BWA issue stirs SBC Executive Committee to globalize Empowering Kingdom Growth

by    Art Toalston                                                                                                                                          Vol. XVI, No. 3, March 2003

An initial step to move worldwide with the Southern Baptist Convention's "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 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. The 80-member Executive Committee unanimously approved the recommendation.

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, a denomination-like breakaway from the SBC.

"The purpose [of a global EKG initiative] would not be in any way to duplicate the Baptist World Alliance," said Morris H. Chapman, president of the Executive Committee, during the opening session of its Feb. 17-18 meeting in Nashville, TN.

The BWA membership committee's process, which Chapman described as flawed, "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?"

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. Chapman said the funding will be part of a yet-to-be-formulated recommendation.

The study committee stated 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.

Particularly problematic to the SBC study committee and Chapman was the process chosen by the BWA membership committee -- to lay the matter before the 300-member General Council. "Now we have not only a membership committee who is trying to decide whether or not the CBF meets the condition," Chapman told the Executive Committee, "but we have 300 member bodies from all over the world trying to decide whether, in fact, whatever they [CBF representatives] say is meeting the condition."

Chapman said the issue facing the BWA involves, as a key example, the question relating to the CBF: "If, in fact, you're going to separate from the Southern Baptist Convention, does that mean from now on you will build your group by starting churches as Southern Baptists did from the very beginning of our existence, rather than continuing to solicit funding and manpower from Southern Baptist churches?"

Chapman said he believes the SBC study committee "has been wise to say it's not our decision to make, we do have some opinions, we're going to take some steps, and see what happens."

In the meantime, according to the study committee report, the SBC should "begin developing a new concept for building stronger relationships with like-minded Christians around the world." The committee suggested a "working title" of "Kingdom Relationships," and suggested that the SBC's EKG Task Force be asked "to define the objectives of 'Kingdom Relationships.'"

Although expressing opposition to the BWA membership committee process, the SBC task force, in its report, struck a particularly positive note for the BWA in voicing "the highest esteem [for] the current president of the BWA, Dr. Billy Kim, whose presidential term ends in 2005. Dr. Kim, the dynamic, evangelistic pastor from Seoul, Korea, is a strong friend of Southern Baptists. The committee appreciates the efforts of Dr. Kim to ensure Southern Baptist concerns are heard."

Members of the SBC task force are Chapman, its chairman; James T. Draper Jr., president of LifeWay Christian Resources of the SBC; Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board; Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; Tom Elliff, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, Okla., and a former SBC president; Gary Smith, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee and a pastor from the Dallas-Fort Worth area; retired Texas appellate Judge Paul Pressler of Houston; Houston attorney Joe Reynolds; and R.L. "Bob" Sorrell, a staff member of the Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, TN.