BWA World Congress Resolution 1970.2

At Berlin in 1934, at Atlanta in 1939, at Copenhagen in 1947, at Cleveland in 1950, at London in 1955, at Rio de Janeiro in 1960, and at Miami Beach in 1965 the Baptist World Alliance registered its opposition to racial discrimination and its parent, racism, which is the evil of looking at men in terms of their differences of color or culture rather than their oneness as children of God. The fact that here again in Tokyo in 1970 we are obliged to address ourselves to this evil is evidence of how stubborn and deeply ingrained this prac-tice is in human thought and action.

We Baptists see any and all forms of racism as a repudiation of the teachings of Jesus Christ and as a failure to recognize that our Heavenly Father has created his children in diversity, willing that all share equally in his love, in regard for each other and in the blessings of the earth which are the gifts of his hand.

We Baptists lament the presence of and repent for the sins of racism that have existed, and still exist, in some of our own places of worship and in some of our respective communities and nations. We pledge ourselves to labor within our own churches, conventions, and unions and also in the whole of society for the total elimination of every vestige of racism and those discriminations and oppressions which are its offsprings.

Citations

Original Source Bibliography: Bryant, Cyril E., editor. Reconciliation Through Christ: Official Report of the Twelfth Congress, Tokyo, Japan, July 12-18, 1970. Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1971.

Original Source Footnote/Endnote: Cyril E. Bryant, ed., Reconciliation Through Christ: Official Report of the Twelfth Congress, Tokyo, Japan, July 12-18, 1970 (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1971), p. 252.

Online Document Full Citation: BWA World Congress Resolution 1970.2 Reconciliation and Racial Discrimination; https://baptistworld.org/resolutions.

In-text Online Document Citation: (BWA World Congress 1970.2).