Alliance of Baptists

A Call to Repentance

Adopted March 10, 1990, by the Southern Baptist Alliance [since 1992, The Alliance of Baptists]

A Statement on Racism and Repentance

The Scriptures record in Numbers 14:18-19, that Moses pled with God for the people of Israel saying, "The Lord is longsuffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but God by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers [and mothers] on the children to the third and fourth generations. Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now."

Following World War II, the people of Germany publicly repented of the sins of Adolph Hitler and of their own sins against Jewish people and against all the people of the world. In the past several years the German Baptists have publicly repented of their compliance with the Nazi regime.

In the summer of 1988 the Soviet Communist Party in like manner publicly repented of the sins of Joseph Stalin and of their own sins against the Soviet people and against the people of the world.

These acts of confession have reminded Southern Baptists that there is a significant sin in our own heritage for which we have never publicly repented. One of the precipitating factors in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention was the protection of the institution of slavery and of slave owners in the South. The sins of slavery and of condoning slavery committed by Southern Baptists are a spiritual blight upon the relationships between African-Americans and whites in the south which has lasted unto this generation. The time is long overdue for Southern Baptists to repent of these sins.

We move, therefore, that the members of the Southern Baptist Alliance meeting on this March 10, 1990, in St. Louis, Missouri, as members of the Southern Baptist family, publicly repent and apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and perpetuating the sin of slavery prior to and during the Civil War. We reject the racism, segregation, and prejudice in our past and the continuing pattern of racism, segregation, and prejudice which has persisted throughout our history as a Christian denomination, even unto this present day.

Likewise, we call upon our fellow Southern Baptists meeting in convention in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 11-13, to help cleanse our denomination of the blight of racism by adopting a similar statement of confession and repentance.

Furthermore, from this day forth we pledge to work to remove all forms of racism, segregation, and prejudice from our Southern Baptist family. We acknowledge with regret that at the present time our Alliance has few members or participating churches from among African-Americans. We pledge ourselves to seek out such participation in ways that are sensitive to African-American church concerns. We urge all Southern Baptists to do the same.

Source

http://allianceofbaptists.org/documents/Racism1990.pdf (accessed 10 June 2016).

A Statement on Baptist-Jewish Relations (March 4, 1995)

Background

Thirty years ago the Vatican document, Nostra Aetate, was adopted by the Second Vatican Council. This statement heralded a significant change in Jewish-Christian relations, first among Roman Catholics and soon thereafter among Protestant Christian bodies. As Baptists, we too have been influenced by this invitation to dialogue begun by Vatican II. Certain Baptists, persons like A. Jase Jones, Joe R. Estes, George Sheridan, Glenn Ingleheart and others, modeled out for a brief moment in time a different way to relate to the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. Regrettably, in recent years this effort at Jewish-Baptist dialogue has been reduced to a theology of conversion.

A statement adopted Saturday, March 4, 1995, by the Alliance of Baptists

Fifty years ago the world stood in shocked disbelief at the evidence of humankind's inhumanity to its own as the reality of places like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbruck, were forever etched into conscience and history. The madness, the hatred, the dehumanizing attitudes which led to the events known collectively as the Holocaust did not occur overnight or within the span of a few years, but were the culmination of centuries of Christian teaching and church-sanctioned action directed against the Jews simply because they were Jews.

As Baptist Christians we are the inheritors of and, in our turn, have been the transmitters of a theology which lays the blame for the death of Jesus at the feet of the Jews; a theology which has taken the anti-Jewish polemic of the Christian Scriptures out of its first century context and has made it normative for Christian-Jewish relations; a theology which has usurped for the Church the biblical promises and prerogatives given by God to the Jews; a theology which ignores nineteen centuries of Jewish development by viewing contemporary Jews as modern versions of their first century co-religionists; a theology which views the Jewish people and Jewish nationhood merely as pieces in an eschatological chess game; a theology which has valued conversion over dialogue, invective over understanding, and prejudice over knowledge; a theology which does not acknowledge the vibrancy, vitality, and efficacy of the Jewish faith.

It is in recognition of a past and present among Baptists that is complicit in perpetuating negative stereotypes and myths concerning Jews, that we, the Alliance of Baptists meeting in convocation on March 4, 1995, at Vienna Baptist Church, Vienna, Virginia,

Confess our sin of complicity. Confess our sin of silence.
Confess our sin of interpreting our sacred writings in such a way that we have created enemies of the Jewish people.
Confess our sin of indifference and inaction to the horrors of the Holocaust.
Confess our sins against the Jewish people.
Offer this confession with humility and with hope for reconciliation between Christians and Jews.

