New Baptist Covenant

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New Baptist Covenant is an association of Baptist organizations for social justice. Former United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton proposed the establishment of the broadly inclusive alternative Baptist movement to counter the public image of Baptists as being predominantly tied to conservative political and cultural perspectives.

History[]

The New Baptist Covenant traces its roots to April 10, 2006, when former U.S. President and prominent Baptist layman Jimmy Carter and Mercer University President Bill Underwood.[1] In 2007, the organization was officially founded by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.[2]

The outcome of the meeting was a document called A North American Baptist Covenant and preliminary plans to hold a major gathering of Baptists from throughout North America in 2008.[3]

The initiative stems from the adoption of the "North American Baptist Covenant" in which leaders reaffirmed their commitment to Baptist values including evangelism, helping the needy and promoting religious liberty. It will be the first time since 1845 that there has been a major effort to bring together Baptists from diverse racial, theological and regional backgrounds. Most US Baptists met in 1814 to form a missionary society known as the Triennial Convention. Southern Baptists broke away over the slavery issue in 1845. Since then, Baptists have splintered even further, most recently due to the Conservative Resurgence/Fundamentalist Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Many object to the use of the word "takeover", since the Southern Baptist Convention is historically a conservative denomination as found in 'The Baptist Faith and Message', among other sources and reasons.

References and notes[]

  1. ^ William H. Brackney, Historical Dictionary of the Baptists, Scarecrow Press, USA, 2020, p. 429
  2. ^ Alan Cooperman, Carter, Clinton Seek To Bring Together Moderate Baptists Exiles From Conservative Group Targeted, washingtonpost.com, USA, January 21, 2007
  3. ^ Associated Press, Several Black pastors break with the Southern Baptist Carter heads alternative to Southern Baptists, nbcnews.com, USA, January 30, 2008

External links[]

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