Executive Committee recommends BWA withdrawal

NASHVILLE, Tenn.?The SBC Executive Committee, meeting in Nashville Feb. 16-17, voted 62-10 to adopt a report recommending the SBC withdraw from the Baptist World Alliance?an organization it helped start 99 years ago. In other business:

• SBC President Jack Graham said in his address to the Executive Committee Feb. 16 that he would appoint a committee to study a name change for the SBC.

• The Executive Committee on Feb. 17 voted overwhelmingly to request that New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary trustees amend the school’s charter to make the SBC the “sole member” owner of the seminary. The request involves corporate language designed to clarify ownership and came after months of disagreement between NOBTS trustees and the Executive Committee staff about legal and Baptist polity implications regarding sole membership language under Louisiana corporate statutes.BWA Action

In the BWA action, the nine-member BWA study committee alleged aberrant theology and anti-American rhetoric evident at some BWA-sponsored events in its report. Messengers to the SBC Annual Meeting this June will vote on the BWA recommendation. BWA leaders and many moderate Baptists have criticized the expected separation between the SBC and the BWA.

Executive Committee President Morris Chapman opened the discussion by reading from a BWA funding study committee report revised since its initial release in December.

“(W)e need not now justify or vilify, but can simply do what we preferred to do in the first place, which is politely withdraw from an organization that, at least for us, no longer efficiently communicates for the unsaved a crystal-clear gospel message that our Lord Jesus Christ is solely sufficient for salvation,” Chapman said.

Despite claims by critics that the SBC’s move to withdraw from the BWA is fueled by the alliance granting membership to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship?an organization that has its own missionary network led largely by Southern Baptist moderates?Chapman said it is not, citing SBC reviews of the BWA’s mission and doctrinal integrity dating to 1997.

“One soaked by rain need not blame the last raindrop,” Chapman said. “We strongly affirm the right of the BWA to determine its own membership and affiliation. It is the very right we now recommend that our convention exercise.”

Chapman noted the action “is not intended to cast aspersion upon the many godly and enthusiastically evangelical Baptist fellowships that are members of the BWA. We fully intend to continue to partner with our oldest and best friends worldwide, and to develop new and vibrant friendships and joint endeavors to reach the world for Christ.”

Chapman said the proposed withdrawal is a stewardship issue and that if the harvest is multiplied by working through new channels, “there’s no true Christian who should take issue.”

The Executive Committee’s action urges the SBC to continue seeking ways to deepen relationships with “conservative, evangelical Christians around the world” and to seek a meeting between the BWA study committee and selected BWA representatives in Nashville prior to May 1.

Nancy McGuigan, Executive Committee member from Coatesville, Pa., read a letter on behalf of the administrative committee of the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania-South Jersey, asking the SBC to seek reconciliation with the BWA, partly based on the state convention’s ethnically diverse membership and its connection with BWA member bodies.

Executive Committee member Janet Hoffman of Bernice, La, the national WMU president, also urged the Executive Committee to seek reconciliation with the BWA, while voicing admiration for her Executive Committee colleagues.

In discussing the proposed severance from BWA, Hoffman said WMU leaders’ prayers had been for unity.

“It is nevertheless true that (WMU leaders) represent grassroots churches from all the conventions too, and there are different positions that are held by those conventions, so we don’t go there,” Hoffman said.

Instead, they talk about the passion of being Great Commission Christians, she said.

“There’s a stewardship of witness here too,” Hoffman said.

Calvin Wittman, pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Arvado, Colo., argued the action would be “a peaceful move” less divisive than remaining in the BWA, because of theological differences with the BWA’s more liberal members.

Bruce Martin, pastor of Villa