c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ More than 20 Baptist leaders _ including oft-feuding conservatives and moderates _ have signed a declaration fashioned by former President Jimmy Carter expressing their mutual respect for one another and voicing a common concern about racial reconciliation and religious persecution.

The statement was the result of two private meetings hosted by the former president in recent months at the Carter Center in Atlanta.”Acknowledging that there are unresolved issues among us, the signatories to this declaration wish to overcome differences that may impede our mission, which is to bring about a spiritual awakening in our nation and around the world,”the declaration says.

Signers included some of the architects of the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention _ the nation’s largest Protestant denomination _ as well as leaders of the convention’s moderate wing and a number of Baptist officials from outside the SBC. For more than a decade during the 1970s and ’80s, Southern Baptists fought over conflicting views concerning the inerrancy of the Bible and what conservatives charged was a”liberal”theological drift in the SBC’s seminaries and agencies.

Carter, a Southern Baptist with ties to the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, said in an interview Monday (March 30) that his goal was not to try to bridge Baptists’ theological differences but rather to find common ground on issues on which they agree.

The two areas on which the leaders found consensus were religious persecution and racial reconciliation.”We covenant to exert our maximum efforts to end religious persecution in all nations and to encourage unfettered religious liberty for all peoples,”the declaration reads.

The declaration also calls on Baptist congregations to form partnerships with congregations of different cultures and ethnic groups as a specific way of fostering a”spirit of racial reconciliation.” Carter, echoing the declaration, said he hoped to foster efforts to build positive race relations among congregations.”I would like to see every Baptist church in the world as a matter of fact _ whether it’s African-American or Hispanic or basically white _ to reach out to a neighboring church of a different ethnic group and say, `Why don’t we get to know each other?'”Carter said.

He said he planned to help his own predominantly white church, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., reach out to nearby African-American Baptist congregations.

But Carter said he was not going to attempt to eradicate theological differences that have divided Baptists.”I think it’s quite presumptuous of anyone to think that we could change theological commitments,”he said.”Nobody can change my basic beliefs and I wouldn’t try to change anyone else’s.” He said he hopes other Baptists will sign on to the declaration.”I intend to try to ascertain from both moderate and conservative and liberal and fundamentalist Baptists some common commitment on how we can implement the racial reconciliation commitment,”Carter said.

Signatories from a variety of Baptist perspectives welcomed the declaration.

The Rev. Tom Elliff, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the statement affirmed basic feelings of Baptists from a variety of perspectives.”When you talk about being a catalyst for spiritual awakening and the importance of reaching out to people in a spirit of love, seeking racial reconciliation and, of course, calling for an end to religious persecution, I think all Baptists can join hands in that,”said Elliff, an Oklahoma pastor.

The Rev. James M. Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, said if anyone could bring Baptists together, Carter could.”Anybody that can pull off Camp David ain’t bad at reconciling,”said Dunn, who is based in Washington.”The challenge remains to be seen if warring Baptists are any more amenable to reconciliation than Arabs and Jews, but hope springs eternal and we do have many things in common.” The Rev. Lawrence Edward Carter Sr., dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel at Morehouse College in Atlanta, said it was important to demonstrate unity among Baptists.”If we are not united while we claim to march under the banner of Christ, we’re not very believable,”he said.”The highest form of spirituality in the Kingian tradition is cooperation and the things that divide us are really very petty and very superficial.” Other signatories included former Southern Baptist Convention presidents Jimmy Allen and Jim Henry; Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance; Elaine Smith, president, American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.; and Daniel Vestal, coordinator of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Despite the differences among Southern Baptists and members of other denominations, Carter said he is optimistic about the common ground individual members share in their Christian beliefs.”The principles of Jesus Christ are overwhelmingly more important than the publicly expressed differences that exist among us,”he said.

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