Ever since the Baptist World Congress in Atlanta in 1939 the Baptist World Alliance has spoken out with regularity on behalf of religious freedom for all persons, and in more recent years on behalf of civil liberties generally.
The BWA General Council, meeting in Singapore, July 1986:
1. affirms its solidarity with the Nicaraguan Baptist Convention;
2. notes with pleasure that delegations of Baptists from various parts of the world have established personal and church links with our brothers and sisters in Nicaragua and encourages other Baptist Unions and Conventions to do the same;
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.
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,
The General Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe August 6-9, 1993,
SENDS greetings to our sisters and brothers in the Baptist and wider Christian community in South Africa;
APPLAUDS the decision to hold multi-racial elections with universal adult suffrage in 1994;
TO BAPTIST BELIEVERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD with love and joy from those assembled together in Birmingham, UK, at the Centenary Congress of the BWA
Together those Assembled—
The Baptist World Congress, meeting in Los Angeles, CA, July 2-7, 1985, declares its belief that racism and the Christian Gospel are incompatible. We ground this conviction biblically in the doctrine of creation whereby every human person is given dignity as made in the image of God (Genesis 1 :27) and in the doctrine of redemption whereby we proclaim salvation in Christ, crucified and risen, for people of all races and colors (Colossians 3:11), and the external purpose of God to unite all creation in him (Ephesians 1 and 2).
WHEREAS, The Baptist World Alliance in 1934, 1939 and 1947 condemned racial discrimination;
WHEREAS, The question of race relations is world-wide in scope and is one of the most serious and baffling problems confronting mankind today;
We urge the nations to dispense with all testing of nuclear weapons and the production of the same; and co-operatively, to agree on satisfactory methods of inspection designed to ensure that all nations shall exercise good faith in this matter.