In a Spirit of Repentance

The 10.6 million-member Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's larg est Protestant church -- and the one that has spoken and acted least on civil rights. Now the Baptists seem willing to correct this unenviable record. Last week in Dallas, 8,000 "messengers" to the Convention's annual sessions voted overwhelmingly to accept a report by the Christian Life Commission that sharply criticized the church for silence on racial issues.

"We confess before God and the world," the report said, "that we have been guilty of the sin of conformity to the world, that we have often followed the vain traditions of men instead of the mind of Christ, and that our silence and fear have all too frequently made us stumbling blocks instead of stepping-stones in the area of race relations. In a spirit of true repentance, we prayerfully rededicate ourselves to the Christian ministry of reconciliation between Negroes and whites."

The delegates urged action against unfair-housing practices and denial of voting rights to Negroes. They also deplored "the open and premeditated violation of civil laws, the destruction of property, the shedding of human blood, or the taking of life as a means of influencing legislation or changing social and cultural patterns."

To many Baptists, the significance of these steps was not the formal condemnation of segregation--something that plenty of Baptist laymen and ministers have done for years--but the recognition by a new generation of church leaders that their traditional conception of sin and evil must be broadened. The Rev. Browning Ware, of Beaumont, Texas, expressed the general anxiety vividly. He questioned pastors who "buckle on the armor of protectors of public interest and rush to do battle with gambling, liquor, and separation of church and state" while taking little heed of "conflicts in human relations, adequate education, and poverty."

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