c. 2003 Religion News Service

VIENNA, Va. _ The Alliance of Baptists has approved a proposed ecumenical agreement with the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) that would foster greater cooperation between the groups’ leaders, congregations and seminaries.

Alliance Executive Director Stan Hastey urged the approval in an address just before the vote Friday (April 25).

“We have a historic opportunity to give living testimony to our mutual commitment to the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer, `that they may all be one,”’ he said, addressing about 200 attendees at the business session of his group’s annual convocation at Vienna Baptist Church.

The proposal must still be approved by the other bodies when they meet later this year.

The alliance, meeting for its 17th convocation, grew out of a protest of the conservative leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention and is now a member of the National Council of Churches.

Hastey said the alliance has been in dialogue with the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal mainline Protestant denominations, for six years. The Disciples joined the conversation two years ago.

“This proposed ecumenical agreement was not something dreamed up by the participating denominations,” Hastey said. “Rather it came up from local settings in which UCC, Disciples and alliance people began to find each other and explore the possibility of a joint Christian witness in their communities.”

He cited examples of a Florida congregation formed from the merger of a Baptist church and a UCC church and the creation of a Baptist studies program jointly supported by the Disciples and the alliance at the Disciples-affiliated Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas.

The proposed agreement suggests that progressive Baptist seminaries offer courses on the history of the UCC and the Disciples. It also encourages collaboration on the congregational level, for such activities as worship and fellowship, and on the leadership level for developing educational resources and camp and mission opportunities for children and youth.

The Rev. Lydia Veliko, ecumenical officer for the United Church of Christ, has been a primary facilitator of the dialogue among the groups.

“Our hope as a dialogue team is that the mission and ministry of our churches, especially our local churches, will be enhanced by our pastors, our lay leaders, our churches finding each other and recognizing that we can strengthen each other,” she told Religion News Service.

They anticipate the interest on the local level in cooperation will extend throughout the various entities of the three groups, including regional divisions and seminaries.

The ecumenical proposal was one of several documents adopted during the alliance’s convocation.

The group of progressive Baptists also approved statements concerning Muslim-Christian and Jewish-Christian relations. In those documents, the alliance confessed “sins of indifference and inaction” concerning “horrors” against Muslims by non-Muslims since the time of the Crusades as well as against Jews during the Holocaust. The alliance pledged to renounce interpretations of Scripture that foster prejudice and stereotyping against Muslims and Jews, respectively.

The alliance also adopted a statement on Cuba objecting to the way the U.S. State, Justice and Homeland Security departments handled travel visas for Cuban Baptists invited to the annual convocation.

“Leaders of groups such as the Fraternity of Baptist Churches of Cuba and officially designated members of its churches invited by the alliance and its affiliated congregations should be granted travel visas without being treated as potential terrorists,” the statement said.

Hastey told RNS that one of five of the Cubans invited to the meeting was granted a travel visa.

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