November 6, 2000

Texas Baptists affirm change in funding SBC
___By Mark Wingfield & Marv Knox
___Managing Editor & Editor
___CORPUS CHRISTI--By an estimated 3-to-1 margin or greater, Texas Baptists approved the recommendations of the Seminary Study Committee Oct. 30 that will reduce funding for the six Southern Baptist Convention seminaries beginning in January.
___In a separate decision the same afternoon, Texas Baptists voted to completely defund

MESSENGERS raise their ballots to vote on one of the recommendations considered during the BGCT annual session in Corpus Christi. (BGCT photo)

the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and defund all but $10,000 going annually to the SBC Executive Committee--a combined reallocation of more than $1 million.
___The actions mark the most severe reallocation of funds by an autonomous state Baptist convention since the SBC formed its Cooperative Program unified budget in 1925. Proponents of the funding changes said they were precipitated by theological and political changes brought about in the SBC over the last 21 years as conservatives have reshaped the national convention.
___However, the 6,664 messengers to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session refused to sever all ties to the SBC. They overwhelmingly defeated a motion from the floor that would have cut all BGCT funding for SBC agencies, including the national convention's two mission boards.
___The latter motion was made by a messenger who apparently did not support the other funding changes and said the convention might as well go ahead and cut all funding for the SBC in order to give churches a clear choice.
___"I believe our vote here destroyed the Cooperative Program," said Greg Smith, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Denison. "It appears where we're headed is a national convention apart from the SBC."
___But messengers wanted nothing to do with Smith's proposal, rejecting it by one of the most lopsided votes of the day, with only a smattering of support.
___Nevertheless, critics of the BGCT who believe the state convention should be more loyal to the SBC decried the annual session as marking the death of the Cooperative Program. And the fault lies with Texas Baptists, they said.
___"Of course this is a repudiation of the Cooperative Program," Mac Brunson, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, told Baptist Press. "I am brokenhearted over this."
___The BGCT "must at least admit that it is their leadership that has moved away from theological accountability--not the SBC," said Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
___He specifically referenced Texas Baptists' expressions of concern about the SBC's revisions to the Baptist Faith & Message and subsequent use of the faith statement as a self-described "instrument of doctrinal accountability."
___"Without a confession of faith, there is no legal or disciplinary procedure for accountability," Mohler said in a Baptist Press report.
___The $4.3 million in money diverted from the SBC seminaries will be given to three Texas Baptist schools--Truett Seminary at Baylor University in Waco, Logsdon School of Theology at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene and Hispanic Baptist Theological School in San Antonio.
___This vote was taken by a show of hands, with an estimated 75 percent to 80 percent of messengers voting in favor of the recommendations.
___The $736,291 diverted from the SBC Executive Committee will go to "Texas priority" projects such as Hispanic ministry and human welfare programs, and the $364,582 diverted from the ERLC will go to the Texas Christian Life Commission.
___This vote was taken by ballot, after a messenger requested use of the more detailed procedure. The vote was 74 percent favorable, with 4,194 votes in the affirmative and 1,426 negative.
___Despite the changes, the BGCT still will forward more than $12 million to the SBC International Mission Board next year and more than $5.5 million to the SBC North American Mission Board.
___Committee makes report
___Bob Campbell, chairman of the Seminary Study Committee created by the BGCT last year, gave an overview of his committee's six-month study, which had been published in a 100-page volume nearly eight weeks prior to the convention.
___In a 15-minute presentation, he highlighted the opportunity the committee believes exists in Texas to train ministers and the need to strengthen ministry among Hispanics.
___Of the 48 Baptist colleges and universities in the United States, eight are located in Texas, Campbell noted. Yet 46 percent of all ministerial students attending Baptist universities are enrolled in Texas Baptist schools, he added.
___"If any of those 3,623 students decides to go to either Truett Seminary or Logsdon School of Theology, they will pay more tuition than it will cost them to go to one of the six SBC seminaries. That is not right; it is not fair," Campbell said. "Their calling is sure, but they do have financial considerations. And so we believe there needs to be something done to aid them."
___Hispanics represent the fastest-growing population group in Texas, he said, yet Hispanic ministers are having to drop out of Hispanic Baptist Theological School because they cannot afford the $35 per semester hour tuition.
___"We send a great deal of money outside this state for theological education," Campbell said. "We spend very little in this state for theological education. We would like to take a new look at that.
___"We are spending $14.90 on the six SBC schools while both Truett and Logsdon must split $1," he added. "These schools cannot grow in that environment. Our students cannot afford to go there."
