November 10, 1999
New Mexico ties credentials to BF&M
___LAS CRUCES, N.M. (ABP) --The Baptist Convention of New Mexico has directed its Executive Board to study language requiring local churches to affirm the recently amended Baptist Faith & Message to be in good standing with the state convention.
___That came after messengers to the annual state convention approved new articles of incorporation and bylaws that no longer require a church to be part of a local association to be recognized by the state group.
___Former convention President Dean Mathis, pastor of Taylor Memorial Baptist Church in Hobbs, N.M., said the change would weaken the role of associations, which in the past have enforced doctrinal integrity of churches, thus sparing the state convention from debating theology.
___Mathis proposed an amendment to the new articles of incorporation and bylaws--which govern the state convention, a children's home, a foundation and two camps--to require that messengers to the annual meeting be "from Baptist churches which have been received into and are cooperating with one of the Baptist associations in New Mexico."
___Messengers at the Oct. 26-27 state convention at First Baptist Church in Las Cruces rejected Mathis' amendment 172-90, however, and then voted overwhelmingly to adopt new governing documents proposed by a study committee named last year.
___Mack McCarthick, pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Lovington, made a motion that the current year's credentials committee use the Southern Baptist Convention's revised Baptist Faith & Message as criteria to decide whether to seat messengers to this year's state convention meeting. The motion passed 190-61.
___McCarthick returned later in the meeting with another recommendation, that the Executive Board study amending the just-approved articles and bylaws to specify that future credentials committees also use the Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement as a guide.
___But Amy Mathis, a messenger from Sandia Baptist Church in Albuquerque, said some New Mexico Baptists disagree with an amendment to the doctrinal statement voted by the SBC last year. A new article on the family, the first amendment to the Baptist Faith & Message since 1963, declares that wives should submit to their husbands.
___Amy Mathis warned that churches that disagree with the position would be in danger of being ruled out of fellowship by the state convention.
___How the convention words its new policy, if in fact such a policy is adopted, could become more important in coming years because the SBC currently has a committee working on further revisions to the Baptist Faith & Message.
___Those revisions are scheduled to be presented at next June's SBC annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.
___Reported by John Loudat of the Baptist New MexicanContents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!