Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists

The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (AWAB) is a group consisting of Baptist individuals, organizations, and congregations that are committed to advocating and encouraging the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in the lives and ministries of Baptist churches. It is one of many LGBT-welcoming church movements to emerge in American Christianity beginning in the 1980s.

AWAB was established by about ten congregations in 1993 during that year's ABCUSA Biennial in San Jose, California. It grew out of a group called American Baptists Concerned for Sexual Minorities, which was founded in 1972 and which merged with AWAB in 2003.

As of 2012 AWAB had 76 member congregations. These congregations are affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA, the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, the Alliance of Baptists, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the United Church of Christ. Informal partners of AWAB include the Roger Williams Fellowship, the Coalition for Baptist Principles, and Baptists without Borders. In addition to the member congregations and informal partner organizations, AWAB has a number of local affiliated groups, member organizations, one member seminary and thousands of Friends around the world. Beyond Baptist circles, AWAB cooperates ecumenically with welcoming and affirming organizations in other Christian denominations and faith traditions.

AWAB is a partner in the Institute of Welcoming Resources and publishes an electronic newsletter, "Welcoming Spirit." The national offices of AWAB are in Kensington, MD.

Famous quotes containing the words association, affirming and/or baptists:

    ... a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself cannot stand upon it.
    Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)

    The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin—and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.
    Václav Havel (b. 1936)

    [T]he Congregational minister in a neighboring town definitely stated that ‘the same spirit which drove the herd of swine into the sea drove the Baptists into the water, and that they were hurried along by the devil until the rite was performed.’
    —For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)