sapp of Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta, Bill Self of Johns Creek Baptist Church in Alpharetta, and Craig Sherouse of First Baptist Church of Griffin.
McCall said the group is “not in a battle with anyone” and doesn't claim to “represent any group we may have served in the past.”
Instead, he said in a statement, “We serve the Baptist World Alliance, not because its membership includes no sinners, but because it has inspired and instructed world Baptists in their intention to be biblical Christian witnesses to our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Associated Baptist Press
Greg Warner is executive editor of ABP.