EDE, Netherlands — John Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, has been nominated as president of the Baptist World Alliance.
If elected at the BWA’s world congress in 2010, Upton will begin a five-year term to end in 2015. He will succeed David Coffey of Great Britain, who was elected at the BWA’s 2005 congress in Birmingham, England.
John Upton (right) accepts his nomination as BWA president. Behind him are some of the vice presidents also nominated. (BWA Photo)
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“I don’t think one could ever feel more humbled or more privileged at the same time than in a moment like this,” said Upton, who has been executive of the BGAV and its Virginia Baptist Mission Board since 2001. “One of the things I love about the BWA is the diversity we have. In the midst of that diversity, there is this beautiful unity, this colorful unity that we have in Christ.”
Upton will be the 20th president of the global organization, which counts more than 37 million members in 214 national and regional unions and conventions with almost 160,000 congregations. The president works closely with General Secretary Neville Callam, the BWA’s top employed official.
Upton will be the eighth American to serve as president and the third with Virginia Baptist ties. Theodore F. Adams, then pastor of Richmond’s First Baptist Church, held the office from 1955-1960, and V. Carney Hargroves, at one time pastor of Weatherford Memorial Baptist Church in Richmond, was president 1970-1975.
The last American to hold the BWA’s top elected office was seminary president Duke K. McCall, from 1980-95.
Raul Scialabba of Argentina, chair of the BWA’s officers search committee, recommended the slate of officers that included Upton and 12 vice presidents, two from each of the BWA’s six regions. The BWA General Council adopted the slate July 31 at its annual meeting and will present the nominees next year at the world congress, which convenes every five years.
“We need a president who can represent the BWA before governing authorities and world religious leaders with Christian demeanor and wisdom,” said Scialabba in presenting the nominations. “Changing realities require leaders who can command respect and represent the cause of Christ before the world.” The new president also must be visionary and able to unite the BWA’s diverse constituency, he said.
A constitutional change adopted by the General Council this year designates one of the vice presidents as first vice president, with authority to sit on the council’s executive committee. The search committee’s proposed designee is Daniel Carro, an Argentinian who teaches at the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Falls Church, Va., and serves as Latino consultant for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.
The other nominees for vice president are Joel Alberto Sierra Cavazos of Mexico, Harry Gardner of Canada, William Epps of the United States, Olu Menjay of Liberia, Paul Msiza of South Africa, Victor Manual Gonzalez Grillo of Cuba, Burchell Taylor of Jamaica, Regina Claas of Germany, Nabil Costa of Lebanon, John Kok of Malaysia and Ross Clifford of Australia.
The elections of Upton and Carro will strengthen the already deep ties between the BWA and the Baptist General Association of Virginia, whose 1,400 congregations contribute among the largest financial gifts to the world organization.
Links go back to 1895, when R.H. Pitt, editor of the Religious Herald, Virginia Baptists’ newsjournal, was one of the first to call for a worldwide Baptist body. Since its organization in London in 1905, the BWA’s headquarters have been in Virginia, currently in Falls Church just outside Washington, D.C.
As a result of his election, “I hope that Virginia Baptists will have a much more expanded vision of their own mission and who they are in the global family — that we know our place in that bigger picture,” said Upton.
He added that Virginia Baptists have been very supportive of his BWA involvement. “The Virginia Baptist Mission Board approved me doing this,” said Upton. “I did share this with them in executive session. I wanted our Virginia Baptist Mission Board to approve before I finalized my candidacy for this. And they voted unanimously, stood on their feet. And that was a special day for me — a highlight in my personal life. One, to feel their affirmation was a highlight, but also to see their affirmation of the Baptist World Alliance, that this was something that they saw as a good thing to do.
“So I feel almost commissioned by them to do this.”
Upton has long been active in BWA life, serving on both its General Council and its executive committee. He currently chairs the congress program committee, which is planning next year’s world congress in Hawaii, scheduled to meet July 28-Aug. 1.
He also has served on the Baptist World Aid committee, the commission on Christian ethics and the executive committee of the North American Baptist Fellowship, one of the BWA’s six regional bodies.
Upton graduated from Averett College (now University) in Danville, Va., and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Before election as Virginia Baptists’ executive director, he had been head of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s mission mobilization group since 1995. Earlier he was pastor of Urbanna (Va.) Baptist Church and served in Taiwan as a missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board. He and his wife, Deborah, have three grown children.
Robert Marus contributed to this story.