At first glance, the list in the right hand column might be a Who’s Who in Baptist circles around the world.  Actually, it is [by now only a partial] list of individuals and agencies responding to the SBC’s BWA study committee’s proposal to withdraw from the Baptist World Alliance.  All deplore SBC plans to withdraw from the BWA.

It appears, however, that their questions, concerns, and comments matter little to the SBC, if at all.  Morris Chapman was quoted in an Associated Baptist Press article (January 15) as saying “the position we have taken makes it very difficult to consider delaying or withdrawing the proposal” to withdraw from the BWA.  This indicates that the report is not a proposal at all, nor does it reflect the findings and reflection of a study committee.  The study committee appears to have been a formality for executing the will of fundamentalist SBC leadership to withdraw from the Baptist World Alliance we helped create in 1905.

Statements made in the committee’s report fall shy of the truth.  Some are outright lies and some are carefully crafted distortions.  Per the report, “positions contrary to the New Testament and Baptist doctrines” are being supported by the BWA.  To wield this accusation, the report uses a very strict definition of “Baptist doctrine” to refer to the particular positions of SBC fundamentalists, including opposition to women in positions of ministry.  It also opposes human participation in the process of Biblical inspiration.  It requires raising the banner of “inerrancy” in a much stricter interpretation than that set forth in the 1991 SBC doctrinal study.  Under these definitions, what the statement means is that Baptists represented in the BWA do not dot every “I” or cross every “T” just like the SBC fundamentalist leadership.  The issue has nothing to do with believing the Bible, but with interpreting the Bible in precise agreement with SBC fundamentalism.

The report charges the BWA with “anti-American” sentiment and “criticism of the International Mission Board” in recent years.  The truth is that there has been much anti-American sentiment throughout the world in recent years, especially with regard to the manner that the US and British governments handled the war on terrorism.  Newspapers throughout the world wrote of “the attack of the empire”.  They were not pro-terrorism, but charged the US of failing to respect and work through the proper channels to achieve the necessary ends, thereby abusing position and power.  Since the BWA represents Baptists around the world, this sentiment would obviously carry through within the BWA—especially when SBC leadership has employed the very same mentality to force its own agenda upon others.  The new direction of the IMB has met with worldwide criticism for failing to coordinate work with national Baptists.  Rather than actively partnering with Baptists worldwide, the IMB now employs its own particular agenda.

The report charges a German Baptist theologian with stating disbelieving the existence of the “Great Commission.”  This is a mischaracterization of what occurred in the reported setting.  The German scholar has denied the statement as has Ian Chapman, a BWA official present at the meeting.  SBC leadership has not bothered to defend its lie.  The Spanish Inquisition had the grace to give their accused room to clarify their beliefs and to reconsider a stance before an accusation of heresy.  The SBC leadership lacks the same grace, deeming it sufficient to charge others with suspicion of heresy or declare guilt by association.

The SBC report decries a document accepted by the BWA in July 2003 as for not including a strong statement on the exclusivity of salvation through Jesus Christ.  The document was never meant as an inclusive doctrinal treatise, but had a specific objective.  The SBC report carefully avoids mention that at least two of those drafting the statement are SBC seminary professors.  If the statement is grounds for excluding the BWA, why is there no charge of the liberalism and universalism being taught in the SBC seminaries?

The issue is not the liberalization of the BWA.  The issue is that the SBC’s incapacity to force its narrow doctrinal mold upon the world of the BWA.  They were able to force fundamentalism onto SBC seminaries, force Lifeway writers to subscribe to the BF&M 2000, force Baptist Press to present only the SBC leadership only in a positive light, force missionaries with NAMB and IMB to accept the BF&M 2000 or at least surrender their integrity by signing it, and force themselves into the control of various state conventions.  Baptists overseas have not been so easy to sway.  Since fundamentalists failed to control over the BWA, they have decided to develop a new organization that will remain under their control.  As they plan the new structure, they have insinuated charges that the IMB is not sufficiently under their control, so they will offer seminars, workshops, and conferences around the world to push forward their agenda.

Perhaps the SBC leadership will stop pretending their every pronouncement is infallible.  Maybe they will repent of misrepresenting the beliefs, actions, and words of fellow Baptists.  Maybe they will set aside personal political agendas and focus on extending the reign of God around the world.  Perhaps Baptists will take to heart Paul’s words to Titus (3:9-11) to shun “anyone who causes divisions, since you know that such a person is perverted and sinful, being self-condemned.”^[1]  Perhaps Southern Baptist churches will stop funding a leadership so lacking in integrity and working against the gospel’s demand for complete surrender and unity under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  Perhaps Southern Baptists will demand accountability from its fundamentalist leadership.  Perhaps we will rise up at the Indianapolis convention and say “Enough!”

