AMERICAN BAPTISTS TAKE DELIGHT IN DIVERSITY

The Christian Century
August 25, 2009

The American Baptist Churches USA convention this summer was typical of
many church gatherings in displaying ethnic and racial diversity. But
many ABC leaders think that their denomination may be the most diverse
among mainline Protestant churches.

Worship services and other events at the June 25-28 biennial convention
in Pasadena, California, featured traditional hymns, mariachi bands,
gospel choirs and even Hawaii’s first African-American hula dance
troupe. Delegates enjoyed Latin and Asian cuisine at a reception called
"We Are ABC: A Multi-Cultural Family Fest."

Small-group caucuses included those for African-American,
Asian, Hispanic, Haitian and Portuguese-speaking churches and
ministers. Baptist Burmese refugees held their first-ever caucus.

Backstage during the closing-day ceremony David Coffey of Great
Britain, president of the Baptist World Alliance, told Roy Medley,
general secretary of the ABC, "I love the diversity in this
denomination," adding that the degree of cultural mixture was rare.

Two years hence, the ABC convention will meet in Puerto Rico.

The church region that played host this year is exceptional: "We
are 62 percent immigrant congregations. The gospel is preached in 48
languages in American Baptist Churches of Los Angeles," said Samuel
Chetti, the executive minister of ABC of Los Angeles and Congregations
of the Southwest and Hawaii.

"I’d say 30 percent or so are purely multiethnic congregations; they
have everybody," said Chetti. Once predominantly Anglo churches have
become multi ethnic. "I can’t imagine one church that’s truly Anglo."

But the very reason Chetti’s region exists in its present form points
to theological and social conflicts that sometimes accompany such
broad diversity.

Formerly a local association of churches in Los Angeles and its
immediate suburbs, Chetti’s region ended up taking in liberal and
centrist churches from the reconfigured ABC of the Pacific Southwest.

The 2006 denominational breakup in the region started after dozens
of conservative churches in the area split from the national church,
mainly over their perception that the ABC was insufficiently resolute
in denouncing homosexuality and excluding gay-friendly congregations.

Of seven mainline denominations polled in 2007 in Pew’s U.S. Religious
Landscape Survey, American Baptists had the lowest percentage of
members, 40 percent, who said that homosexuality is a way of life
that should be accepted by society.

[Chetti told the Century in June that out of 280 congregations in
the old region, nearly 100 conservative ones joined a new group,
Transforming Ministries. "The rest stayed with the ABC at some level,"
Chetti said, "although many congregations may take another 12 to 18
months to make a decision."

[The Baptist tradition of autonomous congregations only loosely tied
together creates some imprecision in counting membership levels and
the number of affiliated congregations. ABCUSA has 1.3 million members
and 5,558 congregations, according to lists at church headquarters
in Pennsylvania. Speakers in Pasadena, however, spoke regularly of
5,200 congregations. Medley explained that some of the additional 300
churches on official ABC rolls are "new church starts that are not yet
chartered and voted in as full-member churches."] Some continuing
tensions over sexuality and other issues were reflected in the
delegates’ rejection June 29 of a massive restructuring proposal,
which fell short of a required two-thirds majority. American Baptist
officials had worked two years on the cost-cutting proposal, which
would have turned two agencies into semiautonomous bodies.

But progressive American Baptist leaders and some others expressed
serious misgivings about the plan, with some claiming that the
restructuring would make it harder to advance social justice issues
in churchwide policy statements and resolutions.

Chetti acknowledged that conservative evangelical views are common in
many ethnic groups in the ABC. "For example, we have here the Armenian
Evangelical Baptist Church in Glendale," he said. The pastor "is from
[the country of] Georgia, and they are traditional Baptists-men on one
side [of the church], women on one side," he said. "Very orthodox-very
orthodox scripturally . . . and hierarchical.

"On the other hand, you have much more egalitarian Anglo and
African-American congregations. So, it’s both sides."

For Tim Bonney, pastor of First Baptist Church of Greater Des Moines,
Iowa, the denomination’s diversity can be cumbersome, but rewarding. "I
don’t think American Baptists have generally felt like there has to
be a majority group in the denomination," he said.

"It doesn’t mean that we have to agree on all these other finer points
of theology and issues of politics," said Bonney. "My congregation
also is politically diverse, theologically diverse; we like that.

"It’s both our greatest strength and greatest weakness," the pastor
said. "It certainly would be easier if we all agreed with each
other, but I’ve always found that kind of diversity to be very
refreshing." -Associated Baptist Press