AFRICA
Solomon Ishola, general secretary of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, spoke on the growth of Baptists in
Africa. Despite their many differences, Africans share many of the same socio-economic realities, he said. In
addition, “Africans are generally and incurably religious,” Ishola said, a trait that permeates every facet of life,
and has “provided fertile soil for the Gospel to take root.”
Baptist work in Africa did not begin as intentional mission work, he said, but as freed slaves from British
colonies and the United States returned to colonize Sierra Leone (1792) and Liberia (1822). The Baptist presence
had little contact with indigenous peoples, however, who they considered inferior, Ishola said.
The migration of German and English settlers brought the Baptist witness to South Africa in the early 1800s,
but the exploitation of blacks by the white settlers and the resulting system of apartheid led to sharp divisions
among white and black Baptists that are just beginning to be healed, Ishola said.
The first missionary to Nigeria was Thomas Bowen, sent by the Southern Baptist Convention of the United
States in 1850. It was a painful irony, Ishola observed, that a convention begun because of its support for slavery
“set the pace in sending missionaries to the relatives of the slaves they were still keeping.”
When most of the American missionaries returned home during the American Civil War, Ishola said, national
Baptists assumed greater leadership, which led to discord when the missionaries returned.
Ishola noted a more recent round of conflict when Southern Baptist missionaries withdrew from their traditional
fields of work as the International Mission Board began its “New Directions” strategy. The loss of funding and
resources for cherished ministries was painful, Ishola said, but the experience ultimately helped African Baptists
grow and take more responsibility for their own future.
A lesson to be learned, Ishola emphasized, is that cooperative partnership that leads to self-sufficiency is a
more effective mission strategy than paternalism that leads to dependency.

LATIN AMERICA
Dinorah Méndez, of Mexican Baptist Seminary, spoke about Baptist growth and issues of concern in Latin
America, where Protestant mission work began with the arrival of Scotsman Diego Thompson in 1818. Beginning
in Argentina, Thompson distributed Bibles throughout Latin America as an agent of the British Bible Society.
Méndez reviewed the beginnings of Baptist mission work in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Chile,
and Argentina, emphasizing how early Latin American Baptists had to struggle for religious liberty because of the
entrenched nature of Catholicism in the area.
Following the Spanish conquests of the 16th century, Catholicism became deeply ingrained not only in the
culture, but in the government of Latin American countries. The lack of separation between church and state led
to intolerance and physical persecution of minority groups such as Baptists, Méndez said.
While some Baptists have hopes of better relations with the Catholic Church, Méndez said efforts at
rapprochement are generally led by those who have not experienced Catholicism in the Latin American context,
where such relations are viewed with greater distrust.
Conflict with Catholics cannot just be swept away, Méndez said: “We must keep alive an awareness of the
particularities of context, and how the struggle for religious liberty continues where the Catholic Church continues
to dominate.”
In response to restrictive governments and Catholic domination, Baptists’ belief in free will and congregational
government has fostered opportunities for freedom not experienced elsewhere, Méndez said, “an alternative
model from which many democratic ideals were nurtured.”
Méndez said Neo-Pentecostalism and post-denominationalism are present threats to the Baptist churches in
Latin America. In many churches, she said, Pentecostals have gained enough influence to lead congregations
away from their Baptist identity and from Baptist distinctives such as the separation of church and state.
Poverty, inequality, and religious confusion add to the challenges, Méndez said. Even so, Latin American
Baptists continue to grow and are becoming increasingly involved in sending out missionaries of their own.
Baptists’ 400th anniversary offers Latin American Baptists “an opportunity to recognize our history, to locate
ourselves in it, and to appreciate it as valuable,” she said.

NORTH AMERICA
Timothy George, dean of the Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama, in the United States, traced
four major themes in Baptist life through the four centuries Baptists have been present in North America.
The 17th century was marked by a struggle for liberty, George said. Though Puritans had been persecuted
in England, when they came to power in New England, they set up an “ecclesiocracy” and persecuted others,
whipping and even hanging those who proclaimed a gospel contrary to their own beliefs.
Roger Williams and other early Baptists were key voices in support of religious liberty, but the price of
religious freedom is eternal vigilance, George said. Massachusetts retained an established church until 1833,
and persecution continued in Virginia through the Revolutionary period.
(Continued on next page)

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