More likely, we will continue to allow fundamentalist leaders to do as they will.  After all, we turned blind eyes to the destruction of our seminaries and the gross mistreatment of our seminary professors.  We ignored the way convention leadership lied to missionary personnel and called them to throw away integrity, to sign a piece of paper.  We allowed state Baptist papers to be reduced to cogs in the wheels of a propaganda machine.  We allowed Baptist Press to report only that which pleases our fundamentalist masters.  We allowed LifeWay to reduce the gospel to the repetition of a mechanical formula with no demand for commitment or surrender (“Admit, Believe, Confess”—where is surrender, discipleship, mission, and taking up a cross?).  We have allowed an “ends justify the means” mentality to prevail in denominational life and infilter churches, associations, state conventions, seminaries, and missionary agencies.

It is easier to sit back, close our eyes, and ignore the realities we fund.  Why do anything about it now?  After all, the current issue is only about relationship with those “liberal” Baptists.  It does not affect us directly.  It did not matter when the International Mission Board quit coordinating its work with those same Baptists.  It did not matter when missionaries were told to leave the field if they would not surrender lordship to SBC fundamentalism.  It did not matter when fundamentalists tried seminary professors, NAMB and IMB missionaries for heresy behind closed doors and in absentia.  Why should it matter now?

We will just wake up one morning in June to find that SBC fundamentalism has severed our ties to the Baptist World Alliance and is beginning a new alliance of “like-minded Christians.”  The SBC Executive Committee will use this alliance to promote its version of “the true faith” for which the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is not strict enough.  Fundamentalist leaders are still charging the IMB is not stringent enough in enforcing doctrinal parameters.  IMB leadership sacrificed its own integrity to the fundamentalist cause, becoming a pawn to be manipulated and abused.  We will awaken wondering how we slept through the past thirty years.  We will wonder why we ignored the destruction of our Baptist institutions and denominational structure.

Being a Baptist in America has become very comfortable over the last 200 years.  Protecting that comfort has become very important.  It’s easier to sit back, turn on the television, and enjoy the show.  Hey, look!  The Gladiators are on!  Who are they fighting, anyway?

Chris Harbin

pastor, Rocks Baptist Church

Alberto Prokopchuk (Argentina, Union of Baptists in Latin America)

Amparo de Medina (Colombia, Union of Baptists in Latin America)

Anna Maffei (VP Baptist Evangelical Christian Union of Italy)

Bill Nieport (Red Bank Baptist Church, Nassawadox, VA)

Billy Kim (BWA president)

Billy Tanager (Norway)

Bonny Resu (North East India)

Brian Winslade (national leader, Baptist Churches of New Zealand)

Bruce Gourley (BSU Director, Billings, MT)

Charles Foster Johnson (senior pastor Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, BWA Christian Ethics Commission member)

Charles Wade (Baptist General Convention of Texas)

Charlotte and Houston Greenhaw (MK & former IMB missionaries still serving in Recife, Brasil)

Daniel Lhermenault (France)

David Coffey (General Secretary, Baptist Union of Great Britain and BWA VP)

David E. Goatley (Executive Secretary/Treasurer, Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, USA)

Denton Lotz (BWA General Secretary)

Dorothy Selebano (South Africa BWA VP)

Duke Mc Call (Former president Southern Seminary and former BWA president)

European Baptist Federation Executive Committee

Fausto Aguiar de Vasconcelos (Brasil, Union of Baptists in Latin America)

Former US President Jimmy Carter

Gary Nelson (Canadian Baptist Ministries)

Geoff Pound (Baptist Union of Australian)

Gregory Komendant (former BWA VP & president of the Baptist Union of Ukraine)

Hans Guderian (Germany)

Ian M. Chapman (BWA Doctrine and Interchurch Cooperation Commission chair)

Indranie E. Premawardhana (Sri Lanka)

Irmgard Claas (Germany, BWA VP)

James D. Williams (retired president SBC Brotherhood Commission)

Jan Saethre (Baptist Union of Norway Executive Committee member)

Jim West (Petros Baptist Church, Petros, TN)

John Kok (Malaysia)

John Upton (VBMB)

Ken and Margaret Manley (Australia, BWA VP)

Knud Wumpelmann (Denmark, Former BWA President)

Lloyd Elder (Formerly Baptist Sunday School Board)

Malkhaz Songulashvili (President, Evangelical Baptist Churches of Georgia)

Miles Wesner (Pastor, Tom Baptist Church, OK)

Nicola Piscielli (Pastor, Aywaille, Belgium)

Noel Vose (Australia, Former BWA President)

Nripen Baidya (Bangladesh Baptist Aid)

Paul Eustache (Venezuela, Union of Baptists in Latin America)

Raquel Contreras (Chile)

Raúl Scialabba (Argentina, Union of Baptists in Latin America)

Robert Ricker (BWAid chair)

Rodney Ragwan (Baptist Association of South Africa)

Theo Angelov (Bulgaria)

Tomás Mackey (Argentina, Union of Baptists in Latin America)

Victor Kulbich (general secretary Baptist Union of Ukraine)

Wanda Lee (national WMU Executive Director and BWAid and BWA executive committee member)

The Baptist Standard (Texas)

The Biblical Recorder (North Carolina)

The Religious Herald (Virginia)

The Western Recorder (Kentucky)