WILLIAMSBURG, Ky. (ABP) — Korean pastor Billy Kim, president of the Baptist World Alliance, declined to criticize a Southern Baptist plan to bring “like-minded Baptists” together to form an alternative to BWA.
Kim said there are enough human needs around the world for all Baptists to address. Concerning a planned July meeting in Poland between Southern Baptist Convention leaders and sympathetic Baptist groups, Kim said, “Let's pray for them.”
“We hope they can help other struggling Baptists around the world,” he told a reporter March 2. “We don't want to alienate any Baptists for any personal reason.”
Last June the Southern Baptist Convention withdrew its membership and financial support from BWA, an international fellowship of 210 mostly national Baptist unions. The SBC complained the alliance is too influenced by “liberal” Baptists, including the rival Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which recently gained BWA membership.
Southern Baptists set aside some of their financial support withdrawn from BWA — until recently $425,000 a year — to establish an alternative organization of “like-minded” Baptists worldwide. SBC leaders confirmed the July meeting in Poland, which conflicts with BWA's 100th anniversary celebration, but downplayed its importance. “To call the meeting with some of the European Baptist leaders an 'organizational' meeting would be a mischaracterization,” SBC chief executive Morris Chapman told Associated Baptist Press in January.
Denton Lotz, BWA general secretary, called the Poland meeting “a slap in the face to Baptists in the rest of the world.”
Kim, a conservative widely praised by SBC leaders, said March 2 that Baptists around the globe “ought to be working together to help out struggling Baptists who are in the minority.”
Kim, who retired in December after 45 years as pastor of Central Baptist Church in Suwon, South Korea, will conclude his five-year presidency of BWA this summer at the Baptist World Congress in England. “The places I've been, they're very, very positive about BWA, and they also are still working with the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Kim was in Kentucky to address students at Cumberland College in Williamsburg. It was his first trip to the state since the Kentucky Baptist Convention voted down a study that could have sent Kentucky Baptist funding to the Baptist World Alliance. “Baptists have their own autonomy,” Kim said of the Kentucky vote, in an interview after his address. “I'm more concerned about the Third World countries.”
“Kentucky needs to be world Christians, because there's a world out there who needs Kentucky Baptists,” said Kim, noting the purpose of BWA is “winning people to Jesus Christ and bringing unity to the Baptist family.”
In an interview after his convocation address, Kim said he and other Baptist leaders hope to develop both educational and economic relationships between Kentucky and Korea.
Campbellsville President James Taylor said Kim's campus visit was not directly connected to his role as BWA president. One goal of the visit, Taylor said, was to discuss future educational exchanges between Campbellsville and Christian students in Korea.
In his convocation address, Kim told Cumberland students that Christians “need to choose a life of prayer.”
“Prayer brings perpetual power,” Kim said. “Prayer does not need proof. It needs practice. Today we spend time organizing rather than agonizing on our knees before God.”