c. 1999 Religion News Service

ATLANTA _ Meeting intentionally in churches where the sermons and speeches of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. stirred a generation to protest, Baptist leaders from across the globe ended a four-day summit Monday (Jan. 11) pledging to oppose racism and ethnic conflict in the United States and abroad.

Over the course of the meeting, King’s”I Have a Dream”speech _ delivered at the 1963 March on Washington and which became the most famed summary of the martyred leader’s hopes for racial equality _ was pointed to as a model and agenda for Baptist conventions and unions around the globe.”What the world needs, what the churches need, what Baptist churches need are new dreamers,”said the Rev. Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, the fellowship of 192 Baptist groups that sponsored the meeting.

Urging the congregation of pastors and lay people to dream of racial harmony and the end of ethnic conflict, Lotz asked,”Are you willing to go back home and be a dreamer?” Baptists, known for their invitations to the altar for converts to the faith, were then called to the altar of Ebenezer Baptist Church _ where King served as co-pastor with his father _ to declare their commitment to the principles of a declaration hammered out during the summit’s last day.”Racism and ethnic conflict are a denial of the Gospel and a hindrance to mission and evangelism,”the Atlanta Covenant reads.”Those men and women who practice racism or harbor racist thoughts not only deny the Gospel of Christ but put their own fellowships in danger for they neglect the Christ of the Gospels and deny the unity for which Christ died.” The service of commitment capped a meeting that featured testimonies of Baptists from Croatia to Nagaland, India, who have worked in areas of deep ethnic conflict.

Summit participants, for example, were urged by the only full-time aboriginal Baptist minister in Australia to affirm native peoples of that continent and listened to his son play the digeridoo, a long, hollowed-out log with a deep, resonant sound accompanied by the rhythmic beating of clapsticks.

In plenary sessions, the 200 people who attended the summit were addressed by civil rights leader C.T. Vivian; former President Jimmy Carter, the honorary chair of the BWA’s Special Commission of Baptists Against Racism; and Coretta Scott King, King’s widow.”We must make sure that all of the hierarchies of our churches and organizations reflect the diversity we seek in the pews,”King said, greeting summit delegates gathered Sunday at the Morehouse College chapel named in honor of her husband.”We must strengthen our educational outreach to teach young people about the critical importance of tolerance as a Christian value. And we must do a better job of incorporating the symbols and traditions of many cultures into our worship services, sermons and prayers.” In small group meetings, the delegates gathered in sections of the sanctuary of Wheat Street Baptist Church to discuss practical ways they could encourage their congregations to work toward racial justice through evangelism, economic development and the images that surround them in churches and Sunday school literature.

One group grappled with the predominance of white depictions of Jesus, pointing to the stained-glass windows and paintings erected in the early 1900s at Wheat Street Baptist, a predominantly black church just up the street from Ebenezer Baptist that also was a major contributor to the civil rights movement.

Some in the group agreed there is a need for more diverse presentations of the Christian message in art and music.”I am not against that,”said the Rev. Horace Russell, dean of the chapel at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., pointing to the painting of the Last Supper as his small group sat in the Wheat Street Baptist sanctuary.”I think it is as legitimate as any other painting,”said Russell, who is from Jamaica.”This is legitimate but this it not the only legitimate thing.” Others thought the color of Jesus’ skin should be de-emphasized and his gospel message to all, instead, should be stressed.”We’re focusing on the color of the body in that time and place but are we missing the incarnational truth of the whole event, that in Christ we have God with us?”asked the Rev. David Hoke, a Southern Baptist pastor from Voorhees, N.J.”The point is that Jesus came for me, he came for you, he came for everybody, whatever color, whatever nationality.” In the end, the Atlanta Covenant concluded:”We recognize that the almost exclusive use of white images of Jesus has limited our understanding of and witnessing to the incarnation.”It also urged that churches encourage their publishing entities to use multiracial images in worship and educational materials and strive to celebrate communion with congregations of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The declaration also recommended training church leaders in racial justice and reconciliation, the economic partnering of Baptist churches in developed nations with churches in developing countries and the affirmation of indigenous people.

While voicing appreciation for the international mission work of Baptists, the Atlanta statement also said”racism has tainted these efforts, and expressed itself in the form of paternalism, and the manipulation of resources has caused much pain and frustration.” The declaration, which concludes with a call for Baptist groups to endorse”A Decade to Promote Racial Justice”by working to reduce racism and ethnic conflict, will be presented to the general council of the Baptist World Alliance in Dresden, Germany, in July. If approved, the decade is expected to be observed starting in the year 2000.

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The Rev. Wallace Charles Smith, chairman of the alliance’s special commission dealing with racism and ethnic conflict, acknowledged it was challenging to address the gamut of issues involving racism and ethnic conflict in one meeting, but said many participants left with new awareness of the bias faced by aboriginal people in Australia and Brazilians of African descent.”Although the expressions of racism are going to be much different around the world, the basic instinct that any one human being is superior before God to another is fundamentally the same around the world,”said Smith, senior minister of Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

While some delegates attending the summit were optimistic the rhetoric of the meeting would turn into action in the individual churches they represent, others wondered how their work could be measured.

Ira Whitfield, a laywoman from Chicago and a member of the National Baptist Convention of America, said she was struck by how open delegates were about the”guilt and the hurt”of racism.”But … where do we go from here?”she said.”You still feel that there are two people here rather than one … I think now that it’s on the table, I hope that they will just pray and work within our local (churches) because if we don’t deal with it at home, we’re going to be doing the same thing ’til Jesus comes.” DEA END BANKS