Baptists on the March

"When Rio was chosen for the congress, I groaned. 'Brother, we've had it.' It looked like more bravado than brains."

So says the Rev. Edgar Hallock of Norman, Okla., for the past 17 years a Baptist missionary in Brazil. But despite the hazards of holding a major Protestant meeting in the world's largest Roman Catholic country, and despite the travel difficulties for many delegates (average cost of participation to U.S. members: more than $2,000 each), the quinquennial Congress of the Baptist World Alliance last week wound up as the most impressive Baptist convention on record.

The Rio meeting proved to be a dramatic demonstration of the Baptists' increasingly aggressive missionary drive in Latin America, where the Catholic Church has only one priest for every 6,000 people and admits that less than 10% of its nominal members are practicing Catholics. From all over the world the congress drew 13,000 delegates (previous record abroad: London's 8,000 in 1955) ; the delegations ranged in size from one person (Israel, Jordan and Hungary) to 2,836 from the U.S. Rio had never seen such a cosmopolitan crowd; bare-shouldered Ghanaians and batik-clad Indonesians drew stares, while the eight delegates from the Soviet Union drew something more--a predictable blast from the Rev. Carl Mclntire. head of the Fundamentalist American Council of Christian Churches, who accused the Baptists of providing a platform for Communist propaganda. Retorted Richmond's Theodore Floyd Adams, outgoing president of the Baptist Alliance: "The Russian delegates are above suspicion. They have suffered greatly for their faith."

Statistics & Resolutions. In Rio's crush, one Brazilian delegate was killed in a streetcar accident, eight underwent emergency operations, 260 applied for first-aid treatment, and nine lost their Bibles. In the city's Maracanazinho indoor stadium (25,000 capacity), delegates and spectators met for 14 plenary sessions, plus dozens of sectional meetings, during which the congress:

P: Heard cheering statistics on the march of world Baptism. Since the London conference five years ago, the World Alliance has added nine member churches from five countries--India, Honduras, Malaya, Formosa and Lebanon--and total mem bership has risen 16%, from 20,000,000 to 23,176,373, including a 35% increase in Latin America. Some 14,000 Baptist missionaries are making converts at the rate of 500,000 a year.

P: Passed resolutions in favor of religious liberty, disarmament with inspection safeguards and foreign aid ("We call upon the nations of the world to be their brothers' keeper"). U.S. Southern Baptists joined their brethren in backing racial equality. The congress also proclaimed a worldwide Crusade for Bible Study and a year of Worldwide Evangelistic Emphasis (1964).

P: Elected a Brazilian, the Rev. Joao Soren, 52, president of the Baptist World Alliance for the next five years. Quiet, precise Pastor Soren is the son of one of Brazil's first Baptist ministers, Francisco Fulgencio Soren, and his Virginia-born wife Jane. A graduate of Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., with an M.A. from the University of Louisville, he is pastor of Rio's First Baptist Church (membership 2,300), which was founded in 1884 by Texas Missionary William Bagby, who brought the Baptist faith to Brazil.

Climax of the congress was the appearance of the world's most famed Baptist, Evangelist Billy Graham, who in Rio found the biggest audience of his career. The Brazilian press--even the far-left Ultima Hora--wrote him up like a combination movie star and visiting potentate. Crowds of cariocas lay in wait for him wherever he went, shredded two of his suits, and left him shaken and feeling the need of prayer. "I've never seen such enthusiastic people," he said later, noting with relief that Rio's outdoor Maracana Stadium is "equipped with a moat to protect the players from the crowds and an escape hatch for the referee."

Psalms & Prayers. From hundreds of miles around, back-country Protestant churches spent their year's budget to send people into Rio for Billy's rally jammed into ramshackle buses and open trucks. Some 1,500 volunteer ushers were ready for them; 4,000 counselors were on hand to guide their "decisions for Christ." Although Brazil's Roman Catholics distributed anti-Protestant leaflets, an estimated 50% of the audience was Catholic. By the time black-suited Billy Graham mounted the rostrum, an audience of close to 200,000, nearly double capacity, had jammed the stadium.

For 65 minutes, including the time needed for translation, Billy spoke simply of God's love and mercy and of human need. "God is yours, if you change your way of living. You can't tell God you're sorry and then go on with lies and lust. You must take Christ into your heart. Open up, and he will come in quicker"--here Billy clapped--"than you can clap your hands."

Instead of asking people to come forward to indicate their decisions for Christ, Billy asked them to wave their handkerchiefs, and 20-odd thousand handkerchiefs flashed in the sun. Counselors later talked to some 12,000, and Rio's 128 Baptist churches reported a steady influx of converts all week long. With Billy Graham's meeting, the tenth congress of the Baptist Alliance was over, and there had never been another like it. As they left the stadium, the happy crowds sang hymns instead of sambas; sardined into buses and clinging to streetcars all over Rio de Janeiro, they chanted psalms and prayers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.