New Baptist Covenant - Assessments

Assessments

The four largest of the predominantly African-American Baptist conventions began meeting jointly in recent years. They plan to do so again in early 2008 and then join with other Baptists a few days later for the "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant."

The general secretary of the American Baptist Churches USA said this vision of Baptists coming together could encourage American Baptists soured by their denomination's fragmentation over homosexuality.

The national coordinator of the Atlanta-based Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), a quasi-denomination that emerged from the recent moderate/fundamentalist controversy said the Carter initiative fills a need for "a broader Baptist witness that is committed to social justice as well as evangelism."

The New Baptist Covenant will be a "re-claiming of Baptist heritage," according to a statement from the Baptist Joint Committee. Further, it will be "a commitment to working cooperatively, being agreeable in our disagreements, and honoring historic Baptist tenets of soul freedom and religious liberty."

The 2008 "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant" is not expected to create a new denomination or political coalition. However, planners hope it will inspire collaboration around evangelism and social causes, drawing together an even larger coalition of Baptists from the North and South, the U.S. and Canada, and predominantly black and predominantly white conventions and fellowships. Advocates of the New Baptist Covenant predicted it will help heal the racial divide that has separated Baptists in America since before the American Civil War.

Carter and Clinton—both raised Southern Baptist—announced the groups had committed to put aside more than a century and a half of social and theological differences to unite behind an agenda of compassionate ministry. Though the former presidents are both Democrats, Republican Baptists are expected to attend next year's nonpartisan gathering as well. The program chairman said there would definitely be Republican speakers in the plenary session.

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is not involved in the New Baptist Covenant, have dismissed the event as merely another chance for disgruntled moderate and liberal Baptists to express their disapproval and contempt for the more conservative SBC. Some also have pointed to the event’s election-year timing and Clinton and Carter’s involvement as evidence it is designed to stir up Baptist support for Democrats—and especially the presidential bid of Clinton’s wife, Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.