We call upon all Baptists to join us in

  1. Affirming the teaching of the Christian Scriptures that God has not rejected the community of Israel, God's covenant people (Romans 11:1-2), since "the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29);
  2. Renouncing interpretations of Scripture which foster religious stereotyping and prejudice against the Jewish people and their faith;
  3. Seeking genuine dialogue with the broader Jewish community, a dialogue built on mutual respect and the integrity of each other's faith;
  4. Lifting our voices quickly and boldly against all expressions of anti-Semitism;
  5. Educating ourselves and others on the history of Jewish-Christian relations from the first century to the present, so as to understand our present by learning from our past.

Sources

http://allianceofbaptists.org/documents/Jewish-ChristianRelations2003.pdf

http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/protestant-churches/na/baptist/697-ab95mar4 (accessed 10 June 2016).

A Statement on Baptist-Jewish Relations (April 25, 2003)

As Baptist Christians we are the inheritors of and, in our turn, have been the transmitters of a theology which lays the blame for the death of Jesus at the feet of the Jews; a theology which has taken the anti-Jewish polemic of the Christian Scriptures out of its first century context and has usurped for the Church the biblical promises and prerogatives given by God to the Jews; a theology which ignores nineteen centuries of Jewish development by viewing contemporary Jews as modern versions of their first century co-religionists; a theology which views the Jewish people and Jewish nationhood merely as pieces in an eschatological chess game; a theology which has valued conversion over dialogue, invective over understanding, and prejudice over knowledge; a theology which does not acknowledge the vibrancy, vitality, and efficacy of the Jewish faith.

The madness, the hatred, the dehumanizing attitudes which led to the events known collectively as the Holocaust did not occur overnight or within the span of a few years, but were the culmination of centuries of such Christian theology, teaching and church-sanctioned action directed against the Jews simply because they were Jews. In spite of the evidence of humankind’s inhumanity to its own bolstered by religious prejudice, most Christians have done little or nothing to correct the theology which nurtures such hatred or develop avenues of understanding which counter the centuries of prejudice. While some notable strides have been made in post-holocaust theology which provide new ways of reading the biblical text, especially the Johannine and Pauline texts, we have done little to utilize those understandings in the preaching and teaching ministries of our churches.

It is in recognition of a past and present among Baptists that are complicit in perpetuating negative stereotypes and myths concerning Jews, that we, the Alliance of Baptists, meeting in convocation on April 25, 2003, at Vienna, VA, adopt as an Institutional Understanding for Jewish-Christian Relations the following confessions and affirmations which were first adopted as a Resolution by those meeting in convocation at Vienna Baptist Church, Vienna, Virginia March 4, 1995:

As individual members and churches of the Alliance of Baptists, we:

  • Confess our sin of complicity;
  • Confess our sin of silence;
  • Confess our sin of interpreting our sacred writings in such a way that we have created enemies of the Jewish people;
  • Confess our sins of indifference and inaction to the horrors of the Holocaust;
  • Confess our sin against the Jewish people; and
  • Offer this confession with humility and with hope for reconciliation between Christians and Jews towards which end we will work.

As the Alliance of Baptists, institutionally, and as individual members and churches, we:

  1. Affirm the teaching of the Christian Scriptures that God has not rejected the community of Israel, God’s covenant people (Romans 11:1-2), since “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29);
  2. Renounce interpretations of Scripture which foster religious stereotyping and prejudice against the Jewish people and their faith;
  3. Seek genuine dialogue with the broader Jewish community, a dialogue built on mutual respect and the integrity of each other’s faith;
  4. Lift our voices quickly and boldly against all expressions of anti-Semitism;
  5. Educate ourselves and others on the history of Jewish-Christian relations from the first century to the present, so as to understand our present by learning from our past; and Commit ourselves to rigorous consideration of appropriate forms of Christian witness for our time.

Adopted April 25, 2003
Vienna, Virginia

Sources

http://allianceofbaptists.org/documents/Jewish-ChristianRelations2003.pdf

http://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/protestant-churches/na/baptist/710-ab03apr25 (accessed10 June 2016).