19th Believers’ Churches Conference
The 19th edition of the Believer’s Churches Conference (BCC) took place on January 26-28, 2023 at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. The BCC emerged in the 1960s as a way for church traditions that emphasize the importance of “believers’ baptism” (over against those who practice infant baptism) to discern what their voice and contribution could be to the ecumenical movement. These traditions include Baptists, Church of the Brethren, Mennonites, and more.
The theme of this 19 th conference was “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Global Witness of Believers’ Churches”. Theologians, historians, pastors, students, church leaders, among others, reflected on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and discussed the public witness of Believers’ Churches in different contexts—both historical and current. Being hosted by a historical African American campus at Shaw University further shed light into the importance and centrality of intersectional approaches to theological, historical, and even artistic analysis and research. At the end of the conference, a consensus emerged that the series of BCC is at a crucial point of transition to become more global and multicultural in terms of representation and contributions. This will be taken into account for the
planning of the 20 th BCC 2025, hopefully in Amsterdam. The contributions of the 19 th BCC will be published soon, most likely in the new “Amsterdam Series in Baptist and Mennonite Theologies”.
Written by: Dr. Andrés Pacheco Lozano, post-doc researcher at ACRPJ.
