The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a founding member of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), a global Baptist organization established in 1905. But with the July 11 vote to grant BWA membership to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), however the SBC’s future involvement in the BWA is in doubt.
Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson, the chief strategists in the SBC’s conservative shift since 1979, were among SBC representatives at the July 7-12 BWA General Council meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
During debate on CBF’s membership, Pressler accused CBF leaders of repeated statements critical of the SBC. “That is not the rhetoric that promotes harmony and promotes peace,” he declared. “If you want them and their theology, that’s your decision,” Pressler told General Council members, “but it is not our decision to accept them.”
In an interview moments after the 75-28 vote to accept CBF as BWA’s newest member body, Pressler described CBF as “a small, dissident, liberal group.”
Will SBC bid goodbye?
Patterson, a former SBC president and newly elected president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, said after the vote, “If I had to make a guess, I would say that what probably happened today is they probably accepted 150 [CBF-affiliated] churches in order to bid goodbye to 42,000 [SBC churches]. I would be surprised if that’s not the eventual result.”
The CBF reports contributions from 1,700 churches, most of which also support the SBC. About 150 churches affiliate with CBF alone.
Claiming that “the BWA has been drifting left now for 20 years,” Patterson added, “What you have here is a huge affirmation of their intention to continue in that direction.”
“The BWA has a right to accept as a member whomever it wishes,” he noted. “I affirm their right to do so. But I also say as they leftward drift goes on, Southern Baptists are going to find the compromise involved to be too much.”
Those views stand in sharp contrast to perspectives voiced by CBF and BWA leaders.
Billy Kim, president of BWA, said, “I leave here with a heavy heart. I do not know the outcome of the SBC decision, but they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
“We love them, and we will work with them in BWA,” Kim said. “We need to pray … for the SBC.”
(ABP)
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