Racism in General and Apartheid in Particular

Racism in General and Apartheid in Particular

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).

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Racism in General and Apartheid in Particular

Resolution concerning the Jews

“Aware of the unprecedented suffering through which the people of Israel have passed during recent years, millions of them being exterminated by the most inhuman means; aware also that these sufferings are not yet at an end, but that hundreds of thousands are still in concentration camps or wandering homeless from land to land; aware, further, that the poisonous propaganda and destructive designs of anti- Semitism are still at work in many lands: this Congress puts on record its sense of sorrow and shame that such conditions prevail.

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Racism in General and Apartheid in Particular

Reconciliation and Racial Discrimination

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.

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Racism in General and Apartheid in Particular

Religious Freedom and Human Rights

We understand the family to be an institution ordained of God and therefore of very special importance to the people of God. We reaffirm our conviction that:
Every child is a unique creation of God and deserves to be treated with appropriate dignity.
Every child should be enabled, without hindrance, to receive moral and religious training in his or her home and through the church.

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