The Baptist World Alliance (BWA) stands firm on its historic commitment to Jesus Christ as the only way for salvation, and believers’ baptism by immersion testifies to the necessity of individuals to consciously confess Jesus as Lord and Savior,” said Denton Lotz, BWA general secretary.
“Since 1905, the BWA has always affirmed Scripture and the faith of the early Church in confessing Jesus Christ as (the) only Lord and Savior,” Lotz said.
Concerned by statements made at the BWA General Council in Rio de Janeiro that challenged the BWA’s commitment to the bedrock of Baptist belief and faith, members of the executive committee of the BWA asked the general secretary and BWA president Billy Kim to respond to these charges and declare again where the Alliance stands.
It was during a panel of participants from the BWA’s Summit on Missions in the 21st Century held in Swanwick, England, in May that certain representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) protested the Swanwick Declaration, a document about missions challenges and methods that calls Baptists everywhere to a renewed commitment to take the gospel to the world.
The SBC argument was that the document did not detail that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone and state that “you have to consciously receive Christ to be saved.”
A Baptist Press release of July 11 quotes Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, as saying, “In short, the admittance of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) to full membership provides the ultimate confirmation that the BWA is moving toward increased antagonism against the SBC, the International Mission Board and biblical theology.”
In addressing the issue, the BWA general secretary pointed out that before discussing any of the mission challenges from the Summit with the panel he stated that “only in Jesus Christ is there salvation.”
This was also clearly stated in England at the beginning of that historic meeting.
Evidence of this is in the current issue of the Baptist World, the quarterly magazine that features the Summit.
In the opening editorial by Lotz titled “No Other Name” he writes to the question, “Why only Jesus?”
“I suspect that is the theological question of the 21st century. We preach Christ, not because we chose Christ, but because God chose to reveal Himself as Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God. God’s self-revelation of Himself in Jesus and His death on the cross for the forgiveness of sins is indeed the ‘scandal’ of the gospel,” Lotz wrote.
In a paper given at the opening of the mission summit titled “What Is Our Message,” Lotz told the audience, “Let it be very clear from the start that our message is Jesus Christ. We are here because we believe ‘that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father’ (Phil. 2:10–11).
“We believe that there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).
“We are here therefore, to affirm our confession of Jesus Christ as crucified, risen and coming again Lord and Savior and to re-awaken our Baptist people worldwide to the responsibility of the whole Church to make known this message of hope and good news for all people.”
Lotz said, “It was our commitment to Jesus as the name above all names that brought us together and sent us out together to evangelize the world in our generation.”
In Swanwick, Alistair Brown, general secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society of Great Britain, received a standing ovation for his stirring speech on the ur-gency of preaching the gospel of Christ. (BWA)
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