Joint Future:


On the Way to a Uniting Church By Karin Wiborn


O


ne hundred and fifty to 200 years ago there was a strong spiritual movement in Sweden, at that time a society that was poor and oppressed. The Church of Sweden, at the time a state-church, partly joined with the oppressors. There were strong reactions against the injustice and different movements to make a change were formed. Among these were religious movements, including the Baptist Union of Sweden (BUS), formed in 1848, the Methodist Church, founded in 1868, and the Mission Covenant Church, founded in 1878. In time, the Church of Sweden went through some changes


and the ecumenical movement started. One of the outstanding leaders was former archbishop in the Church of Sweden, Nathan Söderblom, who invited all churches to an ecumenical meeting in Uppsala in 1925.


During my lifetime, ecumenism has been the everyday


experience of most churches in Sweden. Relationships with other churches have always been an issue faced by Baptists. To whom should we relate? Baptists in Sweden endured two painful splits between 1907 and 1930 when what became the Pentecostals and Interact broke away. But the movement toward forming uniting or united churches


gained momentum each year, and the eagerness for unity was growing. An increasing number of local congregations were joining together. When I began as general secretary of the BUS in 2003, nothing concrete had emerged from various movements and discussions toward unity. We had spent a lot of time engaging in theological dialogues and other forms of cooperation. Starting in 1992, our pastors were trained at the Stockholm School of Theology alongside those of the Mission Covenant Church, and the two church bodies jointly published a magazine. Both youth groups were close to a merger. Important steps toward unity were indeed being taken. The boards of the BUS, the Mission Covenant Church and


the Methodist Church decided to meet for prayer and dialogue, seeking the will of God, sharing our visions for the future, how to live the gospel, and the best way of supporting the local churches. We talked about how we could relate closely with and respect each other despite our theological and other differences. The question was whether our differences were so large that we had to live separately. In the spring of 2006 six of us from the three church bodies


went to Toscana in Italy to seek the mind of Christ on these particular issues through prayer and reflection. We had a powerful experience that led us to deepen our prayers for each other and the denominations we served. We decided to place our proposals for a merger before the local churches. We drew on work done by others who came before us, including on Joint Faith, which was published in 1995. From there the seed germinated until it became a fully grown plant.


Karin Wiborn is general secretary of the Christian Council


of Sweden and former general secretary of the Baptist Union of Sweden


JULY/SEPTEMBER 2012 23 H


The Scourge of Human Trafficking


uman trafficking is a growing crime that “involves an act or recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring


or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means for the purpose of exploiting them,” as stated by the United Nations Office on Drugs & Crime. Those who are trafficked are forced into the sex industry or other types of compulsory labor. These people are often women and children from marginalized situations. Lauran Bethell, human trafficking expert and recipient


of the Baptist World Alliance 2005 Human Rights Award at the Baptist World Congress in Birmingham, England, presented a paper on the subject at the 2011 meeting of the BWA Commission on Social and Environmental Justice. Bethell reported that human trafficking is the “exploitation of vulnerability”


related to three factors:


economic


hardship, childhood sexual abuse and grooming. Grooming occurs when individuals are targeted and manipulated into prostitution after emotional and/or financial dependency is created. Bethell also emphasized that human trafficking only occurs because there is a market for it. Due to the subversive nature of this crime, it is difficult to ascertain exactly how many individuals are victims of human trafficking. Many instances of human trafficking go undetected by authorities because it is kept secret or goes unprosecuted owing to law enforcement corruption. Citizens encountering the act may turn a blind eye because they do not recognize the seriousness of what is happening or even because they do not value the dignity of the persons involved. Over the past several years, the plight of those who


have been trafficked has been highlighted in the news and awareness of the widespread nature of this type of human rights violation has grown. At the 2007 BWA Annual Gathering in Accra, Ghana, the General Council called for “freedom for the 27 million still trapped in modern-day slavery across the world.” The BWA, through its Division of Freedom and


Justice, is committed to working to eradicate this crime and has developed and maintains a database of grassroots organizations and individuals actively working to end human trafficking. This database will help connect and develop ongoing efforts within the global Baptist family and foster collaboration among those serving at-risk persons in their region of the world. The BWA has also strengthened its involvement in collaborative United Nations’ efforts to end trafficking.


This human rights issue is a crucial one for both the church and secular society as we join together in both recognizing the violation and exploitation of the most vulnerable members of the global community and calling for cessation of this crime. To report any grassroots Baptist efforts, or to have your group included in the aforementioned database, please contact the BWA Division of Freedom and Justice at fandj@bwanet.org.


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