Chapman and Wade differ over
breakdown of last-minute talks
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___DALLAS--A behind-the-scenes, last-minute effort at dialogue between Baptist General Convention of Texas leaders and Southern Baptist Convention leaders has failed to materialize.
___News of the plans for dialogue was reported Oct. 10 by Baptist Press, the public relations arm of the SBC Executive Committee. Release of that news story violated a key part of a gentlemen's agreement between BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade and
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FORTY-THREE REPRESENTATIVES of Southern Baptist Convention agencies, including SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman, met with 30 members of the Baptist General Convention of Texas staff Sept. 28-29 for an annual planning session unrelated to the dialgoue between Chapman and Charles Wade.
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Executive Committee President Morris Chapman, Wade asserted.
___Chapman denies agreeing to any such provision and blames Wade for failing to do his part to bring the dialogue to fruition.
___Both Wade and Chapman confirmed that they met privately in Dallas for more than four hours Sept. 28.
___That meeting occurred one week to the day from when Chapman held a forum for Texas Baptist directors of associational missions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Wade and other BGCT leaders were not informed about that meeting or invited to attend.
___However, at that meeting, directors of missions pleaded with Chapman and other SBC agency heads to attempt to reconcile with BGCT leaders before a proposal to defund several SBC agencies is presented to Texas Baptists at the BGCT annual session Oct. 30-31.
___Both Wade and Chapman also confirmed that after their Sept. 28 meeting, each agreed to enlist six other representatives to meet Oct. 19 in Dallas for further dialogue.
___According to Wade, they agreed there would be "no publicity regarding our meeting and there would be no criticism if either of us could not meet before the convention."
___"I am sad that SBC Executive Committee leadership and Baptist Press have chosen to take a private conversation and manipulatively use it as a propaganda ploy," Wade said. "This episode illustrates one of the reasons why Texas Baptists feel the need to consider redirecting some BGCT funding away from the SBC Executive Committee."
___"I'm very disappointed in Morris Chapman's willingness to go public with a confidential dialogue when he didn't get his way," added Clyde Glazener, president of the BGCT. "Anything that is said that suggests Charles Wade is less than impeccable in character and not above reproach in conduct and fairness is not the truth."
___Chapman instigated the Baptist Press story after Wade notified him Oct. 5 that, after talking with the six individuals he hoped to invite to the next meeting, it did not appear possible to schedule such a meeting before the state convention.
___"After review of an already overcrowded schedule, I determined it was not reasonable to put together a meeting before the convention in Corpus Christi," Wade told the Baptist Standard.
___Further, Wade said, the other Texas Baptist leaders with whom he consulted felt it would not be appropriate to begin potentially complex discussions less than two weeks before BGCT messengers are scheduled to vote on funding changes already approved by two key state convention committees.
___"Texas Baptists are at a crossroads," Wade explained. "The decisions that will be made at the BGCT meeting in Corpus Christi will have a profound and wide-ranging impact. The proposals to be considered are the products of long hours of prayerful study by various committees. They deserve to be discussed openly in our annual state convention.
___"Once messengers have made their decisions and charted a course for our convention, then we can work with SBC leaders about how to implement those decisions and how to continue working together where we can."
___Wade said he remains willing to meet with SBC leaders and wants to keep open lines of communication.
___Chapman portrayed the situation as demonstrating that Texas Baptist leadership isn't interested in working with SBC leaders to find a solution to the impasse.
___"I had hoped this meeting would be considered of such importance that everyone would have made it a top priority," he said. "Unfortunately, most of the BGCT leaders feel no urgency to talk with SBC leaders prior to their convention. To me, their unwillingness to meet with us signals their absolute resolve to press forward for the adoption of the Texas-preferred 2001 budget that dismantles the Cooperative Program in Texas and the unified cooperation that has existed with the Southern Baptist Convention."
___As recently as this summer, however, Chapman said he saw no need for further dialogue between SBC leadership and those concerned about changes made in the convention by conservatives since 1979.
___He opposed a motion made by a messenger to the SBC annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., to create a committee "to work toward reconciliation and restoration among Baptist groups."
___In speaking against such an attempt at reconciliation, Chapman said he saw no need for further dialogue because the majority of Southern Baptists are pleased with the direction conservatives have taken the SBC. As evidence, he cited seven years of increases in Cooperative Program giving.
___Chapman and other SBC leaders sought no input from state convention leadership in revising the Baptist Faith & Message and rebuffed efforts by Wade and others to soften some of the changes eventually made. The SBC's unilateral revision of the Baptist Faith & Message and the SBC's stated intent to use it as an "instrument of doctrinal accountability" have been cited by Texas leaders as major areas of concern.
___"Is anyone curious why these folks who haven't been interested in anything we have had to say for 20 years suddenly are interested in dialogue?" asked Glazener. "Have they suddenly become interested in what Texas Baptists feel about religious liberty and separation of church and state and priesthood of the believer, creedalism and forced terminations of those who disagree with their actions?"
___The Baptist Press story said the failed attempt at dialogue before the Texas convention is the "second time in two months leaders of the Baptist General Convention of Texas have rejected an invitation to meet with leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention in an effort to reconcile differences."
___The other incident cited by Baptist Press is an invitation that was sent July 31 from Chapman to Wade regarding participation in a forum at Southwestern Seminary Sept. 21. Chapman invited Wade, Dallas pastor Jim Denison and Texas Baptists Committed leader David Currie to participate in a panel discussion with SBC officials Jimmy Draper, Al Mohler and Paige Patterson.
___Wade said he rejected the offer, in part, because the invitation did not give full disclosure of what was being planned. The invitation did not mention that the panel discussion would occur in conjunction with the SBC leaders' meeting with Texas directors of missions to which BGCT officials weren't invited.
___Further, a panel discussion of the merits of amending the Baptist Faith & Message would have done no good after the fact, Wade said.
___This would have been a no-win situation, said Glazener, pastor of Gambrell Street Baptist Church, located adjacent to the seminary campus. "Those who love conflict would have enjoyed it," he predicted.
___In the Baptist Press release, Chapman recounted that he and Wade in their private meeting "agreed to ask the two groups not to be critical publicly of each other while the talks were progressing."
___"It now appears we both were too optimistic," Chapman said. "The fact of the matter is I am hopeful SBC leaders will refrain from caustic rhetoric."
___Under Chapman's leadership, the SBC Executive Committee recently mailed out thousands of magazines to Texas Baptists urging defeat of the funding changes and charging BGCT leaders have not told the truth about the SBC. The SBC Executive Committee during the same time period launched a website devoted exclusively to criticizing BGCT leaders and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
___"Morris Chapman is leading a full-court press to try to prove what he has long maintained--Baptists in Texas must do what they are told by the SBC," Glazener said.
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