HONOLULU — Some of the globe’s most persecuted Christians found an international home when the Baptist World Alliance admitted the Baptist Churches in Vietnam into the global organization.
The BWA’s General Council voted full membership July 28 to the Vietnamese organization, as well as to Baptists from Zambia and the District of Columbia in the United States, as delegates gathered in Honolulu for the 20th Baptist World Congress.
“This is a historic moment and a fruitful moment,” BWA President David Coffey said as General Council members prepared to vote on the Vietnamese Baptists. He reflected on the persecution and struggles faced by Christians in Vietnam during the latter part of the 20th century.
He pointed to a 2006 human rights visit — conducted by representatives of the BWA and Texas Baptists — as a pivotal event in securing government recognition for Vietnamese Baptists.
They trace their heritage to the work of Southern Baptist missionaries in their country, reported Alistair Brown, chairman of the BWA’s membership committee.
“Their formal founding was in 1988,” said Brown, a British Baptist who now is president of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Ill., a Chicago suburb. “Those were very difficult years, when open witnessing was illegal in Vietnam.”
The Baptist Churches in Vietnam received government recognition in 2008. The organization includes 509 churches with about 30,000 members.
“This day represents a new chapter of Baptist work in Vietnam,” noted Bonny Resu, general secretary of the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, one of the BWA’s six regional fellowships.
Admission into the BWA marks a historic and emotional milestone for Vietnamese Baptists, stressed Giam Nguyen, general secretary of the Baptist Churches in Vietnam, in an interview.
“Most of the population of Vietnam was born during the persecution period,” from 1975 through 1995, Nguyen said. “All they have experienced has been persecution. So this affirmation and acceptance gives us hope.
“Politically, this is important, because it demonstrates to our government that we have international support. This shows we are not merely a grassroots movement. We’ve been waiting for so long.”
The General Council also affirmed admission of the Baptist Fellowship of Zambia and the District of Columbia Baptist Convention.
The Zambian fellowship was founded in 1995 and affiliates with about 1,500 congregations, making it the largest Baptist group in the African nation, Brown said. The Baptist Convention of Zambia, an older but smaller organization, endorsed the Fellowship’s BWA membership – an important component in the process of affiliating with the BWA, which aims to avoid rivalry among Baptist groups in each country.
The District of Columbia convention dates to 1877 and covers the entire district, the United States’ capital, plus parts of neighboring Maryland and Virginia.
The D.C. convention includes 112 churches and 34 mission congregations and numbers 66,000 members. It affiliates with multiple other Baptist groups, including the Alliance of Baptists, American Baptist Churches in the USA, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Progressive National Baptist Convention and Southern Baptist Convention.
Coffey, whose term as BWA president ends with the Baptist World Congress in Honolulu, presided over his last General Council session.
He recounted visiting the naval memorial at Pearl Harbor, where thousands of U.S. naval personnel lost their lives in a surprise attack by the Japanese air force that launched World War II.
A map at the memorial “put Honolulu at the center of the universe,” Coffey reported, noting, “This was appropriate for a monument at Pearl Harbor, but I was not used to seeing the world that way.”
He compared this surprising perspective to participation in the BWA. “We see the world from a different perspective,” he said of the experience brought about by attending the Congress with fellow Baptists from all over the planet.
Through the lens of the BWA, he has seen remarkable changes, Coffey said. He noted particularly the contrast between a 1986 trip to the U.S.S.R to plead on behalf of persecuted Baptists in Siberia, when Soviet officials were dismissive, and a return trip this year, when government leaders praised Baptists for their work on behalf of their fellow Russians.
“What a difference 24 years make,” he marveled. “We’ve seen enormous changes in our world and among Baptists, but our God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
Coffey’s successor, President-elect John Upton, also presided at a General Council session.
He compared the BWA to the origin of the Harlequin clowns of Europe. The original Harlequin was a poor boy who could not attend a ball because he could not afford a costume. His friends all realized they could donate pieces of their costumes, which they took to him, even though they were embarrassed by the hodgepodge of scraps.
The friends arrived at the ball in their finery but lamented the absence of Harlequin. Late in the evening, he showed up wearing the most beautiful and colorful costume, which his mother sewed from the fragments of his friends’ costumes.
“His friends ran to Harlequin and told him how glad they were Harlequin came to the ball,” Upton reported. “But he said, ‘I’m the gladdest of all, because I’m clothed in the love of my friends.’ ”
The story is a metaphor for BWA, Upton said. “We’re all different, with different colors, shapes and languages. Maybe God wants to use each of us to make that unusual thing called BWA. Bring your own distinctive colors, talent, style and heritage.
“A miracle is going to happen, and it will look like dancing. You know who will be the one dancing? It will be Jesus, clothed in the love of his children.”
Among other business, General Council members:
• Learned the BWA had received a clean audit for 2009, according to Richard Smith of Virginia, chairman of the budget committee.
• Received a 2011 budget, previously approved by the BWA Executive Committee, of $2,342,000. That amount is flat compared to the 2010 budget, Smith reported.
“This is a difficult time,” Smith said, referencing the downturns of the global economy and its impact upon Baptists. “We appreciate the staff for working to maintain expenditures within receipts.”
• Re-elected the BWA ministry directors — Raimundo Barreto of Brazil, freedom and justice; Emmett Dunn of Liberia, youth department and conferences; Paul Montacute of the United Kingdom, Baptist World Aid; and Fausto Vasconcelos of Brazil, mission, evangelism and theological reflection.
• Elected regional secretaries — George Bullard, North American Baptist Fellowship; Everton Jackson, Caribbean Baptist Fellowship; Harrison Olan’g, All Africa Baptist Fellowship; Tony Peck, European Baptist Federation; Alberto Prokopchuk, Union of Baptists in Latin America; and Bonny Resu, Asia Pacific Baptist Federation. Jackson is new in his assignment; the others have been serving.
• Filled vacancies on multiple committees and commissions.
• Learned the BWA theme for the next five years will be “In Step With the Spirit.”
• Heard the BWA Executive Committee selected Durban, South Africa, to host the 21st Baptist World Congress in July 2015, and the 2011 BWA Annual Gathering will be in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Marv Knox is editor of Texas’ Baptist Standard.