L i s b o n – “Every Baptist is a Missionary.” This maxim stemming from the Hamburg merchant Johann Gerhard Oncken (1800-1884), founder of the Baptist movement in Germany and on the European continent, is to be resurrected during the coming year. This is the hope expressed by Tony Peck (Prague), General-Secretary of the European Baptist Federation (EBF), at its Council sessions taking place in Lisbon/Portugal from 24 to 27 September. During the coming year, Baptists from throughout the globe will celebrate the 400^th anniversary of the founding of the world’s first Baptist congregation in Amsterdam. Germans will also commemorate the 175^th anniversary of the first German Baptist believer’s baptism in the Elbe River in 1834. The Baptist movement then spread out from Hamburg to cover much of Eastern Europe. According to Peck, today’s Baptists must catch afresh this passion for mission. Then as now, people are in need of reconciliation with God. In this session, Peck was elected unanimously to serve for five more years as General-Secretary beginning in Fall 2009.

But Peck mentioned in his annual report that reconciliation between human beings is also needed. He criticised in unusually sharp form the wall between Israel and the West Bank. “If the wise men from the East would travel to the manger of Christ in Bethlehem today, they would need to make a major detour and show their passes repeatedly to border guards.” The residents of Bethlehem feel as if they live in a large prison. “We do not want to be anti-Jewish, but we must note that our brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering from the injustice for which the modern state of Israel is responsible.” Peck welcomed in this context the application of a Council of 11 evangelical congregations in the Holy Lands for membership in the EBF. Most of these congregations are Baptist in nature. Together with them, the EBF intends to strive for national reconciliation. The Council was accepted as the EBF’s 53^rd member. Council Chairman Munir Salim Kakish (Ramla) appealed for prayer for his congregations. Theologically-conservative, evangelical churches are the only ones still experiencing significant growth. This leads to problems with more traditional denominations.

Gordon Showell-Rogers (London), General-Secretary of the European Evangelical Alliance, lauded the involvement of Baptist Unions in many national Alliances: “If one would take out the Baptists, then some Alliances would cease to exist.” Fifty-three unions with a total of 800.000 believers belong to the EBF. The European Evangelical Alliance represents approximately 10 million evangelicals in 35 member Alliances.