NASHVILLE (ABP) — Baptist historian Albert Wardin, a member of the Baptist World Alliance membership committee that recommended including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in the worldwide fellowship, said blame for the reaction from Southern Baptist leaders can be placed on several shoulders.
“If there had been more Christian charity and sensitivity on all sides, the division would not have occurred,” said Wardin, emeritus professor of history at Belmont University in Nashville, in a letter to the editor the independent newsjournal Baptists Today.
Wardin, author of the book, “Baptists Around the World,” said many share the blame for the planned departure of the Southern Baptist Convention from the BWA. He begins with the committee on which he served.
“The membership committee … is to be seriously faulted,” said Wardin, the only committee member to vote against CBF acceptance. “It is a committee created by the administration of the BWA and was particularly influenced by individuals from Western Europe who had no sympathy for the SBC leadership, and its concerns were more ideologically in tune with the CBF.”
Additionally, Wardin charged that the membership committee broke its own rule of not recommending membership of any Baptist body if there was objection from a current BWA member.
“In all of this,” said Wardin, “the administration of the BWA was also as culpable since it did not stop the action on constitutional grounds and long-standing policy.”
Denton Lotz, BWA general secretary, disagreed with Wardin's assessment of the committee's process and conclusions. “That's the first I've heard of it,” said Lotz to the charge that the membership committee's recommendation violated the BWA constitution. “The [BWA] General Council thought it was constitutional.”
Lotz said there has never been “a written rule” about not including member bodies if any other member objects. In countries where there is only one member, he said, special consideration has been given to the current member before bringing in a second body if there is conflict.
“But there are 14 member bodies in the U.S., ” said Lotz. Strong efforts were made to work with both SBC and CBF leaders, he added.
“There have been cases when other member bodies were accepted when there were particular objections,” said Ruby Burke, assistant to the BWA general secretary who met with the membership committee. Burke said she was the only BWA staff member involved in the committee process and that Wardin gave the lone opposing vote to including the CBF. Another member abstained during the final vote.
“It was a membership committee decision,” said Burke, “Dr. Lotz had nothing to do with this.”
“In fact, [BWA president] Dr. [Billy] Kim asked me not to participate in the committee's decision,” said Lotz.
Wardin said the BWA General Council showed its negative feelings toward the SBC by approving the recommendation of the membership committee by majority vote.
“In spite of the protestation today of love for the SBC, a number of General Council representatives have been critical of the current theological stance of the SBC leadership and its unilateral action,” said Wardin. “As has been noted, numbers of the BWA look upon the SBC as many in Western Europe today look upon the U.S.A. as too big and powerful and too often acting only on its own.”
Wardin recalled a May 2003 interview with Duke McCall in Baptists Today, in which the former BWA president — while critical of changes in SBC life — had counseled CBF leaders to withdraw their application to avoid a “nasty divorce.” Because, they did not, Wardin said the CBF “got the recognition it sought from the BWA,” but at a high cost.
In response, CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal said recognition was not one of the reasons the Fellowship sought inclusion in the BWA. “CBF's application for membership in the BWA was not to gain recognition,” said Vestal, “but to be a full participant in the world Baptist family.”
Blaming the Fellowship for the SBC's proposed withdrawal is misplaced, Vestal added. “To blame CBF for the actions of the SBC is like blaming the abused wife for the behavior of the abusive husband,” he said.
Vestal added that CBF leaders do not wish for Southern Baptists to leave the worldwide body they helped form nearly a century ago.
As a longtime supporter and participant, Wardin said he has been “most disturbed about the proposed separation of the SBC from the BWA” and is aware of the need for inter-Baptist cooperation worldwide.
Wardin said he agrees with John Briggs of Oxford that the BWA today is more conservative and has a more limited theological range than it had when founded by Southern Baptists and others in 1905. It is unfortunate, he said, that SBC leaders have tried to brand the BWA as “an organization on the path of theological deviation.”
“But the application of the CBF and its acceptance by the membership committee of the BWA,” said Wardin, “brought again to the fore the underlying discontent with certain aspects of the BWA.”
In the membership committee report presented last July in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, chairman Ian Hawley of Australia gave a different perspective on the committee's action. He wrote: “[T]he membership committee in bringing this recommendation has not done so lightly or easily … [but] we believe that this recommendation is the only fair and right decision that could be made.”
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