Baptists on both sides of the border dispute the affiliation of 62 Canadian churches.
Does it matter whether Canadian Baptists join America’s largest Protestant denomination? The answer depends on whom you are talking to.
The controversy between Canadian Baptists and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been brewing for 30 years. Denominational officials on both sides of the border disagree over ties between the 14-million-member SBC and its 4,300 Canadian members.
Southern Baptist activity in Canada began in the fifties when two Vancouver, British Columbia, churches affiliated with the SBC’s Northwest Baptist Convention. Since then, Southern Baptist churches have multiplied in western Canada. More recently, the Ohio Baptist Convention has established two churches in southern Ontario.
Some officials are calling for the expansion of the SBC to enable its 62 Canadian churches to send messengers to the denomination’s annual meeting. But others, both in the SBC and in the Canadian Baptist Federation (CBF), prefer a cooperative venture between the two denominations.
Leaders in the CBF want to find ways to share resources with Southern Baptists. The CBF and the SBC already are cooperating in education, media, and evangelism projects. But Michael Steeves, executive secretary of the 130,000-member CBF, says the joint ventures are more at the denominational level than among local churches.
Before the SBC could seat Canadian messengers it would have to amend its constitution to redefine the denomination as a binational, rather than a national, body. SBC Foreign Mission Board president R. Keith Parks opposes the move. He says the denomination should cooperate with Canadian Baptist bodies that have their own national structures. However, SBC Home Mission Board president William Tanner disagrees. He says it is natural for Southern Baptists to establish their own churches in Canada.
The man who has helped start many of those churches agrees with Tanner. Henry Blackaby, home mission director for the western Canadian arm of the Northwest Baptist Convention, says Canadian Southern Baptists should be part of the SBC. At the same time, he sees room for cooperation between the SBC and the CBF. He notes, for example, that Southern Baptists are interested in funding a Christian education chair at Carey Hall, a Canadian Baptist college at the University of British Columbia.
Carey Hall principal Roy Bell welcomes that idea. A past president of the CBF, Bell believes in developing a strong partnership between his denomination and the SBC. But Doug Moffat, executive minister for the CBF’s western sector, wonders if the SBC is equally committed to the concept, SBC missionaries say churches are started at the request of local people, he says. But he adds that the SBC’s planning goals call for forming 50 new Canadian congregations by 1989.
A 21-member committee chaired by Dallas home builder Fred Roach has been studying the issue. Late last month the committee was expected to come up with recommendations to present to this summer’s Southern Baptist Convention.
LLOYD MACKEYin Vancouver
A New Survey Shows Families Are Better Off Than Most Think
Church-going families with young adolescents refute the stereotype that families are falling apart, according to a major national study.
The research project gathered information about children in the fifth through ninth grades. The survey’s national sample tends to represent families that are involved in a local church.
“We do not mean to imply that youth and families are functioning at optimal levels,” the directors of the study say. “Indeed, there are stresses and problems in most families. However, we find that the needs, despairs, and the longings of youth and parents are less catastrophic, more subtle, and perhaps more benign than we have been led to believe.”
Thirteen groups cooperated in the study, including the Evangelical Covenant Church, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and Southern Baptist Convention.
The study was based on in-depth questioning of 8,000 adolescents and 10,000 parents. It was directed by the Search Institute of Minneapolis and funded by the Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis.
The questions investigated values and goals, conflicts and communication between children and parents, sexuality, chemical use, exposure to mass media, faith, concerns of youth, and interest in youth programs.
More than 50 percent of the youths said they watched three or four hours of television on an average school day. The most important goal for boys, and the second most important for girls, was “to get a good job when I am older.” Fifth graders placed a higher value than ninth graders on such global issues as a “world without war.”
The desire “to be part of a church or synagogue” tends to be in the middle of the early adolescents’ value hierarchy. Church commitment among youth declined between fifth and ninth grades, and the decline was sharper for boys.
What do young adolescents worry about? School performance, physical appearance, and peer acceptance were the three most prevalent concerns. More than 42 percent worry that their parents might die. More than 20 percent worry about nuclear annihilation.
Some 22 percent of fifth graders and 53 percent of ninth graders said they have used alcohol. Twelve percent of fifth graders and 20 percent of ninth graders said they have used marijuana.
The number of youths who said they have had sexual intercourse ranged from 12 percent of sixth graders to 20 percent of ninth graders, although the researchers are skeptical. They say data for fifth and sixth graders “may be suspect, reflecting in part uncertainty about the meaning of the term ‘sexual intercourse.’ ”
Some 40 percent of the youths said they desire more opportunities to discuss sexuality with their parents. Even higher percentages of parents say they desire parent-child communication in this area. In addition, 42 percent of the youths claimed their family never discusses religious topics.
RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE
