from the

General Secretary NEVILLE CALLAM

On Reading in Context

It is well known that great risks attend the process of interpreting texts that were written at a place and time when the interpreter was not present. Indeed, this seems to be partly the reason why the most recent report of the Baptist-Anglican “conversations” in England takes its present form. As Paul Fiddes states in his introduction to the report, Sharing the Faith at the Boundaries of Unity - Further Conversations between Anglicans and Baptists (2015):

Ecumenical reports frequently refer to ‘conversations’ between members of different communions. However, what they offer is not an account of the actual conversations themselves but a distilled account of their conclusions. Readers can often deduce what the cut and thrust of debate must have been that lies behind the ‘agreed statement’, but for the most part they have to guess at it.

Many Christians are aware of the challenges the hermeneutical process involves because, at one time or another, they have contended with their friends from other churches over portions of Scripture or events in the history of the church that have been interpreted in diverse ways across different Christian traditions over the years.

In the discussion of issues that arise in the life of global

ecclesial organizations the interpretation of what was agreed by persons working together in times and places where contemporary discussants were not present, and especially in cultural and historical circumstances that are unfamiliar, is another potential source of disagreement. This is one reason why the ministry of church historians is so critically important. Thankfully, Baptists are well represented within the existing pool of excellent church historians who, as interpreters, expect their work also to be interpreted.

The challenges inherent in the hermeneutical task come to mind when one critiques the way in which church organizations have organized their ministries over time. The BWA is a case in point.

By the 11th congress in Miami Beach, USA, in 1965, a

departmental structure was firmly in place with the recognition of the women’s, men’s and youth departments. By 1970, BWA had introduced five commissions. These were arranged around Baptist Doctrine; Christian Teaching and Training; Evangelism and Missions; Religious Liberty and Human Rights; and Cooperative Christianity. In 1971, BWA elected a Committee on Structural Changes

and Constitutional Revision, headed by David Syme Russell, a Scotsman who served as general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland (BUGBI) from 1967 to

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1982. Russell’s committee greatly influenced the BWA as it continued to expand its ministry. When, in 1974, a final vote was taken on the committee’s recommendations, the main focus of BWA’s ministry was centered on nodes within a divisional, instead of a departmental, framework. The intention was to focus on the calling of the church and to do so in a way that reflects the coherence of BWA’s mission. Based on BWA’s priorities, by 1975, BWA established four divisions, namely, Relief and Development; Study and Research; Communications;

and

Evangelism and Education. Baptists were not alone in organizing their global ministry into units called Divisions. That was the approach that the World Council of Churches (WCC), for example, adopted several years earlier. In 1954, the Second WCC Assembly in Evanston, USA, received and approved recommendations of the Central Committee concerning the structure and functioning of the Council. The proposed divisional structure was predicated on several considerations. It was noted that the WCC “is an organism rather than an organization;” that, during its early years, the Council had responded to emerging needs by “developing a new piece of organization” and that “coordination and integration” had been “achieved at the personal level rather than [through] strategic planning.” One consequence of this approach, the Central Committee reported, was “a serious lack of liaison between the departments and the Central Committee.” One of the recommendations aimed at overcoming this limitation was the gathering of a number of the departments under three divisions. Some seven years after

the divisional structure was

introduced, the WCC Central Committee reported to the Third WCC Assembly in New Delhi, India, in 1961. It declared: “There is general agreement that the Divisional structure has given much greater coherence to the work of the Council. There has also been, by this arrangement, real progress in collaboration between the Departments as they have come to know each other more intimately in the meetings of Divisional staff and Divisional committees.”

The primary concern that led to the adoption of a divisional

structure was the organization’s desire to fulfill its ministry by simply dividing it into various units that are integrally related to each other. The purpose was not to erect separate silos in which independent practitioners were contracted to carry out the