Baptist Briefs
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Churches leave SBC. The 1,000-member First Baptist Church of High Point, N.C., has joined the ranks of churches to leave the Southern Baptist Convention over doctrinal differences. The historic church voted Aug. 9 to amend its constitution to end ties to the SBC. Pastor Bill Slater told the Greensboro News & Record a key issue in the vote was recent changes to the SBC's Baptist Faith & Message statement that church members view as encroaching on the autonomy of the local church. Also this summer, the 176-year-old First Baptist Church of Columbia, Mo., took similar action July 30, ending ties with the SBC while remaining part of American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Alliance of Baptists.
___ Congo pastors get help. Displaced pastors of the Baptist Community in Central Africa have received help in war-torn Congo from Baptist World Aid, the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance. The Baptist convention has lost or has been compelled to close 25 schools, 12 health centers and 50 congregations in North and South Kivu provinces.
___ Thousands respond in Sierra Leone. More than 11,500 people--thousands of Muslims among them--made public decisions for Christ in April when an evangelistic campaign was conducted in war-ravaged Sierra Leone. A team of 27 evangelists from International Crusades and the International Mission Board joined churches of the Baptist Convention of Sierra Leone to witness to victims of war in Freetown. "A simultaneous outpouring of God's Spirit was reported by evangelism teams in every location where visitation and crusade meetings were being held," said Southern Baptist missionary Ron Hill.
___ French anti-sect proposal protested. Baptists in France are keeping a close watch on an anti-sect law approved by the French National Assembly in June and which goes to the Senate for approval in September. While freedom to proclaim the gospel has not yet been affected, the bill has made the religious situation in France, a predominantly Roman Catholic country, more difficult for the minority Protestant groups and other groups, which have been labeled as sects. The genesis of the bill is the fear in France of groups such as the Order of the Solar Temple, whose members committed suicide in Canada, Switzerland and France in 1994 and 1995.
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