We are pleased to share with you the entire set of Resolutions, Manifestos, Messages and Proclamations approved by delegates attending the Baptist World Alliance World Congresses from 1905 through 2015 (the 2020 Congress was postponed to 2021 due to the global pandemic).
Additionally, we are offering the Resolutions and Manifestos approved by the BWA General Council, which meets yearly. The online collection includes the years 1976-2019. The BWA Executive Committee Resolutions are currently being compiled, and a limited number are already accessible. The collection will be expanded over time.
Each Resolution document is in PDF format and seeks to reproduce the original text as closely as possible. This means that language and punctuation may be archaic and not in accordance with contemporary standards of discourse. Spellings of words sometimes are in British English and have been preserved as they were originally published. I am solely responsible for any typographical errors in reproduction, and I would deeply appreciate it if you would share with me any that you may discover.
It is the BWA’s hope that this collection will be useful to scholars, historians, denominational leaders, and clergy. Each document now contains a unique identification number, topical keywords, and four types of citations for academic purposes.
The range of issues covered by the collection is comprehensive, and many of the Resolutions speak to contemporary concerns (such as racism, antisemitism, poverty and war) with multi-cultural wisdom, spiritual integrity, and intellectual depth. Readers seeking to learn how Baptists on a global scale and across time have addressed the human condition in all of its variations (moral, social, economic, political, etc.) will be rewarded as well as challenged.
In Baptist polity, Resolutions and other collective statements are not binding on Baptist individuals or churches. They intend to share wisdom and raise consciousness rather than to demand or coerce conformity or hinder the soul freedom and responsibility of people to follow God according to the dictates of their own Christ-led conscience. In the foreword to the 1955 Golden Jubilee World Congress Official Report (p. 6), BWA General Secretary Arnold T. Ohrn stated this principle well:
If you should need any further assistance in utilizing this online historical archive, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Rev. Dr. Lee B. Spitzer,
BWA Historian (Click here to contact)
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Openness in the Soviet Union
Today we commend Christians in the Soviet Union, and especially Baptists, for their positive contributions, faithfully made in season and out, to their country’s morality, culture and history.
For many years the Baptist World Alliance has appealed to the government of the USSR to permit a larger measure of religious freedom for its people.
The AIDS Crisis
As the General Council of the Baptist World Alliance meets in Nassau, the Bahamas, July 1988, the AIDS crisis continues to escalate on a global scale.
The 16,000 cases of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) reported in 1985 are now nearly 75,000 in 129 countries.
Illicit Drugs, Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Addictive Chemical Substances
The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in the Bahamas, July 1988:
Gives thanks to God for the comfort and well being brought to multitudes through the medical use of drugs;
Views with alarm the tragic growth of illicit drug trafficking, the subsequent victimizing of vast numbers of people, especially youth, through these addictive substances and the resulting explosion of drug-related crises;
South Africa
The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Nassau, the Bahamas, July 1988:
Reaffirms its resolution dealing with apartheid adopted at its meeting in Los Angeles in 1985, and
Urges the Baptist Union and the Baptist Convention of Southern Africa to challenge the evil of apartheid by their own example of reconciliation and full equality within their own churches and the extended Christian family as well as their society.
Peacemaking
The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance has often addressed peace issues, most recently in 1985 and 1986. Again in 1988, as the Council meets in the Bahamas, we:
Reaffirm previous resolutions that have spoken to peace with disarmament and peace with justice, and
Welcome the completion of the treaty calling for the elimination of intermediate range nuclear equipped missiles for the United States of America and the USSR and encourage work toward understandings which will lead to the reduction of all levels of military forces.
Toxic Waste
God created earth— air, land and sea. Because we are stewards of Planet Earth, we Christians, along with all people of good will, are disturbed by the pollution of land, air and sea. It is profoundly distressing that nations are reported to be dumping nuclear waste onto the soil of developing nations.
Women
We celebrate the multiple gifts and sensitivities women bring to the service of Jesus Christ and the work of the Baptist family around the world.
Women make up approximately two-thirds of the membership of the church. In society at large, opportunities for the involvement of women are increasing in government, social, economic and educational areas.