___Meanwhile, the six SBC schools "have changed theologically," Campbell reported. "That is a fact. It is true. Nothing illustrates that better than the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement."
___For the first time, the Baptist doctrinal statement has been made into an "instrument of doctrinal accountability," he said. "It demands a rigid adherence. You cannot be a professor (at the SBC seminaries) unless you adhere only to the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message."
___It is not good enough, he explained, for a potential professor to sign the Bible itself but not affirm the SBC's document.
___"You cannot be a professor there, nor can you serve on any board, commission or committee of the SBC unless you are willing to adhere to the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement. ... That means a large number of you cannot serve.
___"They want your money. They do not want you," Campbell concluded.
___Amendments offered
___During the 30-minute period allotted for discussion of the Seminary Study Committee report, messengers soundly defeated two attempts to amend the report.
___One of those amendments, offered by Bubba Stahl, pastor of First Baptist Church of Boerne, would have spread the seminary funding changes over a three-year period.
___Stahl said this change would allow Texas Baptists to accomplish what they want to do but allow it to be done in a more courteous way.
___"Any time we are considerate and courteous of other people, regardless of who they are or what they've done, ... it's doing what it is right," he said. "This amendment will help us do it the right way."
___Committee member Rick Davis, pastor of First Baptist Church of Midlothian, spoke against Stahl's amendment.
___"I guess it's always better to cut a dog's tail off an inch at a time, but it's not all that courteous," Davis said. "The SBC reports a surplus this year of $18-plus million. There's no reason for anybody to have to suffer at any of the SBC seminaries, if they use the money correctly.
___"Meanwhile, students at our Texas Baptist schools are suffering. We have Hispanic students who cannot go to school because they cannot afford to pay the $35 an hour tuition. We're going to stop giving the most money to those who need it least and the least money to those who need it most."
___Brunson told Baptist Press he was offended by Davis' statement about cutting off the tail of a dog.
___"Are we here to talk about dog tails or kingdom business?" he asked. "Comparing dog tails to kingdom business is sacrilegious."
___Another amendment proposed by L.A. Murr of First Baptist Church of Sunnyvale would have created a Plan A and Plan B in BGCT giving, with one option embracing the new theological funding plan and the other retaining the old SBC plan. The BGCT already has five giving plans.
___Although the two parliamentarians on the platform instructed President Clyde Glazener that the motion was out of order because it did not propose anything that was not already possible, Glazener allowed Murr two minutes to make his case, which centered on his love for the Cooperative Program unified budget.
___"We've got the greatest organization in the world for the Great Commission," Murr pleaded, choking back tears. "Don't destroy it. Don't tear it down."
___Again, despite counsel from parliamentarians that the amendment was out of order, Glazener allowed messengers to vote on the motion. It was overwhelmingly defeated.
___Apart from the attempted amendments, only two messengers actually spoke to the recommendations themselves. Bob Dixon, a member of Midway Road Baptist Church in Dallas and retired executive director of Texas Baptist Men, spoke against the funding changes. Judy Battles, a lay member of First Baptist Church of Arlington, spoke in favor of the changes.
___Other messengers were waiting at microphones to discuss the funding changes when the allotted time for debate expired. Messengers rejected a request to extend debate, then voted to adopt the changes.
___Among those waiting at a microphone to be recognized was Brunson, who charged in Baptist Press that an unidentified man blocked him from access to the microphone.
___Brunson was recognized at one of the floor microphones, but only after the time for debate had expired and messengers had voted not to extend the debate. BGCT President Glazener had been recognizing speakers in the order in which they punched in on a common switchboard, but debate over two proposed amendments took most of the allotted time.
___Brunson said he intended to offer a motion to table consideration of the Seminary Study Committee report until all six SBC seminary presidents had the opportunity to address the convention.
___"I think there needs to be more than 45 minutes set aside for debate for something of this magnitude," Brunson said. "This was so political, and it was well planned."
___The proposal to redirect funding from the SBC Executive Committee and ERLC sustained less debate, although messengers turned back the one attempted amendment that would have defunded all SBC entities.
___At two points in budget presentations, BGCT Treasurer Roger Hall explained that no church will be forced to give in a manner it finds objectionable.
___"We do respect and do have the church-directed giving approach," he said. "If there is any question at all, we call or contact your church. ... That has been the case. That is the case. The church has the choice."
___Seminaries respond
___The vote to reallocate funds from the six SBC seminaries did not surprise their presidents, said Bill Crews, president of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, Calif., and chairman of the council of seminary presidents.
___"We were proven true prophets, because we thought it would pass," Crews told

