BWA World Congress Resolution 1939.2

This Baptist World Congress has learned with satisfaction that, through the action of the Prime Minister, the Rumanian Baptist Churches, which were last year closed as the effect of repressive administrative orders issued by the Minister of Cults, have throughout the larger part of the land been re-opened. The Congress has also learned of the issue of a new administrative decree whose terms are less severe than those of earlier decrees.

The Congress, while recognizing the comparatively sympathetic approach to the problem now made by the Rumanian Government, is nevertheless constrained to point out that the new administrative decree, so far as its contents are known, appears to be unacceptable, inasmuch as the exercise of control by a Government Department of the internal affairs of the churches is in itself a violation of the principle of religious freedom. Furthermore, the entirely false principle that the freedom and rights of Christian Churches are dependent upon their numerical strength is embodied in the new decree. The Congress endorses the resolution of the Baptist World Alliance adopted on September 16th, 1938, and expresses its earnest hope that the Royal Government of Rumania will, in the immediate future, establish full religious freedom and grant to the Baptist Communion throughout the whole country the legal status of a recognized cult.

Citations

Original Source Bibliography: J. H. Rushbrooke, J. H., editor. Sixth Baptist World Congress Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., July 22-28, 1939. Atlanta: The Baptist World Alliance, 1939.

Original Source Footnote/Endnote: J. H. Rushbrooke, ed., Sixth Baptist World Congress Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., July 22-28, 1939 (Atlanta: The Baptist World Alliance, 1939), pp. 14-15.

Online Document Full Citation: BWA World Congress Resolution 1939.2 Rumania; https://baptistworld.org/resolutions.

In-text Online Document Citation: (BWA World Congress Resolution 1939.2).