The following are excerpts of a report submitted by General Secretary Neville Callam to the BWA Executive Committee

for Regional Fellowships (Federations).” The changes were predicated on the regional fellowships as “primarily expressions of the Alliance” that should “refl ect the objectives of the Alliance within their geographical region” while not being “intermediaries between member bodies and the Alliance.” In March 2009, I convened a consultation on the subject of

BWA’s relation to the regions. Since the Santiago Gathering in 2012, I initiated a process involving all the regional secretaries, to secure convergence, if not consensus, around a profi le of the role of the regional secretaries that would have implications for an understanding of the relation of the BWA and the regions. In my opinion, the

problems associated with BWA’s BWA and the Regions L

ike the BWA, the six regional groupings have the vocation to give expression to “the essential oneness of Baptist people” on what is commonly referred to as a continental

basis. Forty-fi ve years after the inaugural Baptist World Congress in 1905, the European Baptist Federation (EBF) was launched in October 1950. Fifteen years later, the North American Baptist Fellowship (NABF) was formed, after vigorous debate among North Americans. The Caribbean Baptist Fellowship was formally constituted in

1970, followed by the Asian Baptist Fellowship (now Asia Pacifi c Baptist Federation) in 1972 and the All Africa Baptist Fellowship (AABF) in 1982. The effort to launch a Baptist Union of Latin America (UBLA) gathered momentum when Baptists within the region met in Rio de Janeiro in 1930, but the inaugural UBLA assembly was held in September 1976. It was the BWA Congress in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1975

that approved the establishment of “regional or continental subdivisions on a world scale.” Yet, when he presented his report to the Executive in March 1983, BWA General Secretary Gerhard Claas found it necessary to note that “Regional Fellowships [would] strengthen Baptist ties on the various continents… However, they [could] never serve as a substitute for BWA.” He concluded that what was needed was for BWA to “structure the relation between the BWA and the Region.” I applaud the tireless efforts made by two former BWA general

secretaries, Gerhard Claas (1980-1988) and Denton Lotz (1988- 2007) to deal with the thorny issue of BWA’s regionalization. During their time of service, consideration of matters concerning the relation of the BWA and the regions led to a number of signifi cant constitutional changes. For example, the Toronto Congress in 1980 introduced the term “regional

secretary”

to replace the term “associate secretary.” At the Los Angeles Congress in 1985, changes were made “to clarify relations with the regional fellowship” and, at the Korea Congress in 1990, further constitutional changes were made to clarify the “Basis

from Duke University in North Carolina. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Duke University, Columbia University, the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic. He taught for 20 years at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

regionalization have their genesis in the limitations of popular Baptist ecclesiology, which does not manifest any appreciable capacity to treat convincingly with relationships beyond the local, that is, the congregational, level. I welcome the research being undertaken by Ian Birch of the

Scottish Baptist College and the suggestion he has put forward that may help rehabilitate what may be termed the traditional understanding of an inherent value in Baptist ecclesiology. Birch discusses what he calls “the intentional organization of a network of churches by which Particular Baptists related to one another [in the United Kingdom during the period 1640-1660].” He offers what I would characterize as prudential and theological reasons for what he calls “the organic, instinctive impulse towards networking that is characteristic of translocal Baptist ecclesiology.” Even if we grant that Birch has proved his point, the

contemporary emphasis on the autonomy of the local church, variously understood, has trumped any suggestion of a dominant theology of associational communion among most Baptists. Consider, for example, the

observations outstanding

British Baptist scholar John Briggs made on the subject of the ecclesiology of the Baptist World Alliance. Briggs asserted that: “Fundamental to the life of the Alliance must be a sense of mutual need of one another.” On the question of BWA’s ecclesial standing, however, Briggs had this to say: I am not sure how far a church model for wider Baptist

fellowships beyond the local association/national union is possible. Should we look for alternative models? That is to say, rather than thinking of the BWA as local church writ large, would it be better to think of it in terms of a rather special kind of missionary/mutual-assistance society? Is a societal model more appropriate than a church one? In such a model, the terms of commitment can be more precisely defi ned by the terms of membership and participation, and functional purpose can be more clearly spelt out, and issues of ecclesiology per se, though not of mission imperative, put to one side. Seen in the light of Briggs’ remarks, the problems associated

with BWA regionalization can hardly be understood to admit of an easily available solution ecclesiologically. However, the further incorporation of the regional secretaries into the organized life of the BWA, together with the anticipated return of the vice presidents to the BWA Executive Committee, should strengthen the connection between BWA, the regions and the BWA member bodies. [They represent an attempt to respond to] demanding theological and existential problems related to our internal life as an organization.

APRIL/JUNE 2013 17