[this article is posted here because I believe it has important things to say to Baptists in NSW & ACT, and to Taskforce 2. - Rod Benson]
May has been set aside for Baptists worldwide to highlight the ministry we share through the Baptist World Alliance. We are a movement that sees the hand of God in both our origin as a faith community and in our appearance as a world movement.
We took the name Baptist World Alliance some four decades after a number of worldwide ecclesial bodies came into being. Anglican Communion gives expression to the worldwide union of Anglicans and originated in 1867. In 1875, the Presbyterians formed the Alliance of Reformed Churches, bringing together those churches throughout the world that hold to the Presbyterian System. Six years later, in 1881, the Methodist Ecumenical Conference met in London for the first time. They formed the World Methodist Council. Old Catholics joined to establish The Old Catholic Union of Utrecht in 1889, and in 1891, the first International Congregational Council met in London.
Eighteen years after the BWA came into being, Lutherans took the name Lutheran World Convention (1923), and later Federation (1947). They now describe themselves as a communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition.
Of course, we know that the BWA does not consider itself as a church in the way that the Catholic Church (Latin Rite and Eastern Rite), for example, regards itself as a church with parishes in various locations, held in communion with each other through their communion with their bishops who are themselves in communion with the bishop of Rome. This is not the Baptist way of understanding church.
Yet, in adopting the name Alliance, hardly could the Baptists have chosen a name that could more emphatically assert our separateness and independence, together with our voluntary decision to work together in a worldwide entity to achieve certain ends. We understand the local church to be the covenanted community gathered in the presence of Christ and pledged to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in pursuing the will of the Father for the ministry it is called to fulfill.
The task of developing and understanding structures beyond the local church has never been very easy for us Baptists. The Baptist authors of On the Way of Trust remind us that:
The word 'Alliance' implies a task-orientation, that churches are to ally with each other to achieve a particular aim, to get a job of work done; so, the implication is that when this has been achieved, then the alliance can be dissolved - or indeed, it may be abandoned if the objective does not seem likely to be achieved.
One may offer a compelling argument for the name the Baptists chose for their organization in 1905. What other name would satisfy those who fiercely guarded their valued independence as autonomous congregations or conventions/unions?
Again and again, early leaders in the BWA sought to answer fears that cooperation among Baptists on the global level might compromise powers at the local level. Take, for example, what President John Clifford said at the Second World Congress which convened in Philadelphia, USA, in 1911. One of his friends had written to him saying that it was “a very great thing for Baptists to be joined together to help and encourage those of like faith in the maintenance of their convictions.” However, Clifford's friend expressed the hope that the Baptist World Alliance might “never become a 'Catholic' Baptist 'Council' to dominate the expression of faith and … establish a Baptist 'Papacy'.”
In providing reassurance for those gathered at the Congress, Clifford trumpeted with conviction:
There is no need for anxiety. The complete autonomy of the separate church is a creation of grace, and will not suffer. Each society will insist on maintaining its independence… The glorious liberty of the sons of God will not be impaired. The free man will be free.
Although Clifford did try gently to suggest that this independence must be checked by the churches' responsibility “to secure the good of the whole brotherhood” and that liberty must be used “to further the wider aims of the voluntary association of believers,” the truth is that he felt the need to encourage Baptists not to feel threatened by the existence of structures to further cooperation beyond the local level.
Similarly, at the fourth Congress held in Toronto, Canada, in 1928, BWA General Secretary J. H. Rushbrooke found it necessary to say that if the BWA “interfered with or complicated the work of… missionary societies and boards, it would stand condemned on practical grounds and would be promptly electrocuted 'without benefit of clergy'.” “Our Alliance,” he continued, “is indeed unique in the earth. No formal contract binds us each to each - any one of the constituent groups could secede at any moment; their adhesion is in the strictest sense voluntary.”
Now, more than a hundred years after that wonderful day in 1905 when the BWA was born, do we not need to revisit the matter of our self-understanding as a world movement? In the light of the superb exposition Nigel Wright offered at the Elstal Conference last year on the notion of the autonomy of the local church, do we not need to revisit our understanding of the BWA to better nuance the nature of our voluntary partnership and cooperation in the worldwide Baptist movement?
Over the years, the need for us to revisit the matter of the ecclesiological significance of the BWA as a global movement has been raised. If the true mission of theology is linked to the service of the church to the glory of God, would it not be a great gift to the BWA if more of our Baptist theologians would address their minds to this subject and make their findings available as we seek the advance of the worldwide fellowship into which God has called us, Baptists, to the glory and praise of God? Already those collaborating in the series of Studies in Baptist History and Thought, published by Paternoster, are blazing a great trail.
Let us join in the conversation they have begun and mine the treasures of our history and theology to address more precisely the question, “What is the precise ecclesiological significance of the BWA?”
Neville Callam is General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. This article first appeared in BWA News, May 2008.
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