June 25, 2001
Carter urges CBF to 'forget' SBC
and forge new ministry partnerships
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___ATLANTA (ABP)--Former President Jimmy Carter urged estranged moderates to "forget" the conservative-led Southern Baptist Convention and form new partnerships to advance "traditional" Baptist views.
___Addressing a crowd estimated at 8,100 at the 10th anniversary general assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, America's most famous ex-Southern Baptist said June 29 in Atlanta it's time "for us to get together in a spirit of love" to maximize mission efforts.
___"I think the time has come for maybe CBF to take the leadership and for traditional Baptists to begin to reach out more aggressively to one another," said Carter, a lifelong Southern Baptist who recently announced he no longer identifies with views espoused by the nation's largest Protestant group.
___The 77-year-old former president, in his second address to a national CBF gathering, urged the Atlanta-based Fellowship to "reach out to other traditional Baptists" in the South and elsewhere "and form a coalition or partnership that would greatly strengthen what we could do."
___By combining efforts, Carter said, moderate-led groups could strengthen global missions and education of future ministers.
___"I think we could magnify our financial contributions, maybe triple," he predicted.
___ "If there are other Baptists who don't respond and don't want to cooperate, who cares? Forget them. Forget them and move on as Christians and as Baptists, just following Jesus," he said, in a veiled reference to the Southern Baptist Convention.
___Citing an unsuccessful effort he initiated through the Carter Center to ease tensions between conservative leaders of the SBC and estranged moderates, Carter observed that issues dividing the factions are "superficial things in the eyes of God."
___Carter revealed that he had since convened two more meetings of "moderate, or I prefer to call traditional," Baptists.
___ He said leaders from the CBF, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Baptist General Association of Virginia met recently to "discuss how we might find common ground on which we might form partnerships that would be more effective in carrying out the mandates of God."
___"We decided quite early that we would not attempt to combine or form any kind of convention or anything like that," Carter said. "We would just explore ways we could retain our full autonomy" while trying "to evolve a much more effective world mission in the eyes of God."
___Carter read a common statement he drafted at the group's request. It included belief in the authority and inspiration of Scripture as interpreted by the teachings and example of Jesus, that human statements of faith are fallible and shouldn't be used as creeds, the autonomy of the local church in matters such as selection of pastors and other leaders, the separation of church and state and respect for all people.
___Confessing "presumption on my part, not being a missionary, not being a pastor, never having studied theology," Carter described his vision for a traditional Baptist missions philosophy.
___"I believe what Christ did was not just to preach, but he ministered to people in such a fashion that they could not control their commitment to follow," he said.
___He cited an example from his own congregation, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., which sent out a missionary couple in 1976, the same year he was elected president.
___The missionaries, Jerome and Joanne Ethridge, eventually made their way to a remote location in northeast Togo that had few religious institutions of any kind within 80 miles.
___Carter said Jerome Ethridge, a farmer by trade, wasn't an articulate preacher but involved Baptist volunteers from North Carolina in drilling 167 wells for sanitary drinking water and building 21 ponds stocked with fish and a 230-foot concrete bridge to an area cut off by floods four months a year.
___When he visited the couple years later, Carter said, he found 5,000 Christian converts and 81 new churches in the same 80-mile area.
___"Because of the commitment of a man and woman who did things in a humble fashion, all in the name of Christ, people said, 'If Jerome and Joanne are Christians, I want to be a Christian,'" Carter said. "I think that's the kind of spirit that should permeate the growing number of members of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship."
___Prior to his remarks, Carter, who has received acclaim for work with Habitat for Humanity and in international affairs, accepted an award from the William Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society for faithfulness to Baptist identity and ideals.
___The award was named for a seminary president forced to resign in the early 20th century because his scholarship conflicted with popular views. Society President Marv Knox told Carter that while Whitsitt is still honored long after his death, his detractors are by now largely forgotten.
___"You're a William Whitsitt kind of Baptist, and on our best days we'd like to think we're a Jimmy Carter kind of Baptist," said Knox, editor of the Baptist Standard.
___About 5,100 people registered for the June 28-30 gathering held at the Georgia World Congress Center, setting an attendance record for the organization that formed in 1991 over differences with conservative leaders of the SBC.
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