October 23, 2000

CBF 'welcoming but not affirming' of homosexuals
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___ATLANTA (ABP)--The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has adopted a stance against homosexuality described by leaders as "welcoming but not affirming" of homosexuals.
___The Atlanta-based Fellowship's governing board, the Coordinating Council, voted Oct. 13 to adopt a "statement of organizational value" about groups or causes it will fund.
___The statement, which came to the full council as a recommendation of a smaller advisory council, describes faithfulness in marriage and celibacy by singles as "the foundation of a Christian sexual ethic."
___"Because of this organizational value, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship does not allow for the expenditure of funds for organizations that condone, advocate or affirm homosexual practice," it says.
___The statement further prohibits the "purposeful" hiring of gays as CBF staff or missionaries.
___The Coordinating Council approved the recommendation by a 35-23 margin, but council leaders added quickly that they doubt the vote was a referendum on homosexuality.
___CBF Moderator-elect Jim Baucom said the approved statement "probably represents the vast majority of people in this room." While a few members obviously voted against the statement out of conviction, he said, several others told him they agreed with its sentiment personally but "cannot make a statement that would exclude people from the pews of my church."
___The Fellowship, a moderate group spun off from a long controversy within the Southern Baptist Convention, is often targeted by SBC critics for associating with individuals and groups on record as affirming gays. While CBF leaders have said publicly they believe homosexuality is immoral, the organization itself never before had made a statement on the issue.
___It did, however, once before cut off program support for a partner organization, the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, for condoning homosexuality. The Fellowship continues to cooperate with the Peace Fellowship, however, on isolated projects of mutual benefit that do not touch on homosexuality.
___Describing events that led to the new proposal, CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal said a pastor phoned him just before the last CBF general assembly to say he planned to make a motion to defund the new divinity school at Wake Forest University over the school's open-admissions policy toward gays.
___Following a lengthy meeting with Fellowship leaders, the pastor agreed not to spark a controversy at the gathering, which was focused on strategic planning and the future, if CBF leaders would promise to deal with the concern this year.
___Even apart from that episode, Vestal said he has "given an inordinate amount of time" to the issue of homosexuality in his three years on the job. He said Fellowship leaders have received more than 200 e-mails, letters and phone calls on the subject since last summer's general assembly alone.
___While the Fellowship has purposely avoided taking positions on controversial issues through a policy of not allowing resolutions at the general assembly, Vestal and other leaders said the organization can no longer dodge a controversy that is dividing many denominations.
___"It (is) time for CBF to address this issue as an organization," Vestal said. "We are being defined by our enemies on the right and our friends on the left. I feel it is time for our organization ... to do some self-definition and not depend on others to define us."
___Vestal said the questions of gay ordination and same-sex unions are settled in all but a handful of Fellowship-friendly churches. Very few, he said, would ordain a gay person or bless a same-sex union.
___"We have reached a consensus in our congregations about this, but we have not reached a consensus as an organization," Vestal said.
___While rejecting homosexual practice, the new CBF statement acknowledges "the love and grace of God for all people, both those who live by this understanding of the biblical standard and those who do not."
___Vestal described the Fellowship's position on homosexuality as "welcoming but not affirming," borrowing a phrase from the title of a book by theologian Stanley Grenz.
___"We treasure the freedom of individual conscience and the autonomy of the local church," the statement says, "and we also believe that congregational leaders should be persons of moral integrity whose lives exemplify the highest standards of Christian conduct and character."
___Vestal said the statement would not be used to tell any church, individual or other organization what to believe. "I have no interest whatever in excluding or demeaning or minimizing any in this Fellowship who share a different perspective than this document," he said.
___If any sentiment was unanimous among council members, it was that they would have preferred not to deal with the divisive issue.
___"I do not want, one, for us to fragment over this," Vestal said. "Two, I don't want anyone to leave over this. I think the difference between us and other bodies is we can and should have differences among us and still be committed to Christ and our common cause."
___Still, speakers expressed sharp differences in a civil, three-hour discussion.
___"I don't think we should limit the Spirit of God in the way that it moves," said Dixie Lee Petrey, a council member from ___Knoxville, Tenn. "Do we really want to sit here and say God's Spirit cannot call a homosexual to follow God's call?"
___Bob Setzer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., responded: "I don't know that I want to have an extended debate on homosexuality. ... This issue goes to what CBF will fund, not what local churches and CBF people will believe.
___"The issue to me is are we going to allow CBF to become an advocacy group around this issue or is it going to be a broad organization built around a common mission?" Setzer added.
___"We're not saying that God cannot call a homosexual, even a practicing homosexual," he said. "We're saying CBF does not want to fund that person's education."
___Raymond Bailey, pastor of Seventh & James Baptist Church in Waco, said the Fellowship is unwise to depart from its tradition of declining to take positions on controversial issues.
___"If we deal with this issue in this way, next year it's going to be abortion," Bailey said. "The year after that it's going to be a balanced budget. ... What will it be next?"
___Bailey said it is easy to "pick out sins" of others, but "unless we're willing to deal with adultery, smoking, excessive drinking, the alcohol industry, we're opening a Pandora's box."
___Harold Phillips, coordinator for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Missouri, however, said the statement would be helpful for people like a St. Louis pastor who was interested in and supportive of the Fellowship until he learned it had not taken any position on homosexuality.
___His perception, Phillips said, was "CBF can't make up its mind about this."
___Baucom, pastor of Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., said the Fellowship is "not going to have the luxury" of avoiding the issue. "Adults have to speak about some things that children don't. We're becoming an adult, and we're going to have to define ourselves on this issue as representatives of the people who sent us here."
___Council members rejected a portion of the original recommendation that would have ended direct financial support of theology schools that affirm homosexuality. In the case of theology schools that are bound by university-wide policies that prohibit discrimination of gays in admissions, the proposal would have blocked direct funding of those schools but allowed their students to receive CBF scholarships.
___The proposal was defeated pending study of its impact on various schools.
___Vestal said four of the Fellowship's 11 partner schools have open admission for gays: Wake Forest Divinity School and Baptist "houses" of study at Duke, Emory and Texas Christian universities. Of the four, Wake Forest and TCU already use CBF funds only for scholarships. Only two, houses of study at Emory's Candler School of Theology and Duke, receive program support.
___No Baptist General Convention of Texas school receiving Fellowship funding is among the schools with an open admissions policy for gays.

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