By Robert Marus
The Baptist General Association of Virginia and the Baptist General Convention of Texas will be recommended for full membership in the Baptist World Alliance, the group's membership committee reported March 9.
British Baptist Alistair Brown, who sits on the membership committee, said it is “the committee's unanimous view that both be recommended” to the BWA General Council to become full member bodies of the worldwide umbrella group for Baptists. Brown's report came during the BWA's semi-annual executive committee meeting March 9 at the BWA's suburban Washington headquarters.
The General Council next meets in July in Birmingham, England, just prior to its Congress meeting.
The BGAV and BGCT are already major financial contributors to the Baptist World Alliance and both already joined the North American Baptist Fellowship, one of the BWA's six regional groups. But the recommendation, if approved by the General Council, would mean the two state conventions would become members on the same level as the American Baptist Churches, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship or any of the 200-plus other national or regional Baptist groups that make up the BWA's membership. They would be the first U.S. state conventions to join.
The moves by the two conventions come after the Southern Baptist Convention voted last year to leave the global fellowship. “Both bodies express sadness at the withdrawal from membership from the BWA of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Brown told the assembled BWA leaders. “And they said that the withdrawal from the BWA had removed from them a means of fellowship with Baptists from around the world.”
BWA rules require that member bodies not be an integral part of any other Baptist denomination in their countries. Both Virginia and Texas relate to the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as the CBF and other nationwide missions organizations.
However, Brown said the committee felt both BGAV and BGCT meet the membership requirement. There have never been legal or institutional ties between state conventions and the SBC. Instead they agree to cooperate in a variety of ways while each retains its autonomy.
In the case of conventions in both Virginia and Texas, “they were founded before the establishing of the SBC, and neither has ever seen themselves as [constitutionally] part of the SBC,” he said. “Both grant freedom to churches to apportion giving to a variety of causes for missions work overseas.”
Virginia Baptist chief executive John Upton, who was present for the vote, told Associated Baptist Press that Brown's statement might be misunderstood by some observers. “We see ourselves as a partner of the SBC and always have seen ourselves as a partner of the SBC. … But we're an autonomous body,” Upton said. “We're very excited about being a part of the BWA and we value our partnership with the SBC, and we don't see a conflict between the two.”
Likewise, Charles Wade, Texas Baptists' executive director, attempted to clarify that group's relationship to the SBC in a statement released through a spokesperson. “While it is true that every state convention is free and autonomous-as is every Baptist entity-we have had and continue to have a relationship with the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said.
Associated Baptist Press
Rob Marus is chief of ABP's Washington bureau.