BGCT reaches agreement with HBU
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___Houston Baptist University and the Baptist General Convention of Texas have reached a tentative agreement that will maintain their "unique affiliation" but allow the university to select 75 percent of its trustees.
___The BGCT Executive Board and HBU's trustees each approved the new "relationship agreement" in separate meetings Sept. 25. Messengers to the BGCT annual meeting will vote on the agreement when they meet in Dallas Oct. 29-30.
___The relationship crisis began in May 2000, when HBU trustees voted to create a self-perpetuating majority on their board. The BGCT responded by escrowing $1.6 million it provides to the school every year.
___The BGCT founded the university in 1960 in cooperation with the Union Baptist Association and groups of concerned Baptists in the area. The convention elected all the school's trustees, as the BGCT constitution mandates, for the next four decades.
___The convention and the university created negotiating teams to develop the agreement. The most notable points are:
___ The university's board of trustees will elect three-quarters of the trustees to fill vacancies on the board. The BGCT will select one-quarter of the trustees.
___This provision gives HBU control of its board of trustees but ensures the BGCT's involvement with the board. It parallels the convention's arrangement with Baylor University, which created a self-perpetuating majority on its board of regents a decade ago.
___ "HBU agrees to maintain a unique affiliation with the BGCT by not affiliating or establishing a formal relationship with other denominations, conventions or religious entities."
___This policy prohibits the university from creating a formal relationship with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, which split from the BGCT in 1998. The SBTC has contacted BGCT-affiliated agencies and institutions, seeking some form of relationship, but has not announced any such alliances.
___ Each trustee must be "a Christian, member of a local Texas Baptist church, and be positively supportive of the Baptist principles upon which HBU and the BGCT were founded and continue to operate."
___The agreement does not stipulate that trustees must be members of churches affiliated with the BGCT. This gives the university latitude to select trustees who are affiliated with Southern Baptists of Texas or other Baptist groups.
___ The university president must be "a Christian of Baptist heritage, who is positively supportive of Baptist principles upon which HBU and the BGCT were founded and continue to operate, and who tangibly affirms a commitment to carrying out the purposes and mission of HBU in cooperation with the BGCT."
___HBU President Doug Hodo is a member of Second Baptist Church in Houston, one of the largest Baptist churches. For its size, Second Baptist has maintained nominal financial involvement with the BGCT. But it has provided several trustees for BGCT agencies, including HBU. It has not affiliated with Southern Baptists of Texas.
___Qualifications of trustees and the university president provided a point of contention between the negotiating teams representing the university and the convention, reported John Uxer, a BGCT negotiating team member.
___"The BGCT response committee was and is strongly convinced that, for an affiliation to be equitable, at least a majority
__of the trustees and future president must be members of BGCT-affiliated churches," Uxer, a layman from El Paso, told the BGCT Executive Board.
___"The HBU team rejected this requirement, not that they objected to the trustees being members of BGCT-affiliated churches, but they did not want to dictate where their trustees and future presidents attend church. The BGCT negotiating team ultimately agreed with HBU on this position, provided that strong points be included requiring positive support of BGCT by all trustees and future presidents."
___The Executive Board also affirmed several related recommendations previously approved by the BGCT's Christian Education Coordinating Board and Administrative Committee.
___Of the funds escrowed from HBU during the past year, $100,000 will be allocated to Baptist Student Ministry at the university.
___The balance of escrowed funds, plus interest, will be divided between the Christian Education Coordinating Board, with an emphasis on theological education, and the BGCT contingency fund.
___The BGCT will continue to provide full Ministerial Tuition Grants for all eligible HBU students, and HBU students and faculty will be eligible for any other scholarship and financial aid programs offered by the convention.
___For the next year, the "basic block grant" funds the BGCT previously would have provided to HBU will be withheld and applied to the convention's contingency fund. This grant is valued at about $540,000. Consideration of funds for HBU after 2002 will be examined and recommended by the Christian Education Coordinating Board.
___"The philosophy behind this is cooperation, not control," said Pete Freeman, a BGCT negotiating team member and pastor of First Baptist Church in The Woodlands. In order to achieve cooperation, the negotiators were willing to accept HBU's demand that trustees and president could come from non-BGCT churches in return for the university's exclusive relationship with the BGCT, he explained.
___The agreement received affirmation from both BGCT and HBU officials.
___"I am pleased that HBU and the BGCT have honored our historical ties with one another by committing to a continued relationship," said HBU Board Chairman David Stutts, who represented the university in negotiations.
___"I am grateful to the BGCT representatives for the good spirit in which we have been able to work on this agreement. Exciting days lie ahead of us in the life of HBU, and I am thankful that the BGCT will continue to have a direct role in our success."
___"I am very pleased," said BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade, "that through the prayers and hard work of our committees we were able to find a mutually satisfactory resolution to the governance issues related to the BGCT and HBU. We want to be a part of the training of college students in Houston.
___"The people involved have worked with integrity and respect," Wade said. "This agreement enhances the goal of the BGCT to touch all of Texas with the gospel and to help all our related ministries to be the presence of Christ in the world."
___"The agreement clearly affirms a continued relationship between the university and the BGCT and does so in a positive and meaningful way," added Keith Bruce, coordinator of institutional ministries for BGCT.
___"Especially I want to commend the individuals who represented both the BGCT and HBU for the prayerful, honest and warm manner in which these discussions were conducted over the past several months," Bruce said. "For over 40 years, HBU has been a valued and integral member of our Texas Baptist university family. I am thrilled that this affiliation and partnership continues."
___"On behalf of HBU, I am grateful that the continued relationship between HBU and BGCT has been affirmed," HBU President Hodo said. "I want to thank the members and representatives of the Executive Board of the BGCT and the HBU board of trustees for their watchcare and prayerful support."
___During the BGCT Executive Board's consideration of the proposal, Jim Ginnings, a lay member from Wichita Falls, proposed that the BGCT "vacate the board of trustees of HBU and appoint a board to serve until the convention can act."
___Executive Board Chairman Rudy Sanchez ruled Ginnings' motion out of order after Uxer explained the negotiating team considered that possibility but discovered the BGCT does not have legal authority to remove HBU trustees.
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook