The big challenge Baptists worldwide face is a greater manifestation of unity amid differences that sometimes challenges the oneness in Christ, says one top Baptist official.
And unity, among Baptists at least, is especially a struggle in the United States, noted the Rev. Neville Callam, the newly elected general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance.
"There's a crying need for all Christian communions to live out a life of unity, as a way of modeling to the world what it means to live in a united life despite your diversities," said Callam in an interview with The Christian Post.
Within the 38-million-member BWA, regional fellowships, member bodies and local churches are autonomous and establish their own positions on a range of issues, not including the "essentials of Baptist faith." And not all Baptists in the world claim membership to the BWA.
With over 69,000 BWA churches in the United States – where membership is most concentrated – alone running independently, diversity on theological emphases and social issues "sometimes challenges the unity that we want to express to the world," said Callam.
"It's a reality that we have to struggle with, especially here, it seems to me, in the U.S.," he pointed out. A Jamaican native and the first nonwhite head of the BWA, Callam recently moved to Falls Church, Va., to assume his new position.
More than 20,000 Baptists next January are expected to join for what has been billed the broadest Baptist meeting in America since Baptists divided over slavery before the Civil War. Former president Jimmy Carter is spearheading the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant to counter the most common opinion about Baptists – that they cannot get along, according to Carter – and the negative Baptist image in North America by demonstrating Baptist unity around common social concerns such as poverty.
Organized under the umbrella of the North American Baptist Fellowship – a division of the BWA – participants include Baptists from predominantly black conventions, including the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., and the ethnically diverse American Baptist Churches USA – also a member of the BWA – among others.
Critics, mainly from the more conservative Southern Baptist Convention, which withdrew from the BWA following concerns over a "leftward drift," have raised speculation that the New Baptist Covenant has political overtones, considering the participation of former president Bill Clinton and the convocation date set for January 2008, the presidential election year. Callam, however, is pleased to see U.S. Baptists making the effort to reflect Baptist unity.
"I think it is highly commendable that the Baptists in North America ... have seen the need to come together to galvanize around some issues that they have no contention about," he said. "We are very pleased to see that Baptists in the U.S. are able to galvanize around a social agenda that is dictated by the demands of the Gospel, not motivated by political concerns.
"There are so many Baptist groups in the U.S. that it’s difficult to have a coherent image that is credible and I think that this is part of the genius of the new movement that is being attempted under the new covenant that the Baptists may yet emerge with a fresh image that is true to the Baptist faith," Callam further commented. Continue >>
RSS
Congratulations Reverend Neville Callam!
The impact of BWA and other Baptist churches around the world is an awesome testimony to the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe that the appointment of Reverend Callam brings a certain closure to the past practice and appearance of “racism” within the “Christian” community as a whole, especially in the South.
God is NO respecter of persons, Acts 10:34. I believe, if the truth of His Word had been taught from the beginning of the colonization of America, then slavery and racism would have never had a foothold in our Nation. God raised His hand against racism in the Book of Numbers, when Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ sister and brother, spoke against Moses because he married a black woman, an Ethiopian woman, Numbers 12:1-15. God struck Miriam with leprosy and Aaron quickly began to beg Moses to intervene to heal her before the leprosy visited him. God looked on their racism as a sin! He still looks on racism as sin today.
God handpicked Joshua, the son of Nun, to lead His people into the Promised Land. If you look in the Book of Numbers 13:8, you will see that Joshua is of the Tribe of Ephraim. Ephraim and Manasseh were the sons of Joseph, the eleventh son of Jacob. Joseph married an Egyptian woman named Asenath, the daughter of Poti-Pherah priest of the land of On. Joseph’s wife was black, she was not Jewish. Manasseh and Ephraim are the fathers of the two Black tribes of Israel. Yes, Joshua was a Blackman.
Have you ever heard that Joshua was a Blackman before? Probably not, because the “Christian” church was too busy teaching that Blacks were curse by Noah. It would follow, if that were true, then slavery and bondage must have been the will of God. Noah never cursed Ham, because God had blessed Ham; but Noah did curse Canaan, Ham’s son and his grandson. Ham had many sons and only Canaan was cursed. (I explain why in “The Road to Self-Worth”)
God is not colorblind, no, He created the races on purpose. Christianity is not about the son of Noah, but it is about the Son of God. If you are a Christian, then Jesus is the Head of your church. Yes, Jesus who was born a Jew, not black, white, yellow, brown, or red. His color is the brilliance of the “Light” of the world. The appointment of Reverend Neville Callam, as the General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance makes His Light shine just that much brighter around the world today.
Pastor Leo Bogee
www.wclandtm.com