As the Alliance of Baptists, we sometimes describe our movement as “a clear voice for Christian freedom, distinctively Baptist and intentionally ecumenical in an interfaith world.” That is shorthand for several important distinguishing marks, the last two of which speak to relationships we cherish with the whole church of Christ and with those of other faiths.
In our founding Covenant in 1987, we committed ourselves to “the larger body of Jesus Christ, expressed in various Christian traditions, and to a cooperation with believers everywhere in giving full expression to the Gospel.” Over the subsequent two decades we have sought to live up to that lofty ideal through participation in the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA and in a unique three-party ecumenical partnership with the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
As for interfaith relationships, the Alliance was the first institutional partner of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington-based organization that brings together people of all faiths in our country in a united witness to religious liberty and civil discourse in the public arena.
Two seminal documents have informed and inspired our growing relationships with Jews and Muslims in the United States and beyond. The first, A Statement on Jewish-Christian Relations from the Alliance of Baptists, led directly to an ongoing institutional relationship with the Baltimore-based Institute of Christian and Jewish Studies and to an historic gathering of Jews and Baptists at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington during the 2003 Convocation of the Alliance.
The second, A Statement on Muslim-Christian Relations, has led us to participate in the Baptist-Muslim Dialogue Task Force in partnership with the American Baptist Churches in the USA, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc., North American Baptist Fellowship, and the Islamic Society of North America. In addition, through the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches, we are engaged in an ongoing conversation with the Islamic Society of North America.