AT A NEWS CONFERENCE after the vote, Southwestern Seminary President Ken Hemphill said he couldn't say why relationships between Texas Baptists and the SBC had deteriorated so badly (BGCT photo)

reporters of the seminary-funding proposal.
___"All of us are concerned" about the funding change, he added. "It's a significant amount of money. But more significant is the partnership" that will be lost as the BGCT alters its giving formula.
___Ken Hemphill, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, said he is grieved for Texas Baptists, who no longer willhave an opportunity to relate to the ministerial students being trained by the six SBC seminaries.
___However, Hemphill said he doesn't believe Texas Baptists in the churches will forsake the seminaries.
___"I've always believed God works for good in everything," he explained. "This will be an opportunity for local churches to work. I think many Texas Baptist churches will continue to support the Southern Baptist seminaries."
___The discrepancy between Southwestern Seminary's current funding from the BGCT and the amount it is expected to receive according to the new formula is about $800,000, but Hemphill predicted the reduction of funds would not be that severe.
___"I don't think you're going to take away $800,000," he said. "I believe our churches and alumni will see this as an opportunity to speak for themselves."
___However, Claude Thomas, pastor of First Baptist Church in Euless and chairman of the SBC Executive Committee, said the decisions to defund the seminaries and the other two SBC agencies would provide the churches with an opportunity for division.
___"It will be an issue in the local church," he predicted. "There will be divergent opinions. That's an unfortunate circumstance in a local church. ...
___"I would hope the average Texas Baptist would want to be part of what we're doing in missions at home and around the world," he added, stressing the action to reduce funds to SBC seminaries "strikes at" mission support by reducing funding for training future missionaries.
___Asked why the SBC and the BGCT had reached such division, Crews, Hemphill and Thomas were silent for several moments.
___"I'm not sure why it's come to this point," Hemphill said. "We thought the (Southern Baptist) cooperative strategy in place was God-given."
___Texas response
___In another news conference, Russell Dilday, Hemphill's predecessor who was fired by the Southwestern Seminary trustees' new conservative majority in 1994, suggested Hemphill's answer demonstrates "monstrous naivete" or willful distortion of the obvious facts.
___"The thing that was overlooked were the changes (in SBC seminaries) that have taken place over the last 20 years--tectonic changes," Dilday said. "Their faculties are different. Their trustees are different. ... Texas Baptists didn't come to this out of a vacuum."
___"The Southern Baptist Convention has done this to themselves for 20 years," added David Currie, executive director of Texas Baptists Committed, referencing the theological/political struggle won at the national level by ultra-conservatives and resulting in removal of Baptists who did not agree with the changes brought on by the movement.
___Dilday also disputed Thomas' assertion that the funding action would disrupt the churches or inflict the BGCT's will on the churches.
___"This decision will not in any way coerce churches. They can decide," Dilday said. Some churches may not want to deal with the issues, but even they "can be good stewards" and make sound decisions, he added.
___"This is a vote for the people, a vote from the churches," Dilday said of the BGCT action. "We can pull away from the quagmire (of 20 years of convention controversy). It's a time of excitement."
___He quoted the late Mary Hill Davis, a Texas Baptist missions icon and namesake of the convention's annual offering for missions causes: "I don't get excited about looking back."
___"The years I have left, I want to spend doing things constructively."
___In comments to reporters after the votes, Wade would not speculate how many Texas Baptists churches might leave the BGCT as a result of the funding changes. "How can you know?" he replied.
___Although somewhere between one-fourth and one-fifth of messengers voted against the defunding of several SBC agencies, Wade said he does not anticipate a similar percentage of the convention's 6,000 churches pulling out. The vast majority will remain loyal to the BGCT, he said.
___Wade suggested his decision to endorse the budget changes, even at the risk of losing churches, was not based on a calculation of how many congregations might be lost, but on principle.
___"As important as it is to hold churches together, when it got to this Baptist principle ... I knew I had to make a statement," he said. "When Baptist people find out what this issue is about, they will support Baptist freedom."

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