SBC Executive Committee focuses
on Texas in adopting 2 resolutions
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___Members of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee had Texas on their minds Sept. 18 and 19 as they gathered in Nashville, Tenn.
___The major item of business for the denomination's governing body between annual sessions was figuring out how to respond to proposals by Baptist General Convention of Texas committees to redirect funding away from some SBC agencies and seminaries next year.
___The proposals would remove all but $10,000 in funding for the Executive Committee itself, completely defund the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and reduce funding for the six SBC seminaries from $5.3 million to $1 million. Funding for the SBC's International Mission Board and North American Mission Board--which together account for 70 cents of every Cooperative Program dollar allocated by the SBC--would not be changed.
___Although moderate Baptists in every state have opposed the SBC's rightward shift since 1979, Texas is the first state Baptist convention to challenge the SBC's funding. Until now, all 39 state Baptist conventions have continued to send millions of dollars to the SBC Executive Committee each year through the Cooperative Program, a joint funding mechanism.
___BGCT leaders have said some SBC agencies--particularly the six SBC seminaries--no longer deserve the same amount of funding because they are not the same agencies and do not espouse the same doctrines as they did when the Cooperative Program was begun in 1925.
___The threat of reallocating about $6.5 million of the $24 million in undesignated funds sent annually from the BGCT to the SBC rippled across virtually every aspect of the Executive Committee's two-day fall meeting.
___All but two SBC agency heads reporting to the Executive Committee made reference to the Texas challenge, and Executive Committee President Morris Chapman--a former Texas pastor himself--gave a speech denouncing the Texas proposals.
___Executive Committee members adopted two resolutions on the issue, one affirming the six SBC seminaries and one warning that the funding changes proposed by Texas Baptists set "a dangerous precedent in our larger Southern Baptist work."
___The strongly worded resolutions are necessary because BGCT leaders are conducting "a campaign of misinformation ... and we really have no strong voice in terms of getting to the churches en masse," explained Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.
___Graham's 16,000-member church recently voted to dually align with the more conservative Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and has threatened to leave the BGCT entirely if certain conditions are not met at this fall's BGCT annual session.
___Out of total receipts of $25.5 million last year, the Plano church gave $150,000 to the Cooperative Program through the BGCT, including a total of $6,000 for BGCT causes, according to the BGCT Annual.
___The resolution Graham spoke in favor of urged that "Southern Baptist churches in Texas be encouraged to give generously their undesignated offerings to the Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program through the state conventions."
___However, the resolution warned that if the BGCT no longer promotes SBC causes and funds SBC causes in the proportion suggested by the SBC, other channels will be used to encourage church support.
___The proposed change in Texas "fails to fully and freely promote the collection of undesignated gifts for the Southern Baptist Convention," the resolution states. Further, the proposal "represents a unilateral breach of (the BGCT's) 75-year partnership agreement as the Southern Baptist Convention's trusted collection agent."
___"Such a proposal effectively destroys the Cooperative Program process between the BGCT and the Southern Baptist Convention and sets a dangerous precedent in our larger Southern Baptist work," it states.
___In the resolution, Executive Committee members also urge messengers to the BGCT annual session to reject the proposed change in funding.
___The resolution quotes a 1928 statement on the relation of the SBC to other Baptist bodies. An original draft of the resolution quoted one portion of the 1928 document to suggest that the SBC should "conduct all negotiations with representatives of (the BGCT) necessary to clarify relations and bring about a satisfactory adjustment, with a view to complete and hearty cooperation in all matters of common interest."
___During debate, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., spoke from the meeting room gallery to propose that portion be amended.
___He urged deleting the words "and bring about a satisfactory adjustment," explaining that might give BGCT leaders the wrong impression of how far SBC leadership is willing to go.
___"My concern is what may be implied by the statement, 'satisfactory adjustment.' That raises a question of who adjusts whom and what adjustments are on the table," he said.
___Mohler's suggestion was accepted, although he is not a member of the Executive Committee. However, when the resolution was tabled overnight for members to pray over it, even more of the historical quotation was removed, leaving only the phrase "with a view to complete and hearty cooperation in all matters of common interest."
___Stan Coffey, pastor of San Jacinto Baptist Church in Amarillo and president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, spoke against adopting the resolution. To do so would detract from the new convention's opportunity to benefit from the BGCT's action, he said.
___The resolution "really doesn't give us an opportunity as a new state convention to function, and it really doesn't give churches the opportunity to recognize us as a way they can do state missions and serve Southern Baptists," Coffey said.
___The new convention was formed "to support what's been done the last 20 years and support our leaders," he pleaded. "This resolution is not necessary for churches to give to the Executive Committee. They can do that now.
___"Unless this is a public-relations piece designed to bypass the state convention and solicit funds directly from Texas churches, I don't see the need for it," Coffey concluded.
___"I realize there are churches that will not choose to be a part of our convention ... . But I have a concern that this action is going to encourage churches to bypass the state convention, and we have a lost state, a large state. There's so much the Southern Baptist Convention can't do that those of us in Texas ... are going to have to do."
___Chapman responded to Coffey's concerns by expressing "gratitude for the loyalty to the SBC by Southern Baptists of Texas."
___However, "we are faced with something a little different here," he said, "in that we have two state conventions and we continue to relate to two state conventions. Nothing has occurred yet to have us sever from either state convention.
___"There are pastors in Texas who have expressed to me they themselves are not prepared to join another state convention. ... Others have said, 'We do not believe we can lead our church to join another state convention.' The SBC has an interest to protect here.
___"I do believe the Executive Committee would be looking out for the best interest of the Southern Baptist Convention to pass a resolution like this."
___A separate resolution approved by the Executive Committee affirms the six SBC seminaries for "faithful ministry and promises to take all appropriate steps to ensure continued financial support for their staffs, faculties and students."
___The seminary resolution commends the seminaries to churches of the SBC and "encourages the Baptist General Convention of Texas to reject the unwarranted and unfair attacks upon the seminaries and to defeat the proposal that seeks to remove their funding."
___With reporting by Bob Allen of Associated Baptist Press, Trennis Henderson of the Western Recorder and Art Toalston of Baptist Press
The Baptist Standard
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