Religion: Return of the Baptists

Fifty years ago, speakers at the first congress of the Baptist World Alliance pounded the rostrum in London’s massive, red brick Royal Albert Hall, predicted that the Alliance’s next meeting in London would find the world’s 6,000,000 Baptists doubled in number, London’s streets less congested, pubs banished and the Church of England separated from the state.

Last week some 9,000 Baptists from 60 countries drove through London’s congested streets, past hundreds of pubs and dozens of state-related Anglican churches, back to historic Royal Albert Hall for the first time in 50 years. There, as the Golden Jubilee Congress of the Baptist World Alliance opened, they learned that one prediction had come true beyond all expectations: since 1905, the number of Baptists has soared to more than 20 million, in one of the most phenomenal growths ever experienced by a major denomination.

Quick Answer. Delegates filled hotels, hostels and private homes; 400 youths camped in tents just outside London. Blue-robed Nigerians with pagan tribal scars mingled with costumed Finns and with Indians in colored voile gowns. As usual, the U.S. sent the biggest delegation : 4,000 men and women, hung with cameras, the men wearing broad-brimmed hats, bright neckties and, occasionally, cowboy boots. Great Britain provided 1,600 delegates, Canada 500, Germany 300. Nine Russian Baptists showed up (Russian Baptists have been missing from alliance congresses since 1928), but there were no delegates from other Iron Curtain countries or from Spain (Franco refused exit permits).

As head of the British Council of Churches, the Archbishop of Canterbury welcomed them all to Britain, immediately touched a Baptist sore spot by making a plea for “the drawing together of the Church of Christ in the ecumenical movement.” He got a quick answer from jovial, chubby Alliance President F. (for Fred) Townley Lord, a London pastor. Said Lord: “We decline to equate brotherly cooperation with sacrifice of essential principles . . . We do not share the views of those who talk about organizational division of Christendom as ‘sin.'”

Consistent Radicals. Herbert GeTork, president of Massachusetts’ Andover Newton Theological School, spelled out Baptist beliefs (authority of the Bible, fellowship of believers, necessity of evangelism), hailed Baptists as “the most consistent and radical Protestants.” When it came to resolutions, the congress:

¶Urged each Baptist to “make an honest effort to win at least one soul during the coming year for Jesus Christ.”

¶Passed, at the urging of Russian delegates, a warning about the danger of war and nuclear weapons.

¶Declared itself “unalterably opposed to racial discrimination in every form.”

¶ Resolved that “intolerant churches and systems of religious organization can be as grave a menace to liberty as governments . . .”

Surprise Nominee. Billy Graham drew the largest crowd of the week for the wind-up sermon, but the biggest business of the week was the election of new officers. Most delegates took it for granted that the Rev. Louie De Votie Newton, vociferous Alliance vice president and past president of the Southern Baptist Convention of the U.S.A., would get the president’s job. Instead, it went to a surprise nominee: Theodore Floyd Adams, 56, Yankee-born (Palmyra, N.Y.) and Ohio-educated (Denison) pastor of the powerful, prosperous First Baptist Church in Richmond, Va. Bearded Russian Jacob Zhidkov was elected one of nine vice presidents.

Adams became the fourth Southern Baptist president of the Alliance out of nine, and his election brought to the surface a problem that no one dared mention officially: the rift between Northern and Southern Baptists in the U.S. Said a Northern minister: “There’s nothing we can do about it. They run this thing.” A Negro minister was more outspoken: “Those Southern Baptists sleep like rabbits—with their eyes open. I don’t look to the Alliance helping us so long as Southern Baptists have control.”A youth worker lamented that “Baptists get along well with Baptists on the other side of the world, but not so well with Baptists next door.”

Cool Braeze. Serious, soft-spoken Ted Adams obviously faced some difficult problems right on his own back doorstep, but in many ways he was ideally suited to meet them. Neither he nor his church seemed typically Southern Baptist. Since he became pastor in 1936, Adams has more than doubled its membership, introduced a quiet, conversational type of preaching that breaks over hell-fired Southern Baptists like a cool breeze.

His new task is to make the marriage of all Baptist unions succeed. He promised to strengthen “unity among Baptists the world over,” accepted an invitation to make a tour of Russia with three other Baptist ministers. “We will tell Baptists in Russia,” he said, “about Baptists in the rest of the world. This is typical of the kind of journey I will make in the next five years.”