BWA’s Lotz to retire; Kazakh Baptists withdraw

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Baptist World Alliance (BWA) General Secretary Denton Lotz announced his plans to retire to the BWA executive committee March 8.

The committee, which met at the organization’s headquarters in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, Va., March 6–8, also learned that the Baptist Union of Kazakhstan has decided to leave the international federation.

Lotz, 67, said the process for selecting a new general secretary will begin immediately, and he hopes to announce a more specific time frame for his departure when the BWA General Council meets July 3–8 in Mexico City. The BWA personnel committee will serve as the search committee. Baptists from each of the BWA’s six continental regions are represented on the panel.

Lotz, who has led the organization since 1988 and who earlier served as its evangelism director, said he and his wife, Janice, had turned to Scripture, prayer and the council of wise friends in making the decision. He also said he made the decision in complete freedom, with no pressure for him to retire.

Lotz and Tony Peck, secretary of the European Baptist Federation (EBF), also announced that the Baptist Union of Kazakhstan had withdrawn from BWA and EBF.

“They’re concerned about issues like holiness of life; they’re concerned that sin is taken seriously,” Peck said. “They’re concerned about the excesses of the charismatic movement. They don’t believe in women pastors.”

EBF is composed of more than 800,000 baptized believers in approximately 50 national or regional Baptist bodies across Europe, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East. The Kazakh Baptist group has, according to the EBF’s Web site, 10,774 members in 289 churches.

Peck also said that three other groups have joined the EBF in recent months — small Baptist unions in Sweden and Kosovo, as well as a newly founded Baptist church in Baghdad, Iraq.