Conservatives need to stay strong, CCB leader says

By Steve DeVane

BR Managing Editor

WAKE FOREST -Conservatives were urged to keep fighting for control of the Baptist State Convention (BSC) despite signs moderates in the state have given up.

Bill Sanderson, president of Conservative Carolina Baptists (CCB), showed about 70 people at a CCB meeting Thursday in the chapel of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary a copy of a story in the Raleigh News and Observer with the headline, "No fight left among Baptists."

"Don't believe everything you read in the paper," Sanderson said.

Sanderson said conservatives should remain "fervent in the Lord" about what they feel needs to be done as Southern Baptists in North Carolina.

"The devil is not going to leave us alone," he said.

Sanderson said conservatives need to stay strong. He encouraged conservatives churches to get their full complement of messengers to the BSC meeting next month and to encourage them to stay through the entire meeting.

"The fight's not over," he said. "We can't say we don't need to be at the convention this year."

Those attending the CCB meeting heard discussions regarding the BSC budget and nominating committee. CCB plans to hold three other meetings across the state.

Greg Mathis, a former BSC president and a current member of the BSC Budget Committee, told why he felt conservatives should support the BSC budget as it will be presented. The proposed budget keeps the four giving plans in place, but would not count money going to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) as Cooperative Program giving.

Ted Stone, an anti-drug activist from Durham, has said he will propose doing away with the four giving plans.

Jeff Long, chairman of the BSC Nominating Committee, explained why his committee decided to exclude from consideration people from churches that are affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists. He told the group that committee had taken steps to get more conservatives on the Biblical Recorder Board of Directors.

Mathis said that as he has traveled around North Carolina, a top complaint among conservatives has been that money going to CBF, a moderate Baptist group, is counted as Cooperative Program funding. He said that while he doesn't believe Southern Baptists have a corner on cooperation, he does believe that the Cooperative Program is a Southern Baptist program.

Two people attending asked Mathis why they shouldn't support Stone's proposal, which would leave the BSC with a single plan that sends 35 percent of funds to the SBC and keeps 65 for the BSC.

Mathis said he prefers a more surgical, precise approach to dealing with the budget, rather than a "chainsaw approach." He said doing away with all the plans might have some unintended consequences, such as hurting Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute, which gets 5 percent of money given through Plan D.

When someone pointed out that Stone's proposal provides increased funding for Fruitland, Mathis said the matter needs to be "thoroughly researched" to determine its impact.

During the meeting, Mathis called the current budget proposal "an important first step" and "a step in the right direction." When asked after the meeting if that meant there might be more steps later, he said that maybe he should have just said it's "an important step."

"I am not saying it's the first step or it's the only step," he said. "It is an important step."

During the meeting, Mathis also commented on a request from the Baptist Retirement Homes for a new relationship with the BSC.

"I think it would be a terrible mistake for us to lose our relationship with the Retirement Homes and the Children's Homes," he said. "I know biblically we have a mandate to take care of the children and the elderly."

The Retirement Homes' proposal was tabled by the BSC Executive Committee after the BSC's attorney said he thought it amounted to a severance of the relationship.

Baptist Children's Homes has not requested a change in its relationship to the BSC.

During the CCB meeting, Long said that even though some people were excluded from serving on BSC boards, every institution got people they recommended with the exception of the Biblical Recorder. He said the committee felt like the Recorder board needed a "broader" and "more conservative" representation.