Participants visited the Christuskirche (Methodist) where they were met by Superintendent Gabriel Straka. Earlier in the week the group traveled to Wittenberg, where there are preparations for the 500th

anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant

Reformation. In Wittenberg they visited the Reformation museum and the Castle Church where Luther posted his 95 theses in 1517. The fourth dialogue session will consider the theme, “The Call to Discipleship,” and will be held in February 2017 in Kingston, Jamaica. The BWA delegation comprised dialogue Co-chair Curtis

M

BAPTISTS AND METHODISTS Hold Third Dialogue Session in Germany

embers of the Baptist World Alliance and the World Methodist Council (WMC) met February 3 to 10 at the

Elstal Theological Seminary near Berlin, Germany, in the third session of the international theological dialogue between the two Christian World Communions. The overall theme of the dialogue is Faith Working through

Love. The theme of the dialogue this time centered on “Making Disciples: Baptism and Christian Initiation.” Participants discussed two Bible studies by distinguished

New Testament scholars – Romans 6 by Carsten Claussen of the Baptist School of Theology at Elstal; and Matthew 28, led by Walter Klaiber, Methodist Bishop Emeritus. The dialogue reflected on historical, theological, liturgical and ecumenical perspectives on baptism and the process of Christian initiation. It received reports on baptismal practice among Baptists and Methodists in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Dialogue members participated in Sunday worship at the

Schöneberg Baptist Church in Berlin where they witnessed the baptism of 11 new Christians. They were joined for lunch and conversation with Michael Noss and Christoph Stiba, president and general secretary, respectively, of the of the Union of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany (BEFG); Rosemarie Wenner, bishop of the United Methodist Church in Germany; and Michael Kisskalt, rector of the Elstal School of Theology.

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 at the Department of Religious Studies, University of Ibadan in Nigeria; and Valérie Duval- Poujol, professor of Biblical Exegesis at the Catholic Institute of Paris, and supervisor of the revision of the French Bible, Francais Courant, for the French Bible society. Other Baptists were 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; R. L. Hnuni, principal of Calcutta Bible Seminary in Kolkata, India; and Fausto Vasconcelos, BWA director of Mission, Evangelism and Theological Reflection, who serves as co-secretary. Uwe Swarat, professor at the Elstal Theological Seminary, presented a paper on Baptist doctrine as reflected in worldwide theological conversations. Methodist

representatives were dialogue Co-chair Tim

Macquiban, director of the Methodist Ecumenical Office in Rome and pastor of the Ponte Sant`Angelo Methodist Church in Rome; Co-secretary 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 of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas and superintendent of the Western St. Andrew Circuit; Lauren Claire Matthew, Methodist minister in the Durban South Circuit of the Methodist Church in Southern Africa, and president of the Youth and Young Adult Committee of the WMC; Ulrike Schuler, professor for Church History, Methodism, and Ecumenism at the Reutlingen School of Theology in Germany; and Malcolm Tan, pastor, Covenant Community Methodist Church in Singapore, and training consultant, Methodist Missions Society Singapore.

Above left: A worship service attended by delegates attending the BWA-Methodist dialogue in Germany

Below: BWA and Methodist participants in the 2016 theological dialogue in Germany