wfn.org | Alliance of Baptists Received into NCC membership

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Note #6272 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

17-November-2000
00416

Alliance of Baptists Received into NCC membership		
by Bill Lancaster

ATLANTA -- The National Council of Churches (NCC) General Assembly Thursday
received an organization of former Southern Baptists into membership by
unanimous vote.

	The Alliance of Baptists, founded in 1987, is a group of "progressive or
even liberal Baptists, none of whom are any longer connected to the Southern
Baptists," according to Stan Hastey, the organization's executive director.

	While not the first Baptist organization to affiliate with the NCC, the
Alliance of Baptists is the first "predominately southern-based and
predominately white group of Baptists to have applied for membership,"
Hastey said.

	Hastey told the NCC delegates,  "Many you of you know that we were born in
the white heat of controversy within the Southern Baptist Convention, a
controversy rooted in authoritarianism of an extreme type which continues to
manifest itself in all kinds of ways. I was reminded of that yesterday
during Jim Wallis' presentation when he declared, 'I see churches dropping
their gang colors.'

	"That is what we have done."

	Small by Baptist standards, the Alliance includes 130 churches.  They are
located primarily along the eastern seaboard from Maryland to Florida, plus
Texas. The Alliance requested membership after being invited to do so by
former NCC General Secretary Joan Brown Campbell and two years of committee
study.

	 The membership at large endorsed the action at their annual convocation. 

	Other Baptist conventions already affiliated with the NCC are American
Baptist Churches in the USA, National Baptist Convention of America, Inc.,
National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., National Missionary Baptist
Convention of America, and Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.

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