Baptist World Alliance news: statement on refugees; dialogue with World Methodist Council

The Baptist World Alliance, the Christian world communion to which I belong, has issued two press releases this week of interest to readers of Ecclesial Theology.

Today (February 3) the BWA issued a statement on refugees that "decries recent actions by the United States Government to issue a blanket travel ban on seven countries that specifically targets refugees and that seems to especially affect Muslims" (click on hyperlink for full statement).

Earlier this week delegations from the BWA and the World Methodist Council convened in Jamaica for the fourth annual session of a five-year bilateral ecumenical dialogue between the two communions, February 1-8 (click on hyperlink for press release).

International Baptist-Methodist dialogue continues in Germany

The Baptist World Alliance has issued the following press release regarding the continuation of the international dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance and the World Methodist Council this week in Elstal, Germany:

Baptists and Methodists hold third dialogue session in Germany

Created: Tuesday, 02 February 2016

The Baptist World Alliance (BWA) and the World Methodist Council (WMC) will be engaged in the third session of the international theological dialogue between the two Christian World Communions. Both teams will meet at the Theological Seminary at Elstal, Germany, from February 3-10.

Previous sessions of the BWA/WMC dialogue were held in the United States in 2014 and in Singapore in 2015.

The week of meetings will cover the theme, “Making Disciples: Baptism as Christian Initiation” and will explore topics such as “Ecumenical conversations and agreements on baptism in Germany” and “Regional soundings on baptism from various parts of the world” such as Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and North America.

Historical, theological, liturgical and ecumenical perspectives and understandings of baptism will be explored.

Relevant excerpts from international and regional ecumenical texts regarding baptism are being selected, collated and distributed, with participants encouraged to contribute material from their respective region.

Other activities will include a tour of the German capital of Berlin and a visit to the birthplace of Martin Luther. Protestants, Baptists included, will mark the 500^th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation in 2017.

Luther had nailed 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, German, in 1517, an act that sparked the Protestant Reformation movement and a major break from the Roman Catholic Church.

The BWA delegation comprises dialogue Co-chair Curtis Freeman, research professor of theology and director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University Divinity School in the United States; Deji Isaac Ayegboyin, professor of Church History and African Christianity and at the Department of Religious Studies, University of Ibadan in Nigeria; Valérie Duval-Poujol, professor of biblical exegesis at the Catholic Institute, Paris, France, and director for its Institute for Bible and Orientalism; Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School of Samford University in the US; Stephen Holmes, senior lecturer in theology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland; and R. L. Hnuni, principal of Calcutta Bible Seminary in Kolkata, India.

Methodist representatives are dialogue Co-chair Tim Macquiban, minister of Wesley Church and superintendent minister in the United Kingdom; Paul W. Chilcote, academic dean and professor of historical theology and Wesleyan Studies at Ashland Theological Seminary in the US; Christine Gooden-Benguche, secretary, Jamaica District Conference, Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas; Lauren Claire Matthew, minister in the Umngeni Circuit, Natal Coastal District in South Africa, district supervisor of studies of the General Committee of Education for Mission and president of the Youth and Young Adult Committee of the WMC; Ulrike Schuler, professor for Church History, Methodism, and Ecumenism at Reutlingen School of Theology in Germany; and Malcolm Tan, pastor, Barker Road Methodist Church in Singapore.

BWA director of Mission, Evangelism and Theological Reflection, Fausto Vasconcelos, who serves as co-secretary along with Paul Chilcote, will also be present.

Baptist World Alliance®
© February 2, 2016

Creighton symposium on Unitatis Redintegratio; Baptist-Methodist dialogue continues

This Saturday I will speak at Creighton University's symposium on the Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio along with William Rusch, former executive director of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Office for Ecumenical Affairs and former director of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches and now adjunct professor of Lutheran studies at Yale Divinity School, and Fr. John Crossin, executive director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The symposium is part of a three-year series on Celebrating the Legacy of Vatican II commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Council. A Creighton University press release provides details and links to additional information about the symposium and series.

Meanwhile, the second session of the international bilateral ecumenical dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance and the World Methodist Council is meeting in Singapore February 5-10. This year's round of conversations focuses on theological issues such as the nature of the church, the nature of authority, sanctification and justification. A Baptist World Alliance press release issued yesterday includes additional information and a roster of the Baptist and Methodist delegation members.

Ecumenical news update: Pan-Orthodox council announced, Baptist-Methodist dialogue begins

Baptist World Alliance-World Methodist Council joint delegation

Catching up on sharing on Ecclesial Theology some recent ecumenical news:

At a meeting of the archbishops of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches at the Phanar in Istanbul March 6-9, they issued a "Message of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches" which announced that "The Holy and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church will be convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople in 2016." This Pan-Orthodox Council would be the first such assembly since the Second Council of Nicaea in AD 787, reckoned by many churches as the Seventh Ecumenical Council. In Orthodox perspective, this could be considered the Eighth Ecumenical Council, since as Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy Ware) notes in his book The Orthodox Church, "...the Orthodox Church also believes that, if it so desired, it could by itself convene and hold another ecumenical council, equal in authority to the first seven. Since the separation of east and west the Orthodox (unlike the west) have never in fact chosen to summon such a council; but this does not mean that they believe themselves to lack the power to do so." (It should be noted that there was a Fourth Council of Constantinople in 879-80, an attempt at East-West reunion, that some regard as an Eighth Ecumenical Council.) At the very least, the 2016 council has the potential to be something of an "Orthodox Vatican II."

