U.S. Baptists Split from World Group

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Reuters) - The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, voted on Tuesday to cut its links with the Baptist World Alliance, saying the global group is too liberal on gay rights and other issues.

Note: From the Southern Baptist Convention's "Abstract of Principles" it is clear the SBC has a different worldview than the World Council of Churches, when the latter wrote: in their "Statement of Faith":

"The National Council of Churches is a community of Christian communions, which, in response to the gospel as revealed in the Scriptures, confess Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord. These communions covenant with one another to manifest ever more fully the unity of the Church. Relying upon the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, the communions come together as the Council in common mission, serving in all creation to the glory of God." --from the Preamble to the NCC Constitution.

The SBC offers it's adherents an exclusive Church with an autocratic God; the WCC offers an inclusive Church with a benevolent God. The SBC spiritual homebase is in Texas, the WCC's is in New York. The SBC claims 15 million members, the WCC claims over fifty million.

The SBC split from BWA as seen by the SBC is here. And then we have the linkage from the SBC to President Bush, shown below.


Bush speaks to Southern Baptists, reiterates stances on life issues, same-sex 'marriage'
Jun 15, 2004
By Erin Curry

President Bush addresses SBC messengers via satellite
President George W. Bush speaks live via satellite from the Oval Office of the White House June 15 to messengers assembled for the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in the Indiana Convention Center June 15-16 for the 147th session of the SBC, in its 159th year. Photo Kent Harville

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)--President Bush spoke directly to Southern Baptists June 15, upholding a "culture of life" and the sanctity of marriage. Bush, speaking live from the White House via satellite, also addressed issues relating to faith-based organizations, the judicial system and the war on terror.

The president told messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis he and his wife are thankful for their prayers, which he has felt "at crucial hours." The president said he will keep working to build a culture of life in America, adding to the progress he has made by signing the Born Alive Infants Protection Act and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

"Common sense and conscience tell us that when an expectant mother is killed, two lives are ended, and the criminal should answer for both crimes," he said in his 12-minute speech. Also, Bush signed a law last November to end the practice of partial-birth abortion.

"This law is not only valid and constitutional, it is compassionate and urgently needed, and my administration will fight to uphold it," he said. Bush said his administration also will continue its support for crisis pregnancy centers, incentives for adoption and parental notification laws.

"I propose to double federal funding for abstinence programs in schools and community-based programs," Bush told the standing-room-only crowd. "And I will work with Congress to pass a comprehensive and effective ban on human cloning. Life is a creation of God, not a commodity to be exploited by man."

The president then said his administration is defending the sanctity of marriage against activist courts and local officials who seek to redefine marriage.

"The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith. And government, by strengthening and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. So I am calling for funding for healthy marriage programs, and I support a constitutional amendment to protect marriage as a union of a man and a woman," he said to messengers' applause.

Bush said he also will continue working to defend the liberty of faith-based organizations, which have the right to provide publicly funded social services just like any other group. He said he has called on Congress to codify his faith-based initiative into law "so that people of faith can know government will never discriminate against them again."

Turning to the judicial system, Bush noted that some senators are resorting to unprecedented tactics to block votes on his judicial nominees, and he urged them to stop.

"Every nominee deserves a fair hearing and a timely vote on the Senate floor. It is time for those senators to stop playing politics with American justice," he said.

Speaking of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush again said freedom is not America's gift to the world but is Almighty God's gift to every man and woman who lives in this world.

"In Afghanistan and Iraq, we will finish the job," Bush said, thanking Southern Baptists for their strong support of the war.

In closing, Bush offered hope in the future of America.

"These years have brought trials we did not ask for and challenges we never expected to face," he said. "We have worked together, and we are rising to meet the duties of our time. Now we look forward with confidence and faith toward greater security and wider prosperity and a stronger culture of life. We pray always for God's guidance and strength in our lives and for this great nation."

Just before Bush spoke, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson led the messengers in prayer for the president and the nation, asking God to give him "wisdom beyond Solomon."

SBC President Jack Graham, speaking to the Executive Committee June 14, said Southern Baptists are not looking to endorse candidates, but instead to have candidates endorse Southern Baptist values.

