Constitutional amendment passes,
allows out-of-state representation
___By Mark Wingfield& Ferrell Foster
___CORPUS CHRISTI--Members of churches outside Texas that affiliate with the Baptist General Convention of Texas now will be allowed to serve on convention committees and boards.
___The change was approved by messengers to the BGCT annual session in Corpus Christi Oct. 30. With only scattered opposition, messengers gave the required second affirmation to a constitutional amendment that removes geographical limitations on nominees for convention committees and boards.
___The Texas convention has not had any limitation on churches outside the state joining the convention, and the BGCT currently has about a half dozen churches from other states among its cooperating churches. Those churches generally are in border communities.
___However, speculation has escalated over the past year that the BGCT could become a refuge for moderate Baptist churches nationwide as some state Baptist conventions align more closely with the conservative direction of the Southern Baptist Convention. Critics of the BGCT have charged the Texas convention is transforming itself into a new national convention.
___Texas Baptist leaders, however, have said they have no intention of recruiting churches from outside the state. If churches from other states desire to seek affiliation with the BGCT, they will be welcome as they always have been, the convention leaders have said.
___"We're not bent on forming a new denomination," said BGCT President Clyde Glazener. "Every time the SBC does something, it seems that Texas has to make some kind of move to ensure Texas people will still be free. Consequently, we do keep finding ourselves doing things that would generate a full-service convention. That didn't start out as our intention."
___The specific constitutional amendment ratified by messengers this year affects Article VIII, Section 1, sentence 3. This sentence previously read: "The personnel of these boards shall be active members of cooperating Baptist churches in the State of Texas." It now says trustees of BGCT agencies are to be "active members of cooperating Baptist General Convention of Texas churches."
___Messengers approved the change by a margin that was "very clearly" more than the required two-thirds majority, announced Clyde Glazener, BGCT president.
___Phil Lineberger, pastor of Williams Trace Baptist Church in Sugar Land, said he brought the motion "so churches outside Texas affected by the rising tide of creedalism" in Southern Baptist life would have a place to be involved.
___"I do not want us to recruit but to provide a friendly home for those who seek it," Lineberger said.
___He referred specifically to recent changes adopted by the Baptist Convention of New Mexico. Baptists in that neighboring state must now support the SBC in order to participate with the New Mexico convention.
___That is a "violation of local church autonomy," Lineberger said, explaining that each Baptist body ought to be free to relate to any other Baptist body it chooses without restriction by another Baptist body.
___No one besides Lineberger spoke either for or against the change, and it was adopted on a show-of-hands vote with little opposition.
___Two representatives of the Baptist Convention of New Mexico, however, issued statements later in the week expressing their displeasure with Lineberger's comments about New Mexico.
___Bob Butler, pastor of Sandia Baptist Church in Albuquerque and president of the New Mexico convention, said Lineberger's assertion that churches must support the SBC to participate in the state convention is not true.
___"I am personally aware of at least one of our member churches in good standing that specifies that its missions funds not be used for SBC causes, although most all our churches are comfortable with the traditional funding formula for SBC entities."
___The New Mexico convention is not guilty of creedalism, Butler said. "Any member church of the BCNM is free to associate or not associate with any other body as they see fit."
___Butler said Lineberger himself demonstrated ignorance of Baptist autonomy by making disparaging comments about the New Mexico convention. Lineberger's comments, he added, gave the appearance of an effort to recruit out-of-state churches.
___Both Butler and Joe Bruce, immediate past president of the New Mexico convention, predicted few churches in their state would be interested in joining the BGCT.
___"New Mexico Baptists do not desire the politics that have boiled in our sister convention," said Bruce, pastor of First Baptist Church of Bloomfield. "Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Lineberger, for the invitation to join the BGCT feud.
___"In New Mexico, going to the convention is like going to revival, not like going to the wrestling match."




The Baptist Standard