The important word is trust
By Tony W. Cartledge
BR Editor
Woman's Missionary Union of North Carolina (WMU-NC) and the Baptist State Convention (BSC) administration have been at odds for more than a year, and the situation seems to be escalating rather than moving toward rapprochement.
In January 2006, as Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders sought to make national WMU organization an SBC agency, as efforts to bring the BSC more in line with the SBC were clearly on the rise, and with the direction of future BSC leadership uncertain, the WMU-NC Executive Board voted to recommend changes to the organization's bylaws, and WMU-NC members adopted the changes in April 2006.
The first amendment changed the term that describes WMU-NC's relation to the BSC from "auxiliary" to "cooperative partner." Leaders said they wanted to more precisely define WMU-NC's role as an autonomous organization that voluntarily partners with the BSC in support of missions causes.
Another amendment shifted language about hiring and personnel policies from the bylaws to the WMU-NC personnel manual, where they could be updated or changed more easily.
In contemporary English, the word "auxiliary" clearly implies a subsidiary status, rather than a voluntary partnership. The Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary gives "offering or providing help" as the first definition of "auxiliary," and "functioning in a subsidiary capacity" as the second.
Similarly, the American Heritage Dictionary lists "acting as a subsidiary; supplementary" as the second option.
It's easy to see why some might think of WMU-NC as a subsidiary of the BSC. The organization has worked from the Baptist building, received partial funding from the BSC, and followed the BSC's personnel policies for many years. But, the organization has always remained autonomous and self-governing, making its own decisions and choosing its own staff.
While receiving funds from the BSC, WMU-NC has also helped raise countless dollars for the BSC and its causes. The BSC's signature offering, the North Carolina Missions Offering (NCMO), first came about when the convention voted in 1977 to combine the annual appeals of all BSC entities, including WMU-NC's Heck-Jones Offering, into a single statewide offering beginning in 1979.
The combined offering was a disaster for the social service institutions, which have all reinstated their annual appeals. Today the NCMO, which WMU-NC helps to promote, funds WMU-NC, North Carolina Baptist Men and a number of BSC programs, including half a million dollars for church planting.
For WMU-NC, the NCMO funds staff salaries and programs. The main BSC budget covers employee benefits, transportation, and the cost of maintaining WMU-NC offices.
Historically, WMU-NC has chosen and hired its own staff members. In some cases, WMU-NC staffers were on site and working before they ever met the BSC's executive director-treasurer, who signed paperwork authorizing the new employee's salary and benefits.
Former executive director Roy Smith (1983-1997) has said he was satisfied to leave it at that.
Smith was followed by Jim Royston (1998-2005), who sought more information about prospective staffers and requested that they go through the same human resources process as other BSC employees, but did not question WMU-NC's right to choose their staff.
Current executive director Milton Hollifield acknowledges the past practice, but cites liability concerns in insisting that his signature must be more than a perfunctory gesture. In a letter mailed to about 7,500 pastors, WMU leaders and directors of missions, Hollifield said it is not his desire to prohibit WMU-NC "from continuing its traditional process of interviewing and approving its prospective staff." He also said, however, "Because of labor regulations and liability issues, I am told by legal counsel that both the Human Resources Office and the (executive director-treasurer) of the BSCNC should have input in decisions to hire potential WMU of NC staff."
Hollifield has also cited the convention's attorney in saying that the term "cooperative partner" carries legal connotations that create more serious liability issues for WMU-NC and the BSC than the term "auxiliary."
WMU-NC's lawyer disagrees.
In truth, with regard to liability issues, the terminology is immaterial. If a child gets injured at Camp Mundo Vista or a WMU-NC employee misbehaves, any potential lawsuits would certainly name both WMU-NC and the BSC.
The terms "auxiliary" and "cooperative partner," however, are not the heart of the matter. The important word, the word on which the entire conflict hangs, is "trust" - or the lack of it.
Given the male-dominant and control-oriented behavior of SBC leaders and the growing orientation of the BSC toward the SBC, WMU-NC has good reason to be wary and to take measures that reinforce its autonomous nature.
Given the increasingly litigious nature of the society in which we live, the BSC has cause for concern about potential legal liabilities in all of its ministries and relationships, including but not limited to WMU-NC.
I am confident that leaders of both WMU-NC and the BSC sincerely believe they are doing the right thing to protect their respective organizations - but that's the thing: though living in a symbiotic relationship, they are separate organizations.
A relationship of voluntary cooperation, to be healthy, must be based on mutual trust rather than legal qualifiers.
Sadly, in contemporary Baptist life, such trust is in short supply.
