Tuesday, February 15, 2000
Baptist director focused on future
By LORETTA FULTON
Senior Staff Writer
Texas Baptists can cooperate with their brethren in the Southern
Baptist Convention without agreeing with all their actions. In
fact, they’ve been doing it for a long time, the new leader
of the state organization said.
“We’ve just kind of made it obvious in recent times,”
said Charles Wade, who took office Feb. 1 as executive director
of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
In recent years, the Southern Baptist Convention, headed by
Hardin-Simmons University graduate Paige Patterson, has grown
increasingly fundamentalist. The Baptist General Convention of
Texas opposes some of the SBC’s more conservative pronouncements,
such as the one claiming women should be submissive to their husbands.
Instead, Wade said most Texas Baptists base their marital relationship
on Ephesians 5:21, which says both partners should be subject
to one another.
“Husbands, too, need to be submissive,” Wade said
during an interview in Abilene as part of a tour of Texas newspapers.
Jesus addressed the issue of living a life of servanthood,
and that is the model that should be followed, Wade said. Statements
such as the one concerning “submissive wives” give too
much power to one person and take away the concept of servanthood,
he said.
“Power language always gets you into a certain mode of
thinking,” Wade said.
At its annual meeting in October, the Baptist General Convention
of Texas became the first state organization to reject the SBC’s
“submissive wives” statement.
The publicity over the division between the Southern Baptist
Convention and Texas Baptists gives some people the impression
that the Texas group is somewhat “liberal” in its thinking.
But Wade said Texas Baptists are “traditional” Baptists,
neither liberals nor fundamentalists.
“We’re still in right center field,” he said.
“We don’t feel like we’ve gone anywhere.”
Despite squabbles that tend to capture headlines, Wade said
Texas Baptists are looking toward a bright future. He said he
believes the Baptist commitment to religious liberty and individual
freedom is as important to people today as it was in the 16th
century, when that concept was radical.
Some non-Baptists mistakenly think the Baptist church has a
hierarchy, with the Southern Baptist Convention at the top, followed
by a state convention and then the local congregation. In fact,
if a hierarchy did exist, Wade said it would more likely be flip-flopped
from that model, with the local churches having the most influence.
The Baptist General Convention of Texas consists of 6,000 churches
with 2,000 being added in the last decade. With that many members
and ministers, the church is in a good position to spread the
gospel message to others, Wade said.
“Those pastors and those people can effectively be the
presence of Jesus in their community,” he said.
As head of the state convention, Wade sees his role as a supporter
of local pastors and congregations.
“I’m an encourager and a cheerleader really,”
he said.
Like other denominations, Baptists are increasingly becoming
more diverse, a change that pleases Wade. On any given Sunday,
42 languages are spoken in Texas Baptist churches, Wade said,
and new Hispanic churches are being built to coincide with the
growth of the state’s Hispanic population.
Wade’s 1972 doctoral dissertation was titled An Inquiry
Into Black Theology: An Attempt at White Understanding. That work
was reflective of Wade’s interest in including all people
in the church.
His Arlington church is known as “Mission Arlington”
for its numerous outreach programs that affect people of diverse
cultures. One of the greatest challenges facing the church is
not apathy, Wade said, but an inability to communicate with people
of varying backgrounds.
“We need to improve our ability to reach out to our state
with its many cultures, its changing demographics and its burgeoning
population,” he said.
When his reign ends as head of the 2.7 million-member Texas
organization, Wade said he wants people to remember the actions
of all its members, not just him.
“I want people to say that we were faithful to God, loved
the people, grew to be more like Jesus and put our arms around
this state and the world,” he said.
Loretta Fulton can be reached at 676-6778 or fultonl@abinews.com.
Copyright ©2000,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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