Biblical Recorder to choose 2007 directors (updated Feb. 2)
From staff reports
The Biblical Recorder will nominate four of its directors who are scheduled to be elected to its board in 2006, exercising an option provided in the Baptist State Convention (BSC) bylaws.
Editor-president Tony Cartledge informed the BSC Committee on Nominations in late January that the Recorder's directors voted in December to nominate the directors whose terms begin in 2007.
BSC bylaws allow each affiliated college, institution or agency to nominate up to 50 percent of its trustees or directors. In return, the entity gives up a similar percentage of its funding from the BSC during the time those directors serve.
The Recorder could lose about $400,000 in funding from the BSC over four years by nominating the four directors.
The provision allowing entities to nominate up to half their trustees or directors grew out of an institutional relations study committee whose report was adopted by messengers and incorporated into the BSC's constitution in November 1992. The provision was moved into the convention bylaws when the BSC incorporated in 2004.
The Recorder will be the first BSC agency to employ the provision, which calls for entities to make an annual report by Feb. 1, informing the Committee on Nominations and the Budget Committee whether they intend to exercise the option for the following year.
"We exercise this option with deep regret," said Joe Babb, chairman of the Biblical Recorder Board of Directors, "not only for the loss of funding, but for the increasing polarization in BSC life that has led us to believe that, for the time being, this decision is necessary in order to safeguard and preserve the charter principles of a free press for the future. We have no agenda for changing our relationship to the BSC."
Jeff Long, chairman of the BSC Committee on Nominations, said the committee will probably talk with BSC officers and the BSC attorney before decided how to proceed.
"We've obviously never been down that road," he said. "We'll seek direction beyond the committee as to how to handle that."
Mike Cummings, the acting executive director-treasurer of the BSC, said he is not troubled by the Recorder's decision.
"I hope it doesn't give the impression that the Recorder doesn't need the money because I know it does and deserves Cooperative Program support," he said.
Cummings said he would rather the Recorder board decide to follow the provision in the BSC documents rather than face some more difficult issues that could arise with other institutions or agencies.
Typically, trustee recommendations from individuals are forwarded to the Committee on Nominations, which makes copies available to the presidents of the entities. Drawing on those and past recommendations, along with input from the current trustees or directors, entity presidents present the committee with a list of potential trustees that they believe will best serve the interests of their organization. The list generally includes twice the number of trustees or directors to be elected, in priority order.
In 2005, several entity presidents were surprised when the Committee on Nominations rejected some of their high-priority recommendations, including former board members who the presidents believed had served well in previous terms. The committee excluded some because they belonged to a church affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists, which has endorsed an open policy toward homosexuals. Other persons were rejected because their churches were no longer affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), or for other reasons.
Long, the chair of the nominating committee, said the committee as a whole never excluded persons because of a lack of support for the SBC, but it is possible that individual committee members who served as liaisons to specific entities might have considered it.
"I have no knowledge of the fact that anybody was using that as a litmus test," he said.
Long said BSC staff members told him that a college representative had indicated that one liaison had asked about support for the SBC during discussions about one potential nominee.
The leaders of two BSC entities have indicated that they were told nominees were excluded because of a lack of SBC support or other reasons.
Since the nominating committee's actions, The Baptist Retirement Homes of North Carolina voted to start naming its own trustees. A separate committee is studying the relationship between the BSC and its five affiliated colleges.
Cartledge, editor-president of the Recorder, said that last year the nominating committee chose to nominate persons from lists provided by the heads of every entity except the Recorder.
"The committee accepted only two of the eight names submitted by the Recorder, and excluded the other six without providing any rationale for doing so," Cartledge said.
None of the excluded persons were members of non-SBC churches or churches affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists, Cartledge said. All belonged to churches with a strong record of support for the BSC, he added.
"As for why these good people were excluded, all we have to go on is the chairman's statement to Conservative Carolina Baptists that the committee wanted to put more conservatives on the Biblical Recorder board," he said.
Long made the comment during a meeting held at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary on Oct. 20. He said Feb. 2 that while he couldn't speak for the entire committee, he felt there were not enough conservatives on the Recorder board.
Long said the committee did not exclude the six potential nominees to the Recorder board for any specific reason, but decided instead to follow the recommendations from the committee member who was a liaison to the Recorder and select two other nominees who were more conservative.
Those two nominees weren't on the list of names submitted by the Recorder. But Long said they were from recommendations made by N.C. Baptists.
"We didn't, as a committee, generate those names," he said.
When asked to elaborate on what criteria the committee used to determine that more conservative representation was needed on the Recorder board, Long said he would prefer to reflect on the issue before answering. In a statement issued to Baptist Press, Long said the Recorder decision is evidence that there are two distinct perspectives in the Baptist State Convention.
"The reason there needs to be a strong conservative representation and voice on the Biblical Recorder's board is to make sure that a free, objective and balanced reporting of Baptist life in North Carolina is printed," he said. "It is obvious to most that the weekly reporting of the Biblical Recorder has a clear bent toward the (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship) and an open bias against the SBC."
Cartledge said that in most other state conventions where agenda-bearing conservatives have gained control of the state paper's board, they have either muzzled the editor through censorship, or replaced him with someone who could be counted on to promote the party line.
"A free Baptist press was lost in those conventions," he said.
Long said in the statement to Baptist Press that "the idea that a conservative cannot be supportive of a free press is condescending and ludicrous."
Cartledge said having conservative directors is not the issue. "I have recommended a number of conservative candidates in past requests and they have served well," he said. "But, when presenting potential candidates, I have always told the nominating committee that whether a board member favors conservative or moderate theological positions is not an issue to me.
"What is important is that the person appreciates traditional Baptist distinctives, and is committed to the mission of the Biblical Recorder."
Cartledge said he has no reason to believe the directors assigned to the Recorder for 2006 will not be supportive of the paper. "But the committee has set the precedent of rejecting an entity's carefully selected recommendations without cause, which could lead to the future nomination of persons who are antagonistic to that organization's core mission," he said.
Long told Baptist Press that the board members who were recommended by the Committee on Nominations for the Biblical Recorder uphold the mission of the paper.
"However, I think that the deeper issue appears to be that the newly elected board members may not uphold the mission of the current board of directors and leadership of the Biblical Recorder," he said.
According to the Biblical Recorder's charter, which is cited in the BSC bylaws, the publication is "to maintain and safeguard the inalienable rights and privileges of a free press, these rights and privileges being consistent with the traditional Baptist emphasis upon the freedom, under Christ, of both the human spirit and Baptist churches."
"One cannot overestimate the importance of a free press that covers the news objectively rather than serving as a controlling body's public relations tool," Babb said. "Often in the face of unwarranted criticism, the Biblical Recorder has provided that valuable service to North Carolina Baptists since 1833, and we hope to continue that tradition for many years to come."
BSC president Stan Welch told Baptist Press that there will be a monetary impact on the Recorder that the paper's directors must have studied.
"I would hope they would find some good trustees that would not in any way embarrass the convention in light of the convention's strong stance against homosexuality," he said. "We want the Biblical Recorder to be all it is supposed to be to N.C. Baptists."
