Baptist World Alliance: Liberty for All

Three correspondents covered last month’s Baptist World Alliance congress in Stockholm. Roger Palms reported on the central proceedings and color of the congress, Bill Thomas digested major speeches and scouted the Billy Graham rally, and Robert Linder kept an eye on people and events related to eastern Europe. Their coverage was edited into the following single account by News Editor Edward E. Plowman:

Baptists have a worldwide constituency of about 43 million souls. These include around 33.7 million baptized members in churches in 113 countries and twenty-eight offshore dependencies. Last month, 9,600 of them from eighty-four nations got together in high-cost Stockholm for the thirteenth congress of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA). The six-day congress, an event held every five years, turned out to be the largest gathering in the history of the BWA. It was also the largest meeting of its kind in Stockholm’s history. Delegates filled most of the city’s hotels and spilled over into many Swedish homes.

Sessions in St. Erik’s Massan Center were marked by robust singing, high-spirited camaraderie, and an emphasis on Baptist programs and styles that contrasted starkly with pronouncements about ecumenical activity. Speeches, Bible studies, panel discussions, and other platform doings were translated into seven languages and broadcast through earphones. The theme, “New People For a New World Through Jesus Christ,” based on second Corinthians 5:7 (“Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature”), reflected a contemporary awareness of womanhood—thanks to some women who last year succeeded in getting “new men” changed to “new people.”

Major speakers included outgoing BWA president V. Carney Hargroves of Philadelphia and black pastors Edward V. Hill and Thomas Kilgore of Los Angeles, along with leaders from Japan, Zaire, and Switzerland.

At the end of a presentation by the Baptist World Relief Committee, committee chairman Chester Jump, American Baptist Churches mission executive, announced an offering. Any currency would be acceptable, he said. The delegates responded with $12,500 in twenty-two currencies. (A BWA relief goal of more than $1 million for 1975 and 1976 was approved, subject to availability. The amount is in addition to the BWA’s general budget needs of $237,400 this year and $500,000 over the next two years.)

Spiritual high points included an afternoon visit to Stockholm-area Baptist churches for Communion. For many of the delegates it was the first experience of partaking from a common cup.

Music contributed much to the spirit and success of the congress. Groups included a Swedish choir that rehearsed for a year before the congress, performers from the Soviet Union, Hong Kong, East Germany, and Nagaland, India, American university choirs, choirs from South Africa and Hungary, and an international congress choir of 800 voices under the direction of American Don Hustad.

Outreach was emphasized in the congress program. On three evenings there were open-air meetings in two parts of the city; Swedish and international speakers and singers took part. After the congress adjourned, a number of the delegates joined people from all over Sweden and other parts of Scandinavia in Stockholm’s Skansen Park for a two-hour rally featuring evangelist Billy Graham. Swedish television covered his address live. Hundreds raised their hands in response to Graham’s invitation to receive Christ. Estimates of the crowd size ranged from 25,000 to 35,000. “It was the spiritual breakthrough we have long prayed for,” commented Swedish Baptist executive David Lagergren.

Highly controversial in Sweden, Graham had visited Stockholm on June 23 to face a two-hour press conference that he said was one of the most difficult he had ever faced. “The reporters never laid a glove on him,” observed one columnist. (A wide range of churches have invited him to return to Stockholm for a full-fledged crusade in 1977.)

Delegates voted to make some constitutional and structural changes in the BWA, the first since its birth in 1905. A new division of evangelism and education was established. It will probably be headed by C. Ronald Goulding, associate secretary for Europe in the BWA’s London office since 1965, who will move to the main headquarters in Washington, D. C., early in 1976. The positions of General Secretary Robert S. Denny (who was reelected) and associate secretaries C. E. Bryant and Carl W. Tiller, all Americans in the Washington office, were left unchanged.

David Y. K. Wong, a Hong Kong architect educated in the United States, was elected BWA president for the next five years. Wong, 65, is chairman of the Asian Baptist Fellowship. He is the first layman and the first Asian ever to hold the BWA office.

Speeches, even provocative ones by Kilgore and by clergyman Nlandu Mukoko Mpanzu of Zaire, evoked little corridor controversy.

Mpanzu paid tribute to the work of early missionaries in his country, but he lamented that nationals were excluded from decision-making and from developing their own identity as a Third World church. He defended recent Africanization moves on the part of his country’s government. And he explained seemingly restrictive measures involving the Church of Christ in Zaire—a government-mandated ecumenical umbrella organization—as attempts “to achieve greater unity among God’s children.”

