Today We Celebrate A New Baptist Covenant

The New Baptist Covenant Celebration opened up earlier tonight. According to Lance Wallace of CBF Communications, the World Congress Center seats 15,000. The place was near capacity.

Bill Underwood, President of Mercer University opened up the Celebration with a powerful message. The website of the New Baptist Covenant (www.newbaptistcovenant.com – click on Videos) will be showing the plenary sessions. Watch Underwood’s WELCOME there.

Here are a few snippets from President Underwood:

"After generations of cleaning up wrongs between us. After generations of separation. After generations of division. Divisions by geography. Divisions by theology. But most of all divisions by race. A new day has dawned. Today in this place from the North and the South, from Canada, from Mexico, from throughout the United States and around the World - Baptists who are Black and Baptists who are White, Baptists Who Are Brown, Baptists who are Conservative, Baptists who are Moderate, Baptists who are Progressive. Today we all sit down together at the table of Christian brother and sisterhood. By coming together here in Atlanta, we acknowledge that the things that have divided us should not and these thigs must not obscure what we share in common...and that is our commitment to follow Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Today we Celebrate a New Day. We Celebrate A New Baptist Covenant. A Covenant that We Will United Together To Create An Authentic and Genuine Baptist Voice in These troubled Times. A Covenant that we will Unite In Our Commitment to Traditional Baptist Values including sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and its implications for public and private morality. We will unite and honor the commandment of our Lord and Savior that we will love our neighbor as God has loved us."

Now, that's some good stuff!

After President Underwood began the Celebration by reading Luke 4, Sonny Perdue, the Republican Governor of the State of Georgia and a Southern Baptist Sunday School Teacher, addressed the crowd. Representing the “Bald Baptists” (his joke), Perdue proclaimed to the audience his “joy to stand up in front of you as a Baptist.”

Dr. David Goatley who serves as the President of the North American Baptist Fellowship of the Baptist World Alliance offered a few encouraging words. He said, “never before have Baptists...sought to explore possibilities of cooperation for missions and ministries - something that has never happened before. We're glad you're here.

Babs Baugh of the Baugh Foundation (Texas) was also recognized for her contribution of over 500,000 dollars to make the Celebration possible! So, thebigdaddyweave.com gives a big thank you to the Baugh family who is always generous especially in the arena of religious liberty!

Shirley Franklin the mayor of Atlanta also spoke. Franklin who I had the privilege of meeting a few times during my time with Congressman John Lewis is in her second term and is considered by TIME Magazine as one of the five most effective big city mayors in the United States. She was the first woman elected mayor of Atlanta and the irst African-American woman elected as mayor in any major city in the South.

The Scripture readings were:
Isaiah 9:6-7
Micah 4:3-4
Romans 14:17-19

Charles Wade, the outgoing Executive Director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, gave a stirring prayer that really excited the audience. Amens were heard from every corner of auditorium. Wade denounced "evil men and women who exploit children" and "religious leaders who suppress conscience and the soul as though they are not aware that you God are Lord of the soul."

See my next post for commentary and snippets from Dr. William Shaw and President Jimmy Carter.

Saving Soul Freedom w/ James Dunn

This is the fourth post in our newly launched Recovering E.Y. Mullins and Saving Soul Freedom Summer Project. See here, here, and here. Our inspiration for this Project is none other than Bill Underwood, President of Mercer University and New Baptist Covenant organizer, and his Baptist Summit speech given in January, 2006.

Without further ado, I give you James Dunn in his own words excerpted from Charles W. Deweese's Defining Baptist Convictions: Guidelines for the Twenty-First Century.

Soul freedom is the fire that burns in the innards of every true Baptist. From Thomas Helwys' insistence that "the king is not the Lord of the conscience" to this day, the identifying mark of the breed called Baptist is that dogged determination to be free.

No proof text is needed, because the passion for freedom is rooted in the person and nature of God in whose image all humankind is created. Before any constitution, any social contract, even before the biblical revelation lies the way in which we were all made - responsible to God and free to respond (and take the consequences).

If that is the biblical and theological principles driving religious liberty, then the ethical, moral, and social implications of that transforming idea demand that same freedom for every other human being. If we do love our neighbors as ourselves, if we do unto others as we want them to do to us, if indeed, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, we want religious liberty for everyone.

Anyone's religious libety denied is everyone's religious liberty endangered. Firmly rooted in biblical belief and the ethical demands coming directly from those convictions, Baptists have stood for separation of church and state since we were first labeled "Baptist."

The same King James whose name is in the front of your Bible is the one who ordered the death of Thomas Helwys, the first Baptist pastor in England. Helwys' crime was simple: the king was not his spiritual master. Government, however good, could not be God.

One does not go to the Bible for instruction as if it were a political science textbook. Yet, the Bible speaks to the relation of religion to political life. Baptists who slight the distinctive of church-state separation deny their birthright.

Some today cannot see that clear biblical teachings inform one's estimate of humankind, sin, righteousness, and redemption. Biblical doctrine fuels and empowers believers to seek spiritual libeation for all. The Bible has shaped our best insights and noblest traditions as "people of the Book." The universal freedom of religious conscience is taught in the Bible.