BWA; they’re just not ‘us’ anymore

Starting last year when the SBC lowered its contribution to the BWA and escalating last fall when a study panel released a report recommending the SBC withdraw completely, BWA’s advocates have gone into panic mode — understandably. BWA will lose a critical chunk (about a fourth) of its budget when Southern Baptists withdraw. On the other hand, some defenders ignore or misunderstand the substance of the issues between us.

The issue is not, for example, personal. Southern Baptists are not rejecting the many friends and national groups with whom we share common convictions and priorities. For BWA’s defenders to remind us that Alliance President, Billy Kim, is a great and conservative pastor/evangelist is neither contested nor relevant. Many of our current working relationships will doubtless continue.

Some maintain the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and their admission to BWA last year is the issue — that we would not be facing this change if not for that. This is like saying that wearing sweaters makes it cold outside. The two things are not unrelated but there is an important order to cause and effect. Yes, CBF was admitted to BWA over the loud protests of the Southern Baptist contingent. It is also true that BWA took sides in our disagreement with our shadow denomination by allowing them to be a denomination when it suits them but not when it doesn’t. The issues mentioned in the study panel’s report far predate CBF’s admission. This action was a verification of SBC’s concerns and not the substance of the concerns.

Southern Baptists’ participation in BWA is not essential to our involvement with other Baptists. Those who suggest that we are abandoning all fellowship, unity, and global ministry by withdrawing from BWA are being hysterical. The world is too small for anyone to suggest that our denomination is losing its worldwide focus while we have more than 5,000 international workers and hundreds of U.S. churches directly involved in overseas projects. We already work beyond the scope of BWA and we will continue to do so.

A key concern to the SBC is theology. BWA, like the old SBC, is not completely or even mostly taken over by aberrant teaching. It’s there though, and it is represented in Alliance leaders and spokesmen to a disproportionate degree. One presenter I heard speak at a BWA event read a paper in which he maintained that slavery and racism were inventions of Western Europe and the United States. Revisionist is too mild a word to describe this assigning of a general human evil to a specific culture. In another setting, a paper was presented that suggested monogamous homosexual relationships might be “the lesser of two evils” for those of same-sex orientation. Should we be concerned to have our names associated with teachers, schools, leaders, or events which handle truth so badly? We have been so associated and our concerns are valid.

BWA spokesmen and leaders have declined repeated opportunities to clarify their convictions on the nature of the gospel and our mandate to share the exclusive claims of Christ. It is not enough for BWA executive Denton Lotz to point to their founding documents as the final statement on BWA’s beliefs. Southern Baptists remember well when some Southern Baptist professors affirmed far more explicit doctrinal statements and promptly taught contradictory things. When a presenter seems to be advocating universalism and will not clarify or plainly affirm Christ as the only way to Heaven, what are we to make of it? Mr. Lotz is not being candid with us when he speaks as though he can’t imagine what it means when the study panel raises questions of theology. He’s been fielding those questions for years.

Concerns about anti-Americanism are also substantive. Denton Lotz’ criticism of the American embargo against Cuba was not a balanced, prophetic word that also addressed the grievous human rights record of Cuba’s dictator. The “historical” paper mentioned above was also unfairly critical of the U.S. It is far more effective, if BWA’s goal is indeed prophetic, for Mr. Lotz to criticize the U.S. and the SBC when he makes his annual report to the convention and not address his complaints to countries that already disdain us. Again, what are we to think? Surely not that our fellowship is stronger than ever.

The recent response of one BWA leader to Southern Baptist concerns is also telling and familiar. David Coffey, vice president of BWA says that the SBC “has failed to safeguard the primacy of freedom of conscience” in our concern to defend the truth of the gospel. He goes to on to say that a willingness to only “have fellowship with those with whom we agree (is)?a poor, shallow definition of fellowship.” Instead, a shallow definition of fellowship would make it an end in itself. Fellowship, even close identification with everyone who calls himself Christian, is not an obligation of love. It denigrates the word to suggest that it is.

Again, this sounds like the pre-resurgence SBC. Is our freedom of conscience primary over the truth of the gospel? Are Southern Baptists compelling the conscience of another by withdrawing our membership, and more to the point, our funding? Is our membership (and funding) of BWA synonymous with fellowship? The answer to these questions must be “no.” Maybe that is a clear point of disagreement between us.

This is a point where we also disagree with Billy Kim. In a recent visit to Dallas he said he always thought “Baptist was Baptist” as if all are sufficiently the same. Maybe in some places that is true. It is not true in Europe or North America. Surely he would agree that all who call themselves Christian are not the same? Southern Baptists are no longer so naïve about the word “Baptist.”

Our concerns also have to do with our mission. Is partnership with an organization with which we do not share a common understanding of the gospel a priority? Those who share our understanding of biblical truth will doubtless continue to join us in the great commission but our support for BWA needs to be based on something besides tradition. The Alliance today is not one we would attempt to join. You could not sell that idea to Southern Baptists. That says something.

Like the pre-resurgence SBC and like the CBF, the BWA has come to encompass too much. African, South American, Eastern European, and “World A” countries are partnered with “Old European” as well as with liberal and conservative American groups. It’s too diverse. Yes, a thing can be too diverse to accomplish its original goals. BWA has responded by changing its own goals a bit. In the last 25 years, the SBC has also changed its goals. The resulting separation is a reality. It is not a condemnation or a failure (or a sin) to make it off