An omnibus resolution was passed calling for: full religious liberty for all; a recognition of human rights that allow for development of personal potential, that promote self-determination and economic and social justice, that help maintain cultural identity, and that permit dissent; a commitment to peace by the world’s governments; and “a worldwide thrust for public morality.” The morality portion decried commercial exploitation of human sexuality, abandonment of Christian views on marriage and the family, secularization of the Lord’s Day, the growth of gambling, and the like.

Only a few ripples troubled the waters of fraternal serenity at the congress. One that threatened to become a wave was the issue of religious freedom in the eastern European countries, particularly the Soviet Union.

More than 130 Baptists from seven Communist-run nations attended. Hungary’s delegation of sixty-eight, which included sixty members of the well-received Hungarian Central Baptist Choir, was the largest. Poland had twenty-four delegates and the U.S.S.R. twenty.

The presence however, of twenty-one emigrés identified with the so-called underground or unregistered Baptist churches in the U.S.S.R. created tension at the congress and produced an undercurrent of discontent in some BWA circles because of the manner in which they were treated by BWA officialdom. The twenty-one, part of a larger group of more than 6,000 Baptists who have emigrated from the U.S.S.R. to West Germany since 1972 under a policy of detente between the two countries, said they were affiliated with the unofficial Council of Churches of the Evangelical Christians-Bantists (CCECB) in the U.S.S.R. The CCECB separated from the registered and officially recognized All Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in 1961 over several issues, including that of unrestricted freedom to evangelize. Since 1961, even though they share a common biblically based theology, relations between these two large bodies of Soviet Baptists have been strained further (see December 20, 1974, issue, page 26, and February 28 issue, page 41).

The twenty-one attended the congress as guests and not as official delegates since their Baptist body is not a member of the BWA. After having been refused a place on the official program because of their observer status, they launched a campaign of personal contact with as many people at the meeting as possible. Their efforts were hindered by their inability to speak English, the most common and frequently used language at the gathering. They also appeared at the meeting of the BWA Study Commission on Religious Liberty and Human Rights and asked to state their case. After some hesitation and a great deal of tension and awkwardness, commission chairman Gardner Taylor of New York scheduled the group to be heard at an informal session following the meeting.

Pastor David Klassen, spokesperson for the dissidents, described with considerable detail and passion his ten years in Soviet prisons for preaching without government sanction. Speaking in German and through an interpreter, he appealed for prayer for believers in the U.S.S.R. suffering persecution daily for the cause of Christ.

Alexei Bichkov, general secretary of the officially sanctioned Soviet Baptists and a regional vice-president of the BWA, addressed the commission meeting immediately before Klassen. He emphasized that progress in religious freedom is being made in the U.S.S.R. He cautioned against unwarranted criticism of the Soviet government that might jeopardize this progress and cause further restrictions to be placed on the activities of all U.S.S.R. Baptists. He also told the audience that he believed that Christians “must obey the laws that exist in all countries.”

The war for recognition, sympathy, and support was waged on several other fronts as well. Mimeographed “open letters” and “press releases,” some of them anonymous, circulated among delegates. These included pleas on behalf of CCECB leader Georgi Vins in a Siberian prison camp and a government-ousted Baptist pastor in Latvia with a wife and ten children.

Another battleground was the congress book tables. The official Soviet Baptist delegation brought along for free distribution at the tables a booklet containing the complete text of Secretary Bichkov’s address to the forty-first congress of the government-recognized Baptists in Moscow last December. Among other issues, Bichkov dealt with the problem of Baptist unity in the U.S.S.R. He reported that the CCECB “does not manifest sufficient Christian desire to eliminate division.”

There was indication that some pressure was exerted on the Westerbergs Publishing House, which ran the congress book tables, to exercise caution in displaying controversial works about Christianity in Eastern Europe. Several were available, however, including the scholarly Discretion and Valour by Trevor Beeson and Faith on Trial in Russia by Michael Bordeaux.

The BWA omnibus resolution called for Baptists of all nations to recommit themselves “to pray, advocate, and work for effectual religious freedom for all human beings knowing that many of our brothers and sisters have lost their freedoms and in some cases their lives while resisting government restrictions.” However, no specific governments were mentioned in any part of the resolution, which was passed without debate.

