European Baptists unlikely to join network

Posted: 8/19/05

European Baptists unlikely to join network

By Greg Warner

Associated Baptist Press

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP)–Baptist leaders in Europe predict the Southern Baptist Convention will have a hard time drawing Baptists from the continent into a new international network that, some say, will compete with the Baptist World Alliance.

After the SBC withdrew from the BWA charging the group with a “liberal drift,” convention leaders announced plans to start and fund a new international “fellowship” of like-minded conservatives.

In early July, nine Southern Baptists leaders met with 12 European Baptists in Warsaw, Poland, for what SBC executive Morris Chapman predicted “may prove in time to have been the inaugural meeting of a network that shall extend to every corner of the earth, creating a close fellowship among like-minded conservative Chris-tians.”

The 12 Europeans, who were not named in an SBC news release, came from six countries, most in eastern Europe and among the most conservative in the region–Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Poland and Romania.

But while many European Baptists are as conservative–or more so–than Southern Baptists, they are “very unlikely” to join the SBC's new network, said Bulgarian pastor Theo Angelov, outgoing general secretary of the European Baptist Federation.

“There are many conservative Baptist leaders in East Europe, and I am happy that none of them were there,” Angelov said of the July 1-2 meeting, which was held less than a month before 13,000 Baptists from around the globe met in England to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Baptist World Alliance.

Angelov said only two of the Europeans who participated in the July 1-2 meeting are official representatives of Baptist unions–Paul Negrut, president of the Baptist Union of R.S. Romania, and Vasil Vangelov, president of the Baptist Union of Bulgaria.

Negrut, president of a Romanian seminary in Oradea that receives funding from conservative Southern Baptists, was the only European union president to support the SBC's withdrawal from BWA. He also was responsible for enlisting Europeans to participate in the Poland meeting.

Vangelov, the Bulgarian president, “does not speak English, and he did not realize what the meeting would be about,” Angelov, Vangelov's predecessor, said in an e-mail interview. “I talked to him after he has returned, and nobody from Bulgaria is supportive of the policy of the SBC.”

Angelov predicted the SBC's efforts likely won't cause a split in the Baptist World Alliance, but it will sow division within world Baptist ranks, he said.

“I am only afraid that if the SBC leaders decide to use money that American churches are giving for mission work as a tool in this battle, then some Baptist unions will be tempted to cooperate. This behavior is not a Baptist approach. It is simply an ideology.”

Tony Peck, Angelov's successor as general secretary of the European Baptist Federation, which encompasses 51 unions including Romania, also said the SBC-backed network could prove divisive.

“We would see any attempt to divide the Baptist witness in Europe and the Middle East as undermining missionary effectiveness at a time when we need to unite our Baptist efforts to bear witness to the gospel on our continent,” Peck said.

“I received some assurances from the SBC that this meeting was not intended to start an alternative network to the BWA,” Peck continued. “And therefore, I was surprised to read the reported comments of Morris Chapman that 'the possibility of building a fellowship network of conservative Baptists around the world created a genuine and heartfelt excitement.'”

Chapman, president of the SBC Executive Committee, said the proposed conservative network poses no threat to BWA.

“Southern Baptist leaders do not envision a formal organization with a constitution and bylaws,” he stated in an e-mail. “We hope to build a network or fellowship with conservative Baptists wherever they exist in the world and strengthen our communication with them.”

Southern Baptist representatives at the meeting were Chapman; O.S. Hawkins, president of Guidestone Financial Resources, the SBC's retirement and benefits agency; retired Houston judge Paul Pressler; Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board; and five SBC seminary leaders–Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary; Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Philip Roberts, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Craig Blaising, provost of Southwestern; and Bill Wagner, professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.