Baptist Figures Honored & Memorialized
the USA,” Garrett said. McCall registered “an astonishing chain of achievements in rapid succession” and “brokered important agreements bodies.”
with other denominational
Garrett recalled McCall’s presidency of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and SBTS. McCall opened the doors of SBTS to African American and women students “in opposition to prevailing views.” Under McCall’s leadership, the SBTS facilitated the integration of black students when it was still illegal to do so under Kentucky law. As head of the BWA McCall “has left a strong footprint” as “a global leader with an expansive vision of the role Baptists should play in the world,” said Garrett. Garrett cited
including God’s Hurry, which called for worldwide evangelistic
books by McCall, outreach, and
Passport to the World, written with W. A. Criswell after a globe-hopping trip at the behest of the BWA, appealing to
DUKE MCCALL
the foremost proponent of the globally recognized just peacemaking theory in matters of war and conflict and was hailed as “arguably the leading Baptist peace theorist-activist of the twentieth century” whose “influence is felt well beyond the confines of the Baptist family.” He was described as a fearless advocate who, for more than 50 years, engaged
GLEN STASSEN
J. DEOTIS ROBERTS
Roberts, who turns 86 in 2013, has taught at Howard Divinity School, Yale University, Duke University, and Eastern (now Palmer)
Theological Interdenominational Seminary.
He held the presidency of the American Theological
Association and of the Theological Center
in Atlanta, Georgia. He was founder and president of the J. Deotis Roberts Research Library and Institute and of the Foundation for Religious and Educational Exchange. Black
religious communities, civil society and governments in human rights, justice and peacemaking issues. he was involved in nonviolent campaigns for peace and human rights in countries such as the former East Germany, Kazakhstan and South Korea, and regions such as Central America, Eastern Europe and Southern Africa. Declared as a tireless campaigner who participated
in anti-nuclear across the world and negotiated
various governments to allow American missionaries.
Present at the session was McCall’s son, attorney at law Duke McCall, Jr., who conveyed the thanks of the McCall family. McCall died on April 2 this year. He was 98 years old.
GLen STASSen Peace Activist
Glen Stassen, the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics
at Fuller
Theological Seminary in California in the United States, was presented with the 2013 Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award during the Annual Gathering. The award is given for significant
and effective activities to secure, protect, restore or preserve human rights as stated in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other declarations on human rights.
Stassen was recognized for his longtime role as a peace activist. He was lauded as
campaigns the
disarming and removal of short and middle range nuclear weapons from Europe, he led
organizations such as the Strategy
Committee of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and the Arms Race and the International Conflict Committee of the Louisville Area Council on Peacemaking. The BWA cited Stassen as an outstand-
ing intellectual, a respected mentor and a committed Baptist Christian. He has led and held membership in a wide ranging number of academic, peacemaking, and denominational institutions and organiza- tions, including the BWA where, over a number of decades, he has held member- ship on various commissions, including the Commission on Peace.
J. DeOTIS ROBeRTS, Pioneer of Black Theology
The Baptist World Alliance held a session during its Annual Gathering on J. Deotis Roberts and passed a resolution in his honor. Roberts was lauded for his pioneering work as a seminary school professor, theologian, peacemaker, activist, and as a pioneer of Black Theology.
theology took shape in the context of the Black Power movement in the United States in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement leadership organized its work around nonviolent civil disobedience and the passing of legislation. The slow pace of change, the to equal rights
violent opposition for African Americans,
and the temperament of younger African Americans combined to offer a formidable challenge to the style and substance of the Civil Rights movement. Black Power proponents challenged
the active and passive complicity of Anglo American and many African American churches that supported and strengthened racial discrimination. The critique and the significance of the Black Power movement demanded a response from the church. J. Deotis Roberts and James Cone were the seminal theologians offering critique and construction to help the church to be the body of Christ more faithfully in a racially segregated context. At the session, Samuel
Roberts,
David Goatley and Noel Erskine offered various insights on the life and work of Roberts to bring to light glimpses of the depth and breadth of his work. Samuel Roberts, the Anne Borden and E. Hervey Evans Professor of Theology and Ethics offered a methodological analysis of the ethical contribution of Roberts. Goatley, executive
secretary-treasurer of Lott
Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society and a protégé of Roberts, presented a theological methodological perspective of Roberts’ theology and its contemporary contribution toward breaking barriers and building communities across theological, cultural, and religious divides. Erskine, a protégé of James Cone, provided a critique of Roberts’ early theology of reconciliation
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Jason Coobs, SBTS