At a reception hosted for BWA and Hungarian Baptist leaders by Janos Nagy, the Hungarian ambassador to Sweden, major consideration was given to freedom of religion and conscience in Hungary. The exchange of ideas was termed “mutually profitable” by a source who was present. The ambassador and the Baptist leaders, said the source, discussed the possibility of an international Baptist meeting in Budapest next year, possibly even featuring an evangelistic effort by Billy Graham.

In a sidelight development, a number of Baptists from America who traveled with tour groups had to scuttle plans for a trip to the Soviet Union because their applications for visas were rejected. No clear pattern was discernible in the Soviet response to visa applications, but apparently those groups with large numbers of ministers had the most trouble. The title “reverend” or, more often, the name of the minister’s employer on the visa application was the clue that many of the prospective tourists were Baptists.

The Soviet authorities have been sensitive for some time to Baptist tourists from the West who come to the U.S.S.R. with Russian Bibles in their luggage. Despite recent official protestations to the contrary, say observers, the Soviet government wants to stem the flow of tourist Bibles. In addition, there appears to be an effort to regulate somewhat the number of Baptist tourists who visit their religious compatriots as they travel in the U.S.S.R.

One Baptist leader had organized a BWA-related tour for alumni of his college. Their visa applications were rejected one week after BWA officials in Washington, D. C., publicly expressed concern over the sentencing of Georgi Vins to a long prison term. Tour groups from Michigan and Virginia likewise were turned down, as was a 200-member Canadian Baptist delegation. Numerous smaller groups reported similar response.

On the other hand, a group of eighty Baptist ministers and laypeople from southeastern states spent six days in Leningrad and Moscow prior to the BWA meeting. The tour organizer warned against taking Bibles and asking politically or religiously embarrassing questions of Soviet guides. Another group, turned down in the United States, applied for visas through a large Swedish travel firm. Everyone was accepted except for a few seminary and denominational officials. Elsewhere, several travel agents resubmitted visa applications but without clergy and church references—and got them accepted. A West German group of 230 chartered the Soviet-owned vessel Estonia, visited Polish and Soviet cities (stopping at a Baptist church in Leningrad), and used the ship as their hotel during the BWA congress.

After comparing notes in Stockho’m, many BWA delegates agreed that even tourism these days seems to have political significance. Baptists wishing to travel to the Soviet Union in the future, they concluded, will do better if they plan to go with more heterogeneous groups.

The Solemn Assemblies

The Church of the Brethren will be represented by a sister at the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches. Wanda Will Button of Conrad, Iowa, was named delegate at the annual conference of the 180,000-member denomination, held in June in Dayton, Ohio.

The church has considered changing its name as part of a move against sexist language, but a special task force of three women and two men advised against it: “It is our judgment that to suggest a major change in the name of our denomination at a time when awareness is just beginning to emerge seems ill-advised.”

Equality for women was a leading issue in many church conventions this year. In Minneapolis, the United Church of Christ General Synod adopted a nineteen-point program aimed at increasing the employment of women and minorities. The program calls for an office to monitor efforts to eliminate sexism in the denomination.

In another key vote, the synod of the 1.8 million-member denomination adopted a pronouncement calling for legislation supporting civil rights for homosexuals at the federal, state, and local levels. Among those testifying at a hearing before the vote were two UCC ministers who are avowed homosexuals.

Celebration of its centennial was what the Presbyterian Church in Canada General Assembly was all about this year. The assembly met in Montreal but moved by bus to Quebec City, 180 miles away, for a special tribute to clergyman John Cook, the first moderator. Cook’s portrait appears on a current Canadian postage stamp. When they got back down to business the commissioners then set in motion a procedure to revise the 180,000-member denomination’s Book of Common Order. The process will include presbytery study of a number of major doctrinal concerns, including introduction of a diaconate that will include both men and women.

Women’s ordination was condemned in a resolution unanimously approved by some 2,000 messengers to the annual meeting of the American Baptist Association in St. Louis. The group, which also expressed opposition to the charismatic movement and which has a constituency estimated at 950,000, is not to be confused with the American Baptist Churches, which held their biennial meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Charles Z. Smith, a black professor at the University of Washington law school, was elected president of the 1.4 million-member ABC.