In other news, the bilateral international ecumenical dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance and the World Methodist Council had its initial meeting January 30-February 5 at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. Below is the official communique from the meeting as posted on the World Methodist Council Ecumenical Relations page:

Communique from the Bilateral Dialogue between the Baptist World Alliance and The World Methodist Council

Representatives of the Baptist World Alliance and the World Methodist Council met January 30-February 5 at the Beeson Divinity School of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The meeting was the opening round of conversations in the first international dialogue between Methodists and Baptists. The overall theme of the dialogue is faith working through love. The delegations were welcomed by the Provost and Executive Vice President of the University, Dr. J. Bradley Creed, as well as Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church and Rev. Dr. Mike McLemore, Director of Missions for the Birmingham Baptist Association.

Participants discussed presentations on the history, theology, and contemporary global situation of Methodists and Baptists. The dialogue is co-chaired by Rev. Dr. Tim Macquiban, Superintendent Minister of the Cambridge Methodist Circuit and minister of Wesley Methodist Church in Cambridge, England, and Rev. Dr. Curtis Freeman, Research Professor and Director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke University Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina. Rev. Dr. Paul Chilcote, Dean of Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio, and Rev. Dr. Fausto Vasconcelos, BWA director of Mission, Evangelism, and Theological Reflection, serve as co-secretaries.

Other members of the Methodist delegation present were Dr. Ulrike Schuler, Professor at the Reutlingen School of Theology in Germany; Rev. Malcolm Tan, Pastor of Barker Road Methodist Church in Singapore; Rev. Lauren Matthews, Minister, Umngeni Circuit, Natal Coastal District, Methodist Church of Southern Africa; and the Rev. Christine Gooden-Benguche, Secretary, Jamaica District Conference, Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas. The additional Baptist members present were Rev. Dr. Deji Isaac Ayegboyin, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria; Dr. Valérie Duval-Poujol, Professor of Biblical Exegesis, Catholic Institute, Paris, France; Rev. Dr. Timothy George, Chair, BWA Commission on Doctrine and Christian Unity and Dean of Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama; and Rev. Dr. Stephen Holmes, Senior Lecturer in Theology, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland. Also attending were Rev. Professor Robert Gribben, chair of the ecumenical relations committee of the WMC, from Melbourne, Australia, and Rev. Dr. Neville Callam, General Secretary of the BWA.

The participants worshipped together each day drawing on the two traditions, and attended the Sunday service at the Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham. They made a pilgrimage to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where they met with Rev. Carolyn McKinstry, author of the book While the World Watched based on her experience as a survivor of the 1963 bombing of the church. They then visited the Civil Rights Institute where they particularly noted the participation of local churches in the struggle for racial justice.

The meeting next year is planned for Singapore where they will take up the conversations on the nature of the church with special attention to justification and sanctification.

5th February 2014  



Trio of articles on Baptist ecumenical dialogue

The current issue of Baptist World: A Magazine of the Baptist World Alliance (vol. 60, no. 4; October/December 2013) includes a trio of articles on Baptist World Alliance participation in ecumenical dialogue: my article "Gathering Discusses Baptist-Catholic Dialogue Report" on the presentation and discussion of the report from the 2006-2010 conversations between the BWA and the Catholic Church during the BWA annual gathering in Ocho Rios, Jamaica in July 2013 (p. 22); "BWA to Dialogue with Methodists" on plans for an upcoming series of conversations between the BWA and the World Methodist Council (pp. 22-23); and "Why Theological Dialogues Are Challenging" reporting BWA General Secretary Neville Callam's perspective on four major challenges facing Baptists when they participate in international theological dialogues with other Christian communions, shared during the 8th Baptist International Conference on Theological Education that preceded the BWA annual gathering in Jamaica (p. 23). The complete contents of this issue of Baptist World are viewable online by clicking on the hyperlink above.

Announcing the Baptist World Alliance-World Methodist Council dialogue

On September 6 the Baptist World Alliance issued the following press release regarding plans for an upcoming series of international bilateral ecumenical conversations between the BWA and the World Methodist Council:

BWA to dialogue with Methodists

Washington, DC (BWA)--A planning meeting for the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) international dialogue with the World Methodist Council (WMC) took place at the Wesley Chapel in London in the United Kingdom, from August 28-29.

The BWA Executive Committee and General Council, in March and July of this year, respectively, endorsed a proposal that the BWA begin the process of preparation for a theological dialogue with the WMC.

The dialogue is planned for 2014-2018 and will explore the theme, Faith Active in Love: Sung and Preached, Confessed and Remembered, Lived and Learned.

"Participation in bilateral dialogues is an expression of BWA's commitment to continue the mission of God whose Messiah prayed for the unity of the church so that the world might believe," BWA General Secretary Neville Callam said, extrapolating from the Gospel according to John. "In asking how we might manifest this oneness, we are drawn to the words of the apostle Paul that 'the only thing that counts is faith working through love.'"

The preparatory meeting agreed that the dialogue should aim at: a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, one another; mutual exchange of gifts for the enrichment and renewal of Baptist and Methodist churches; increased participation in a common mission and witness in the world; and deeper fellowship and cooperation by identifying and overcoming barriers. "We believe that we can move toward the fulfillment of these aims by focusing on the agreed theme," Callam declared.

"Now that the focus of the dialogue has been identified, the international team to represent BWA will soon be appointed," the BWA leader announced. The teams for the dialogue will comprise six persons from each of the two communions.

The BWA team for the planning meeting in London was Callam, Timothy George, chair of the BWA Commission on Doctrine and Christian Unity, Stephen Holmes and Curtis Freeman.

Baptist World Alliance®
© September 6, 2013