Missouri's new leaders criticize alternate giving plans
___JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.--Fundamentalists who have gained control of the Missouri Baptist Convention through several years of rancor now contend that Missouri pastors creating alternative giving plans will "create needless friction among Southern Baptists in the state."
___A Dec. 7 article published by Baptist Press, the public relations arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, quotes Jay Scribner, chairman of the Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Board, as saying his political opponents "are trying to undermine the Cooperative Program and create division among Missouri Baptist churches."
___It also quotes Roger Moran, leader of the Project 1000 political effort to advance fundamentalist causes in Missouri, as criticizing the three new giving plans crafted by a group of Missouri pastors and attempting to link them to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
___"Since the very beginning of Project 1000, the battle in Missouri has been about whether we as a convention would continue our historic relationship with the SBC or whether we would go the way of Texas--gradually severing our ties with the SBC and gradually forging new partnerships with the CBF," Moran said. "Pro-SBC conservatives won the battle in Missouri. But now, the anti-SBC/pro-CBF moderates who lost are promoting a new alternative giving plan to support the MBC, the SBC and the Cooperative Program.
___"But the question arises: Why would any Missouri Baptist church want to support the MBC and the SBC through channels set up by a group of disgruntled mainstream/CBF moderates who are working fervently to form a new state convention specifically because of their deep-rooted opposition to the MBC and the SBC?" Moran asked.
___Pastors who have created the alternative giving plans, to be administered by the Missouri Baptist Foundation, said the options were necessary because the Missouri Baptist Convention is escrowing $2 million previously budgeted for five state convention agencies that recently declared self-perpetuating boards.
___The threat of being controlled by the fundamentalist political mechanism that now runs the Missouri Baptist Convention reportedly was an underlying factor in the decisions of the five agency boards.
___The three alternative giving plans offered by the group of pastors primarily create mechanisms for churches to get funds to the five agencies no longer receiving funds from the state convention. The plans also provide a means of funding Missouri missions causes without funding the Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Board.
___While some of the plans include funding passed through to the SBC, none of the plans allows funding to the CBF.
___Nevertheless, the Baptist Press article suggested the alternate plans were part of a "pro-CBF" agenda.
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