Another Baptist group that came out against the ordination of women was the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, which met in its forty-fourth annual conference at Winona Lake, Indiana. Twenty-six more churches were received into the association, pushing the total over 1,500 with a membership of some 215,000.

In Elmhurst, Illinois, the Reformed Church in America General Synod voted by secret ballot, 158 to 97, against revoking the ordination of its only female minister. The synod also sent to the church classes (districts) a recommendation that the Book of Order be changed to permit the ordination of women. During the past year a majority of the classes voted in favor of the change, but the vote did not reach the two-thirds necessary for approval. Mrs. Joyce Stedge, 49-year-old mother of six, was ordained by a classis in New York in 1973. She is pastor of the Rochester Reformed Church in Accord, New York.

Allegations

A $430,500 lawsuit has been filed in southern California against evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman by Paul J. Bartholomew, a former Presbyterian minister who served as Miss Kuhlman’s personal administrator and television booking agent until his services were recently terminated. In an interview last month with religion writer Russell Chandler of the Los Angeles Times, Bartholomew alleged that Miss Kuhlman broke a contract with him, that her agents removed personal records from his office, that irregularities exist in the handling of her funds, and that she indulges in a life style of luxury and strong drink that is inconsistent with her public ministry.

Miss Kuhlman declined comment to reporters on some allegations, denied irregularities in financial dealings, and maintained she had a right to terminate Bartholomew’s contract. “My life is an open book,” she declared.

Several news organizations were investigating the charges and countercharges late last month.

The Law And Ted Patrick

Having helped hundreds of parents to “rescue” offspring from unconventional religious groups, “deprogrammer” Ted Patrick, 45, of San Diego now is in need of some help himself. Patrick has won some key legal battles since embarking on such rescue missions in 1972 (see April 27, 1973, issue, page 35 and August 31, 1973, issue, page 40). Lately, however, he has been losing.

Last year a Denver judge gave him a suspended sentence and placed him on probation for involvement in a case there. Patrick appealed the Colorado conviction and went on with his deprogramming activities in other states and Canada. In May he was convicted of false imprisonment charges in an Orange County, California, case involving a 19-year-old girl in the Krishna Consciousness sect. He was given a one-year jail sentence, all but sixty days of it suspended. Claiming his trial was unfair, Patrick lodged an appeal.

The Denver judge, on learning of the California conviction, sentenced Patrick to one year in jail for violating probation. The decision was handed down one day before the conclusion of the probation period. Patrick spent fifteen days in jail in Denver, then was released last month on $25,000 bail pending the outcome of his appeal. Two Colorado families put up property as security for the bond.

One of Patrick’s targets is Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. A church spokesman says about two dozen members have been abducted in deprogramming incidents, with only half returning to the group. The church is pressing charges against Patrick in several states. Patrick insists that the Moon group and other sects brainwash their adherents into submission and away from normal family and faith ties.

Patrick, on the road for weeks at a time, denies that he is getting rich from deprogramming, as some critics have alleged. Some families can’t even reimburse him for travel expenses, he says, and bills for legal services are piling up.

Religion In Transit

A forty-five-member congregation was chartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, as Vietnamese Alliance Church, the first officially organized Vietnamese church in the United States. Affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, its members are refugees, most of them sponsored by families in neighboring Rosemont Alliance Church. A pastor was en route last month.

Twice in six months, despite intense lobbying, the Council of Churches of the City of New York has denied membership to Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. Directors and denominational executives cited the sect’s theology (Jesus failed in his mission, but a Korean messiah will save mankind) and pressure on young converts to leave their families. It’s the first time the council has rejected an application.

Two years ago, after months of bitter debate, the California Board of Education arrived at a compromise agreement calling for inclusion of the creation theory in social science textbooks rather than in science textbooks, where creationist advocates had wanted it placed on equal footing with evolution. Last month the board adopted new science and social science texts. All omit the creation theory.

Well-known Anglican clergyman and author John R. W. Stott has resigned as rector of All Souls Church in London to devote more time to writing and itinerant evangelism. Stott, highly respected among young evangelical intellectuals, has been succeeded by Michael Baughen of the church staff, a popular broadcaster.

Bishop Per Loenning, one of the ten bishops of the state Church of Norway (Lutheran), resigned in protest against a liberalized abortion law passed by the Norwegian Parliament. The action is expected to accelerate demands of church independence from the state.

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