Editorial for July 13, 2006
By Jim White
Editor
I wish you could have been in Mexico City for the General Council of the Baptist World Alliance. Actually, some of you were! I found the week-long annual gathering of the BWA exhausting, but exhilarating!
I wish you could have sat with me in various committees and affinity groups to listen to their thoughtful and respectful approach to ministry. As an example, I sat in on a work group led by Paul Fiddes, professor of theology at Regent's Park College in Oxford University. The Commission on Doctrine and Interchurch Cooperation is a group of theologians from around the world. It is made up of Baptist heavy thinkers who are guiding a series of conversations between Baptists and Catholics.
They are mindful that Baptists and Catholics do not relate on the same level in all parts of the globe and are unwilling to create problems for their fellow Baptists-particularly in Latin America-by compromising with Catholicism. But in recent years, especially since Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church has implemented many changes and has expressed new openness toward other Christian groups, including Baptists.
The commission has overseen two previous rounds of conversation and is approaching a third very deliberately but with the conviction that conversation not only leads to greater understanding, but also provides a means of discovering reasons for mutual respect.
In fact, all committees, commissions and work groups I observed or heard from in reports proceeded very thoughtfully if not speedily.
I also wish you could have heard the passion with which speakers from all parts of the globe spoke of the power of God at work in their regions. Some asked for prayers to sustain them in the trials of persecution. I came away from the gathering awed by the courage and endurance of thousands of our Baptist brethren! Others spoke of great harvests of souls as they witness a mighty moving of the Spirit. Otto Arango, president of the Union of Baptists in Latin America, shared a goal of starting 50,000 new churches in Latin America. That's not a misprint.
I wish you could have sat over breakfast or dinner or in a worship service with fellow Baptists from Indonesia or Nigeria or Japan or-pick a place! It does not matter if you cannot speak their language or they yours. What does matter is that you share a common heritage and mutual commitment to the Great Commission.
While some of the specific challenges we face are regional, most are universal. Nothing builds unity like praying for the burdens of our brothers and sisters. We cannot pray for people and stand against them. Prayer puts us in league with the ones for whom we pray. It does not mean necessarily that we endorse or even agree with them at all points, but in sincere prayer we surrender the desire to manage them and deliver them instead to the One who alone is capable of being their Lord.
I wish you could have listened to brothers and sisters in Christ, many of whom see the world and its challenges from a different perspective. Their viewpoints are not necessarily correct any more than ours are. But hearing other opinions causes us to think even more seriously about why we believe as we do. It causes us to weigh more carefully the cultural cost of contemporary Christ-following.
I wish you could have heard Denton Lotz, BWA general secretary, as he challenged world Baptists to commit themselves to both personal holiness and social justice. He said some Baptists have spoken loudly against the evils of war while remaining silent on the evil of abortion. Others have spoken loudly against abortion while ignoring the evils of war. We must at the same time speak out against sexual sins but be ready also to minister in humility to those millions who suffer the ravages of AIDS and to battle the forces of evil that make prostitutes and sex slaves of women and children.
I am not suggesting that the BWA is utterly utopian. As in any functioning family, relations sometimes get strained. Some Eastern European Baptists, for example, still bearing the scars of repressive Communist regimes, express their dismay that Western Baptists have changed the way they worship in ways they consider cultural compromise.
The hard work of respectful dialogue lies ahead; but I have no doubt that the discussions will make the entire family stronger.
The BWA faces administrative and organizational challenges in finding the best way to communicate to its member bodies and do its work. The thorough deliberation alluded to earlier sometimes means its work slows to a crawl. Needed organizational revisions are slowly being implemented.
With the retirement, at the end of the year, of general secretary Denton Lotz these organizational challenges will be intensified. And the search for his successor could prove challenging. Please pray for the personnel committee of the BWA as they seek a new general secretary.
All this being said, however, there is simply nothing else like the Baptist World Alliance. I am grateful to Virginia Baptists for their commitment to the larger Baptist family, to the principles we hold in common and most of all to the Lord before whom we lift blended voices in worship.