HOUSTON (ABP) — The communion table provides a metaphor for how the Baptist World Alliance can unite Baptists in a “true spirit of hospitality,” Neville Callam insisted.
Callam, general secretary of the worldwide umbrella group for Baptists, addressed the challenge of bringing Baptists together during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, held July 1-3 in Houston.
“In 400 years, numerous Baptist groups have come into being,” said Callam, who noted the BWA involves 214 Baptist conventions or unions in 119 countries.
BWA General Secretary Neville Callam speaks during the CBF General Assembly in Houston. (CBF photo)
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“But many Baptists have become strangers to one another,” he lamented. “We have a lot in common, yet in some cases, we don’t know each other well enough … to be in communion with one another.”
Callam acknowledged he is concerned about Baptists’ lack of hospitality for each other, because estrangement inhibits community and unity.
When they compare the BWA to the Lord’s Supper table, it becomes the place where Baptists “meet to share communion with the One who calls us to his table,” he said.
“The table does not belong to the people. It is the Lord’s table,” he said, calling it “a place of memory, experience and hope” — qualities that Baptists share and which bind them together.
“The table is an image that works in all cultures,” he added. “The meal serves a community purpose” for celebration and solidarity — providing community-sharing and community-building functions.
“A shared meal transforms a community into oneness,” he said. “One truly belongs to all of God’s people who gather there.”
The BWA is “a table around which all Baptists are welcome to sit,” Callam stressed. “All who come to the table are equals, no matter where they come from or what they bring.”
Baptists demonstrate their oneness as they gather together to confess their sins, reflect on issues, affirm their faith and counsel with one another, he said.
When they gather together, Baptists testify to the unifying power of Christ, he observed.
Baptists around the world have a wonderful opportunity to model hospitality by demonstrating they regard each other as friends and family rather than strangers, he said. And they need to demonstrate their oneness as a shared relationship marked by love and a willingness to work together.
Callam acknowledged some Baptists “lay down conditions” for having fellowship and working together — an apparent reference to the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC split from the BWA several years ago, criticizing the worldwide group for allowing membership of some Baptist groups it considers “liberal.”
“We desire to show we are strangers no longer, but neighbors … who gather with each other at one table of Christ,” Callam said. “I hope all of us will find the capacity in our hearts and minds to receive one another and reach out to a world devastated by division and strife.”
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Marv Knox is editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.