An initial step to move worldwide with the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) “Empowering Kingdom Growth” emphasis was approved by the SBC Executive Committee Feb. 17.
The initiative — namely “strengthening relationships with other like-minded Christian bodies, thus extending the impact of Empowering Kingdom Growth (EKG) throughout the United States and around the world” — was recommended by a nine-member study committee assessing the SBC’s relationship with the Baptist World Alliance (BWA).
The 80-member Executive Committee unanimously approved the recommendation, which will be funded by redirecting $125,000 from the $425,000 allocation provided to the Baptist World Alliance.
The SBC is the largest contributor to BWA and traditionally accounts for the majority of the organization’s budget. BWA is an umbrella organization of 200 Baptist unions and conventions worldwide, representing 45 million baptized believers in 193,000 churches.
The funding cut from the SBC to the BWA is “a rupture in the long history of cooperation” between the SBC and the international fellowship it helped form, said Wendy Ryan, BWA communications director.
Attending the budget committee meeting, BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz told SBC leaders how much their proposed action would hurt the BWA, now in a financial crisis.
“This is a sad day for the BWA,” said Lotz, “especially when we remember that it was SBC leadership that contributed greatly to the initial drive to start the BWA in 1905.”
He expressed thankfulness for the continued support of the SBC, and the hope that they will reverse this decision in the future.
At the same time, Lotz issued a call to Baptists everywhere to come to the aid of the BWA “as never before.”
The study committee was reactivated by the Executive Committee last September after the July BWA general council meeting in Seville, Spain, during which the BWA membership committee set forth the possibility of BWA membership for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), a denomination-like breakaway from the SBC.
Morris H. Chapman, president of the Executive Committee, described the BWA membership committee’s process as flawed.
It “has caused us to come to ask the question, ‘Is the Baptist World Alliance or is the Southern Baptist Convention the best representative around the world of Southern Baptists?’” Chapman asked.
The Executive Committee’s BWA study committee noted that it is “not recommending withdrawal from the BWA at the present time. [The committee] anticipates for the time being that the SBC will continue its membership in the BWA and the making of an annual contribution.”
Chapman told Executive Committee members a budget recommendation will be made for the broadened EKG initiative, with funding to begin Oct. 1.
“The purpose [of a global EKG initiative] would not be in any way to duplicate the Baptist World Alliance,” Chapman said.
The “Kingdom Relationships” initiative is part of the overarching EKG emphasis launched last year calling Southern Baptists, individually and in their churches, to increase their focus on advancing the Kingdom of God as taught in Scripture.
The SBC study committee explained to the Executive Committee that it is “offering no statement on the issue of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s membership in the Baptist World Alliance, believing this decision rests with the Baptist World Alliance,” although the committee acknowledged “that the Southern Baptist Convention has much more than a passing interest in the ultimate decision to be made by the BWA.”
The BWA membership committee, in opening the door for the CBF, stipulated that CBF officials’ statements that the group had separated itself from the SBC “be publicly affirmed by the appropriate decision-making body within the organization of the CBF.”
The CBF’s coordinating council adopted a statement to that effect during its Oct. 19 meeting in Atlanta (see sidebar story).
Southern Baptist leaders such as E.Y. Mullins, George W. Truett and Theodore Adams have played key roles in BWA history. Currently Chapman serves as BWA vice president. All SBC agency heads are in key positions in the BWA from the executive committee and general council to every BWA commission and committee, Lotz said.
(BP, ABP)
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