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Thursday, Sept. 25, 2003
BSC quietly removes church
By Steve DeVane
BR Managing Editor
A Concord church that was removed from its association in April has been quietly taken off the rolls of the Baptist State Convention (BSC).
McGill Baptist Church was voted out of the Cabarrus Baptist Association for baptizing two gay men.
Jim Royston, executive director-treasurer of the BSC, said he and BSC officers decided after hearing about the association's move that McGill should be removed from the BSC. Convention policy makes the church ineligible, he said.
In 1992, the BSC General Board changed its financial policy to exclude "any church which knowingly takes, or has taken, any official action which manifests public approval, promotion or blessing of homosexuality." Such churches are therefore not cooperating churches, the General Board said.
"Technically, it wasn't because they were removed from the association," Royston said. "It was the issue that brought it about.
"The issue as far as I could tell that impacted us was the public action of a church being removed from an association related to the homosexual issue."
Steve Ayers, pastor of McGill, said the church has not made homosexuality an issue.
"We're just talking about accepting members," he said. "I hope this doesn't mean that all gay members of churches would be purged from churches affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina."
Ayers said he thinks the BSC is "treading on very shaky ground" if it's going to decide who can be members of cooperating churches.
"If someone thinks there's not gay people in churches, somebody needs to look around," he said.
Ayers said the church has not asked the men if they are gay, but he doesn't doubt that they are. The men first came to the church because they were invited, he said.
He said he wonders if churches now must have a list of questions to ask people before the church agrees to baptize them.
"When someone says they've accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their life, do you believe them or not?" he said. "That's what it comes down to."
Ayers said he believes that only God is capable to judge.
"I could not stand before God and tell Him that I kept anyone out of His church," he said. "That's what this comes down to."
Ayers questioned why the BSC's decision would be related to the association's action.
"That's not Baptist polity," he said. "We've become very hierarchical."
Ayers said he found out that the church was no longer in the BSC when he discovered that the church was not on the church locator program on the BSC's Web site.
"It was just a shock that came out of the blue," he said. "No one from the state convention has ever asked us our interpretation on this."
Ayers wrote an e-mail to the BSC's webmaster. He received a reply from Royston saying the BSC would no longer receive contributions from the church, making it ineligible to be a cooperating member of the BSC.
Royston said in an interview that the BSC should have notified the church earlier. He said he planned to apologize to Ayers.
"I just regret that happened," he said. "That's not fair."
Royston said he expected the issue to come up during the BSC Executive Committee and General Board meetings in May, but it didn't. He informed the BSC's business office that the BSC would not be accepting any more contributions from McGill and asked them to let him know if the church sent any money.
The church sent the BSC a check for more than $4,400, which Ayers said the BSC cashed in early September.
Royston said the BSC had mistakenly cashed the check. The BSC is sending a check for the same amount back to the church, he said.
Royston said he would likely discuss the issue with the BSC Executive Committee at its meeting Sept. 30. He told Ayers that the church could appeal the decision to the Executive Committee.
Ayers said the church will have to decide what further action to take. The church's deacons next meet Oct. 12.
Ayers said the church usually sends messengers to the BSC annual meeting. Royston said the church will probably not receive messenger cards this year. If the church sends anyone to the BSC annual meeting in November, the BSC credentials committee would likely have to decide whether or not the church could have messengers, he said.
The BSC policy at issue was first used to effectively remove Pullen Memorial and Binkley Memorial churches from the BSC in 1992. Pullen in Raleigh had voted to bless the union of two homosexual males. Binkley in Chapel Hill voted to license a gay man to the ministry.
In 1999, the policy was used to remove Wake Forest Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. The church held a same-sex union for two lesbian members in September 2000.
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