"One of the reasons we loved Ronald Reagan so much is because he endorsed so many of our values and helped us in our country and our culture," Graham said. "That's the way I feel about any candidate, whether it's this president or any other president. We're seeking that candidate to endorse us. ... We're thankful that George W. Bush has endorsed many of the values that we hold dear."

Bush has now addressed the Southern Baptist Convention three times. In 2002, he spoke via satellite, and in 2003 he sent a taped message.

Note: Nothing else needs to be said on the stark differences between the orientation of the SBC as compared to the WBA and the WCC.
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Number of Americans with no formal religion increasing, survey finds
Signs of religious 'reawakening' hard to find, researchers say
by Chris Herlinger
Ecumenical News International
January 11,2002

NEW YORK - Though the United States remains a strongly religious nation, the percentage of Americans saying they have no formal religious identity is growing, the authors of a recent survey have concluded.

A national survey of U.S. religious affiliation suggests the existence of a "wide and possibly growing swath of secularism" in the American population.

The American Religious Identification Survey 2001, released by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), also suggests that the proportion of Christians in the U.S. has dropped - from 86 percent in 1990, when the study was first conducted, to 77 percent in 2001.

The survey was based on random telephone interviews from February to June 2001 of more than 50,000 adults. Researchers estimated the responses to be representative of the entire U.S. adult population.

The study was released late in 2001 after the Sept. 11terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC - events that, by nearly all accounts, swelled the numbers of people attending religious services.

But Egon Mayer, one of the co-authors of the study, said Sept. 11 had not permanently altered the US religious landscape. Increased attendance at religious services immediately after the attacks did not change the basic religious affiliations that he and co-author Barry Kosmin studied, Mayer said.

"People didn't attend church or synagogue just for religious reasons. They wanted to be around other people," Mayer told ENI. "People probably feel more religious, but whether they have changed behavior is another question."

(Ed. The idea that religion, particularly Christianity, has as its main goal to "change behavior" is a cultic heresy among both Catholics and Protestants. Orthodox Christianity's main goal is to expose sinners to the Savior through the message of Law and Gospel so that the Holy Spirit will turn them to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit God for His grace in Jesus. A change of behavior will result from that "turning" as one learns the expressed will of the true God from His revelation, the Bible.)

Another survey, conducted by the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and released last month, confirmed part of Mayer's contention.

In the Pew study, 78 percent of those surveyed in November 2001 said the influence of religion in the United States was growing - an increase over an earlier, March survey, in which only 37 percent of those questioned had felt the influence of religion on the rise.

And yet the November Pew survey found no evidence that religion was suddenly playing a larger role in Americans' personal lives. The proportion of those surveyed post-Sept. 11 who said that religion was important in their own lives - 61 percent - was virtually unchanged from what it had been in the March study.

Other findings of the CUNY American Religious Identification Survey for 2001, based on extrapolations:

* Fifty-two per cent of adults were Protestant, 24.5 percent were Catholic, and 14.1 percent adhered to no religion. Jews and Muslims remained relatively small groups in the U.S., the study concluded, Jews representing 1.3 percent of the population, and Muslims, 0.5 percent.

* Some 33 million American adults - about 16 percent of the total adult population - had changed their religious identification at some point.

* The groups making the largest gains since 1990 included Evangelical Christians, non-denominational Christians and those who professed no religion. The latter group accounted for the largest single increase since the previous, 1990 study. "One of the most striking 1990-2001 comparisons is the more than doubling of the adult population identifying with no religion, from 14.3 million (8 percent) in 1990 to the current 29.4 million (14.1percent)," the study said.

Those who claimed no formal religious affiliation were not, however, atheists: only 0.4 percent of the people surveyed identified themselves as atheists.

Despite a strong sentiment in the United States that the country has undergone something of a "religious re-awakening" in recent years, the study concluded that the population's large secular segment should not be ignored.

The finding was "completely consistent with similar secularizing trends in other Western, democratic societies," the authors concluded. "The magnitude and role of this large secular segment of the American population is frequently ignored by scholars and politicians alike."
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