Appreciation
We express appreciation to the Bahamas National Baptist Missionary and Education Convention for:
Hospitality extended to the Baptist World Alliance during the meeting of the General Council, its committees and commissions, July 1988, and for
Resolution of Salutation
As the General Council of the BWA meets in Nassau, the Bahamas, July 1988, we:
Request that the general secretary send greetings and prayerful best wishes from the General Council to living past BWA presidents, the living widows of past BWA presidents, living past general secretaries and the living widow of past general secretaries.
Stewardship of the Earth
We affirm that God is creator all life and as stewards of God’s earth, we members of the General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, August 1989, acknowledge the interdependence of all life. As stewards of God’s earth we are concerned for our global environment and threats to its delicate balance—today and for the future.
Sexual Morality
WHEREAS, humanity everywhere is undergoing a revolution in sexual morality as evidenced by changing mores, promiscuity, marital infidelity and a preoccupation of the media and advertising with a crass commercialization of sex, and
Children
Children have been tortured, sentenced to death, recruited into armed service and physically abused.
THEREFORE, this General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, August 1989,
Families
WHEREAS the family remains the God-ordained mainstay of society, as well as the center of intimacy and commitment for significant, ongoing relationships, and
WHEREAS many alternative lifestyles are replacing traditional family structures and roles in numerous cultures throughout the world, and
An Appeal for Consistency in Living the Christian Life
WHEREAS the New Testament teaches that it is incumbent on every believer to life the Christian life in a consistent manner day-by-day, and
WHEREAS such consistency means applying biblical principles to life’s varied situations, and
Seoul Congress
The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, August 1989, calls on all the member conventions and unions to pray for our world congress in Seoul.
Appreciation
BWA General Council Resolution 1989.8 The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, August 1989, hereby expresses to the Baptist Union of Yugoslavia heartfelt thanks for its warm hospitality and the opportunity to meet in Zagreb, a...
World Evangelization
REALIZING that over four billion people in our world do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and that one-fourth of the world’s population has never heard the Gospel,
ACKNOWLEDGING the commitment that member bodies of the BWA have made through the Seoul Covenant to world evangelization.
Prayer and Concern for the Eastern Part of Europe and the Soviet Union
THANKFUL to God for the positive changes that have taken place in Eastern Europe and the whole of the Soviet Union, including the increasing freedom experienced in many aspects of the life of these nations,
THANKFUL particularly for those places where greater freedom of religion has been evidenced and new opportunities for evangelization and theological education have been made possible,
Middle East Situation
THANKFUL TO Almighty God for the cessation of open war in Kuwait and Iraq,
MINDFUL of the tragic aftermath of such hostilities in terms not only of loss of life but also of the appalling social and economic conditions prevailing in the Gulf and the long-term threat to the environment caused by oil pollution in both sea and air,
South Africa (1991)
RECALLING the prophetic stance taken by the Baptist World Alliance in its resolutions on South Africa at the World Congress in 1985 and at the General Council in 1986 and 1988,
REAFFIRMING its opposition to apartheid as a sin against the Gospel of God’s love for all people,
Appreciation to the Hosts and Officers
The Baptist World Alliance holding its annual meeting of the General Council and related groups in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, July 7-14, 1991, has brought together Baptists from around the world for worship, fellowship, mutual encouragement, study, and planning.
BMS Bicentenary
The founding of the society to promote overseas missions marked the point at which the missionary awakening stimulated by the evangelical revival of the eighteenth century first attained effective institutional expression alerting not only Baptist but the whole of evangelical Christendom to a world-wide vision;
Fifth Centennial of the Coming of Columbus and the Europeans to the Americas
THANKS the Union Bautista Latino Americana (UBLA) for the guidance they have provided the Council on what a Christian response should be to the Fifth Centennial of the coming of Columbus and the Europeans to the Americas, and the beginning of a different way of live and thought for the people of the hemisphere;
Stewardship of the Earth
BELIEVES that Baptists need to take seriously the implications of God’s creation of our world and the stewardship given to humankind within that creation;
ASSERTS that human sinfulness has developed an exploitative ethic which puts the sustaining of that creation in jeopardy evident in the ecological crises facing the world today;
The Former Yugoslav Federal Republic
The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Montego Bay, Jamaica, July 4-12, 1992;
MINDFUL of the devastation and loss of life wrought by the recent and continuing conflicts in the countries of the former Yugoslav Federal Republic, and in accordance with its belief that God in Christ wills reconciliation in place of enmity;
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