BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — Meeting in a city known for both racism and reconciliation, the Alliance of Baptists pledged to remake itself into “an anti-racist organization.”
The action came as the Alliance began its 20th year with its annual convocation April 21-23, hosted at Birmingham's Southside Baptist Church — a congregation that once included members of the Ku Klux Klan and now champions better race relations in the city, which was at the vortex of America's civil-rights struggle.
While America can't yet claim victory over racism, said Brenda Girton-Mitchell of the National Council of Churches, “to be sitting here in Birmingham, Ala. — Hello! — to do something about it speaks volumes.”
Legal discrimination has been outlawed, but “a deeper grime” still stains America, she said. “Women of color still must ride the bus because that's all they can afford to get to a poverty-wage job.”
While the three-day meeting focused primarily on confronting racism and forging reconciliation, the estimated 500 participants also agreed to consider a boycott of oil giant Exxon-Mobil and to renew their protest of U.S. government restrictions on travel to and from Cuba.
Meanwhile, Alliance members elected new officers and lamented budget woes now stretching into a third year.
The Alliance was the first and most progressive fellowship of churches to emerge from three decades of turmoil in the conservative-dominated Southern Baptist Convention. The group's sometimes controversial positions, particularly affirming gays, has widened the divide with its former denominational home and kept the Alliance a relatively small fellowship of 117 churches.
The Washington-based Alliance has cultivated a unique niche in Baptist life, however, with ecumenical influence far beyond its size. Yet the group declared April 22 it will seek to further distinguish itself as a pro-active force confronting the causes and effects of racism in the church and society.
The statement on racism recalled a similar step taken in 1990, when the Alliance repented for the racism that mars Southern Baptist history. That action was followed by a series of confessional pronouncements from several other religious groups from the old South, eventually including the Southern Baptist Convention.
In its latest statement, which passed without opposition, the Alliance noted: “We have come to understand that repenting of racism is not a one-time event but a long and demanding process.”
“[W]e confess that in April of 2006 racism continues to be a real presence not only in our country but in our churches, in our communities and in our Alliance.”
“The continuing existence of racism is detrimental to our ability to incarnate the reign of God, our efforts to be an effective gathering of justice-seekers and peacemakers, and our ability to live as disciples of Jesus Christ,” the statement noted.
“As an expression of our repentance we need to engage and re-engage in the hard process, the necessary process, the life-giving process of turning away from our racism and turning toward the goal of an Alliance in which there is increasing racial and ethnic diversity, an Alliance in which there is profound respect for all persons, an Alliance in which there truly is ‘no male or female, slave or free, Jew or Greek.'”
Alliance executive director Stan Hastey cautioned in his annual “State of the Alliance Address” that by adopting the statement, “we will be declaring that from this day forward we intend to become an anti-racist ecclesial body. It is thus something not to be considered lightly.”
Hastey said racism is more than racial prejudice. Racism is “racial prejudice plus the misuse of power by systems and institutions,” he said.
“Racial prejudice becomes racism when one group's racial prejudices are enforced by the systems and institutions of a society, giving power and privilege based on skin color to the group in power, and limiting the power and privilege of the racial groups that are not in power,” Hastey said.
The statement commits the Alliance to cultivate “meaningful relationships with communities of color,” address issues important to people of color, and include people of color in its meetings, programs, staff and volunteer leaders.
Although the Alliance already is more diverse than most Baptist groups, leaders acknowledged they are not yet living up to their ideals. A report from the nominating committee included an apology from chair Tim Dean that people of color were not well represented among those elected to leadership posts.
Later, the implications of those commitments were explored in breakout sessions on various aspects of racism, including white privilege, institutionalized racism, reparations and poverty. Other breakouts addressed social justice, gay rights and various aspects of local-church ministry.
The resolution targeting Exxon-Mobil, now the world's largest company, criticized its record 2005 profits of more than $36 billion. The high price of oil and gas deepens worldwide poverty, the Alliance said, and dependence on fossil fuels threatens “God's creation.”
Noting Exxon's chairman recently received a retirement bonus of $400 million, the statement called on the company to invest significantly in “the development of cheaper and less hazardous sources of energy.”
During the annual business session, members were told the Alliance surpassed its goal for the annual missions offering last year but, for the second year in a row, finished the year with a deficit, which was paid out of reserves.
The organization already has a $16,000 deficit for 2006, against an annual operating budget of $374,000. The finance committee said it is working on recommendations to address the shortfall.
Members elected Jim Hopkins, pastor of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif., as Alliance president for the coming year. As the first president from the West, Hopkins represents the Alliance's effort to become more geographically diverse.
Kristy Arnesen Pullen, a laywoman from Reston, Va., was elected vice president. Amy Jacks Dean, co-pastor of Park Road Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., was elected secretary.
Hastey said the election of Pullen — until recently a minister in Pennsylvania — and Hopkins represent “the evolution of the Alliance from a predominantly regional movement across the Bible Belt into a truly national body of Baptists.”
Both Hopkins and Pullen are from congregations affiliated with the American Baptist Churches – USA, which is becoming less friendly to churches that welcome gays. Hastey said most of the recent growth in the Alliance has come from duly aligned congregations, mostly from the ABC.
Hastey welcomed those newcomers and reaffirmed the Alliance's openness to gay-friendly churches.
“Some say of us that we doomed ourselves to perpetual smallness the day in 1995 we received and affirmed our ground-breaking statement on sexual orientation,” Hastey said in his address. “It is true that we delimited our numerical growth by becoming a movement that welcomes and affirms those of same-sex orientation. But I sense we've about gotten over worrying about it.
“I'll even go so far as to say that we're beginning to ride a rising tide of acceptance of those of minority sexual orientations that some day will take us to the higher ground of genuine equality,” he continued. “This doesn't mean there aren't yet storms to weather out there, especially by those victimized for doing nothing more than reflecting openly the image of God stamped on them. To you, the Alliance says, 'We are on the journey with you, all the day long and all the way through.'”
Hastey took on another controversial topic in his address — America's war in Iraq — “a war that could have and should have been avoided.”
“Under the banner of fighting terrorism, we have managed to manufacture more terrorists and as a consequence will face a fearsome toll for years to come,” he said.
Hastey said “some small portion” of the billions of dollars “squandered” on the war could have been used to eradicate both hunger and HIV/AIDS from the earth.
“Imagine what we could do with a few others of those dollars wasted in Iraq,” he continued. “Today is Earth Day 2006. Imagine this: We could clean the air we breathe and the water we drink and the air and water taken in by the whole of humanity, should we have the national will to do so. We could render obsolete the seemingly never-ending debate over fossil fuels and where we will get them and what we will do when they are exhausted from Mother Earth.”
-30-
— Photo available