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Friday, Sept. 20, 2002
By Steve DeVane
BR Managing Editor
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) officials say it is not a double standard to refuse to take money from a new moderate convention in Missouri while accepting funds from new, more conservative conventions in Texas and Virginia.
The SBC Executive Committee decided Sept. 17 to reject contributions from the Baptist General Convention of Missouri (BGCM), but to continue accepting money from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and the Southern Baptists Conservatives of Virginia.
The decision comes after the Baptist General Convention of Missouri asked the SBC to take money from its churches. The BGCM formed after conservatives gained control of the Missouri Baptist Convention.
It is the first new state convention started by moderates. Conservatives in Texas and Virginia started new groups after failing to gain control of the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) and Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV).
Bruce Prescott, a member of First Baptist Church in Norman, Okla. and executive director for Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, urged the Executive Committee to go against earlier decisions by a subcommittee and a work group and accept money from only one state convention in each state.
Prescott talked about a metaphor used by Morris Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the SBC Executive Committee, who had compared the issue to a dating relationship. Chapman wondered why the SBC should get involved with someone new when it already had a partner that fully supported it, Prescott said.
"Extending Dr. Chapman's relational metaphor, what kind of logic would suggest that to mend a troubled marriage, you could enter into a relationship with someone new?" Prescott said. "Or, to use a metaphor more appropriate to the situation, what kind of logic would suggest that you could repair a troubled, but longstanding, partnership by partnering with a competitor?"
Prescott said the rationale used to support the decision seemed contradictory.
"If the convention's partnerships with Texas and Virginia are troubled, then the Executive Committee should be receiving instructions to repair them," he said. "If the committee has no intention of striving to repair these relationships, then the Executive Committee should clarify that decision by ending those partnerships so that you can fulfill your charge from the convention to completely and heartily cooperate with your partnering state conventions."
Chapman responded by saying that the Executive Committee has not taken steps to terminate the SBC's relationship with any state conventions despite disagreements.
"It's always possible that God will perform miracles and bring about things we don't see today," he said.
The Executive Committee is "partnering as best we know how" with the state conventions with which it has a relationship, Chapman said.
"There's quite a difference between holding on to an existing relationship and starting a new relationship," he said.
Discussion during a bylaws workgroup of the Executive Committee indicated that the move was made because the new Missouri convention was not as supportive of the SBC as new conventions in Texas and Virginia. The test for cooperation focused on what serves the best interest of the SBC, Executive Committee members said.
Bob Stephenson, a layman from First Baptist Church in Norman, Okla., read a prepared statement to the Executive Committee's Administrative Subcommittee during its discussion of the issue. Stephenson made the motion at the SBC meeting in June that the SBC accept money from only one convention in each state. The motion was referred to the Executive Committee.
Stephenson noted that Chapman had said the SBC wouldn't take money from the new Missouri convention because it would not make the SBC the "exclusive beneficiary" of Cooperative Program funds. Stephens said the SBC takes money from other state conventions that distribute Cooperative Program money to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Associated Baptist Press and other groups.
"From this layman's perspective, it appears that the real criterion by which the Executive Committee determines whether or not state conventions are in "friendly cooperation" is acceptance of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M)," Stephenson said. "If adherence to the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message is the criterion by which state conventions will be considered in proper relation to the SBC, then say so and consistently enforce that policy."
Executive Committee members said that even though the committee embraces the 2000 BF&M, the only criterion for accepting money from state conventions was whether taking the money was in the best interest of the SBC.
The Executive Committee relied on a document adopted by the SBC in 1928, which said state conventions are collecting agencies for the SBC.
"This arrangement, however, is not an essential in Baptist organization, but is made simply as a matter of convenience and economy, and may be changed at any time," the document said.
The document says the SBC retains the right to appeal directly to churches for money. Executive Committee members also said the SBC has the prerogative to decide who will represent its interest to churches.
"The expectation is that any state convention acting as a collection agent for the Southern Baptist Convention will vigorously promote the ministries of the Southern Baptist Convention and encourage churches to give undesignated gifts through the Cooperative Program exclusively for the state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention," a recommendation adopted by Executive Committee said.
The Executive Committee decision formalizes procedures already being carried out by SBC staff members. The SBC sent back to the BGCM a check for $394.05 for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. The check represented funds from the Chestnut Ridge Baptist Church in Farmington, Mo.
Jack Wilkerson, the SBC Executive Committee's vice president for business and finance, told BGCM secretary Sondra Allen in a letter that the money should be sent to the Missouri Baptist Convention, the SBC Executive Committee or the North American Mission Board.
Rich White, the pastor of Chestnut Ridge, responded with a letter dated Aug. 5. White told Wilkerson that one of the BGCM's core values is cooperation with the SBC.
"These apparent disagreements between my state convention and the SBC could not be any sharper than the apparent disagreements of the BGCT and BGAV with the SBC over its direction," he said. "It troubles me to think this, but it appears that the size of one's gift outweighs the ideology of the giver when it comes to SBC policy on this matter."
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