The 2017 Statement of Belief has received a variety of responses since its birth 5 years ago. For some, the Statement of Belief has been welcomed into the life of the church with open arms. The 12 affirmations contained within the document expresses the doctrinal convictions of many baptist churches. For others, however, this new…
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Last week, the Baptist Union National Leadership Council (NLC) took an significant step in a particular direction. It reported that “the 2017 purported Statement of Faith is not inconsistent with the 1924 Statement of Faith. In future, therefore the NLC will accept the purported 2017 Statement of Faith should a church or other entity adopt…
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Baptist churches are congregational and therefore decisions made by the congregation are binding on that congregation. But are decisions made outside the congregation, at associational or union level binding on the congregation too?
On Monday 26 July 2021, Gavin Johnston, Pastor of Randburg Baptist Church and Michael du Toit, the BTC Registrar, dug into the Baptist Union archives. They found some very interesting minutes and a crucial decision that came to the Baptist Union Assembly of 1990. Stranger still, though, the decisions that were made then, were never…
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One of the big issues among South African Baptists in the recent months and indeed over many years has been our stand on Scripture. Recently, however, the inclusion of the phrase “without error” in the 2017 Statement of Belief as an attempt to clarify where we had always stood on Scripture has thrown the cat…
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So it seems some are not sure what the BNA Consultation is all about (starting Monday 20 February starting at 2:00p.m. at Constantia Park Baptist Church at 645 Rudolf Street, Pretoria). It is simply an ‘information ingathering session.’ Questions like, “What are the benefits of belonging to the Baptist Union?” and “What keeps us together…
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We Baptists are in decline There is no doubt that we are experiencing the waning of much that is bundled in the word ‘Baptist.’ Statistically, attendance is down, conversions are down, baptisms are down, memberships are down, funds are down. And this fits with the anti-denominational, anti-church, anti-institutional, anti-commitment trend prevalent across the world. Last…
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