German Baptists Keep Strong ties with BWA to Play Key Mission Role in Eastern Europe

On the Annual National Assembly of the Baptist Union of Germany held in Cottbus from 19-23 May, almost 1,000 delegates from all over Germany gathered in the East German city of Cottbus. The assembly has become a time for the Baptist Union of Germany to confirm its tie with the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) and fellow Baptists around the world.

Since last December, the committee from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) recommended the withdrawal of its membership and funding from the BWA. SBC claimed that the reason behind this move is a “leftward drift” among BWA membership. International Baptists have reacted to this decision harshly.

The president of the German Baptist Union, Siegfried Grossmann, expressed that Baptists must affirm their democratic principles, and at the same time confess a common faith in Jesus Christ as sole Redeemer. However, despite that there may still be some differences in opinion over certain issues.

“In addition to those central articles of faith we hold in common (Christ alone, the Bible alone, our main task of mission and evangelism, the Church, and conversion), we also need the freedom and space to develop and represent various and different convictions.”

“It is our opinion that even though we recognise differences between the SBC and other conventions, we need to stay together in the BWA.We accept the fact that there can be differences of opinion in some questions but not about those questions that are necessary for salvation. For example, we may differ on the question of the ministry of women in the church, or one’s feelings towards the ecumenical movement.... We certainly would also expect that we accept one another mutually as brothers and sisters in spite of these differences, because otherwise our fellowship will suffer...” Grossmann commented.

He expressed his hope that the Baptist Union of Germany would express their hope and urged the SBC Convention in June to indeed vote to remain within the BWA.

According to Theo Angelov, the Gerneral Secretary of the European Baptist Federation, the BWA was the main voice for human rights and religious freedom when believers in Eastern Europe suffered under Communist regimes and that Southern Baptists were a part of building a "New Europe" after World War II and the fall of communism. He felt the strong need that SBC and the BWA should continue to love one another and maintain a good relationship to bring benefit to Europe.

In the annual report by Grossmann for the German Baptist Union, the victorious news was announced that the union has walked out of the darkness of crisis in leadership and finance in the past three years when the president, vice president, general secretary and the whole executive committee were replaced. Now a new executive team with himself as the president and Regina Claas as the general secretary has formed steadily.

These past few years, there has been a renewed emphasis on evangelism all over Germany, which has been welcomed by the union. New methods of evangelism have also been introduced. For example, a ministry to truckers has been started after seeing the increase of trucking across the European Union. The German Baptist evangelist, Joerg Swoboda, has written Gospel songs for the truckers and even sings them on a CD available for all. At the place where the assembly was held, Cottbus, all six Baptist churches in the area are very involved in programs of evangelism despite of its serious economic depression and unemployment.

In the midst of the meeting, the President of the Baptist Convention of South Africa, Christopher Dikana, and the President of the Union of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany, Siegfried Grossman, signed a partnership between the two Unions, supported by the African and German leaders including Regina Claas, German Baptist General Secretary.

The president said he was glad to see so many German Baptists and to learn of their intention of coming to Birmingham, England next year for the Centenary Congress of the BWA (July 27-31, 2005). He appreciated the history of the work of the union very much, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the union of 85,000 members contributed more than $23 million to build up and encourage Baptists in the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. He urged the German Baptist to continue to pray for their commission of being a key role to encourage and support Baptist work in Eastern Europe.