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In collaboration with Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM), North American Baptist Fellowship, and Tyndale University, the BWA is offering an opportunity for the wider Baptist family to meet as commissions, networks, and regions and for an inaugural Global Council.
WCC president from North America Rev. Dr Angelique Walker-Smith contributed input via the Commission on Baptist Doctrine and Christian Unity. She presented the new North America-Turtle Island Regional Ecumenical Theological Institute which will convene 3-16 August under the theme “Where Now for Visible Justice?”
She also included background on the student movements of the World Student Christian Federation as well as the founding of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. Also among topics she discussed was the creation of the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute in 2013.
Walker-Smith followed up with the Canadian Council of Churches presentation for a debrief with its leadership. She will give a brief presentation on 10 July about ecumenical relationships.
WCC vice moderator of the central committee Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley moderated a commemorative session, with BWA president Rev. Karl Johnson, focused on the 200th anniversary of the oldest Baptist church in Toronto, which is also the oldest Black institution in Toronto founded by formerly enslaved African peoples. Today, it is a congregation of diverse pan-African communities.
Riley was also one of the speakers of the panel "The Challenges and Opportunities for Mission in Religiously and Culturally Diverse Communities".
“Mission in the Caribbean must take into consideration the regions serious socio economic, geopolitical, and environmental challenges which impact the lived realities of the population", she said. "Salvation for us must include liberation and justice for those on the margins. We have a special concern for Cuba and Venezuela both of which are in the Caribbean Region", added Riley.
“BWA is an important timely and historic global confessional body of faith that uniquely offers its own ecumenical and evangelical lens on life and faith,” said Walker-Smith. “This and other BWA gifts inspire and inform the life and witness of Christian unity that WCC welcomes given the honorable history/herstory and present life of Baptist identity expressed by and through BWA.”
The global gathering this week is yet another example of this, noted Walker-Smith. “It is an honor to play a role in furthering the bridging of these foci and the confessional relationship between BWA and WCC as we further a vision of Christian unity, justice, and reconciliation together.”
