EDITORIAL:
Find truth under swirling shells
___Southern Baptist Convention leaders' reaction to a Baptist General Convention of Texas funding proposal illustrates the vast difference between the two conventions. The SBC leaders responded with misinformation that misrepresents the BGCT actions, clouds the issues and feeds fear. Similar campaigns have defamed the BGCT, deceived Texas Baptists and disrupted fellowship within and among churches.
___Bob Reccord, president of the SBC North American Mission Board, and David Hankins, a vice president of the SBC Executive Committee, responded to the report of the BGCT's Missions-sending Agencies Study Committee, which will be considered by the BGCT Executive Board this week.
___Ironically, general reaction to the study committee's report has been rather quiet. The committee spent the past year and a half studying the SBC's two missions agencies, the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's Global Missions program, as well as myriad missions ventures undertaken by Texas Baptists. The committee recommended only modest changes. They included no change in IMB funding, a call for strengthened BGCT missions efforts, a suggestion that Texas Baptist churches still be allowed to contribute to the CBF, and a plea for inclusion of more BGCT supporters on the boards of the two SBC mission agencies.
___The muted response to the study committee's report primarily is due to two factors. First, strong SBC advocates, who have spent the past several years chastising the BGCT for not supporting the national convention sufficiently, got more than they hoped. The study committee did not touch allocations to the International Mission Board, still holy common ground for most Southern Baptists. Second, strong BGCT advocates, who would have preferred that significant funds be diverted from SBC causes to state ministries, are not inclined to criticize the BGCT, at least publicly.
___The sticking point--which drew the ire of Reccord and Hankins--is a proposal to retain in Texas about $1.28 million in BGCT Cooperative Program money that would have been allocated to the North American Mission Board before being channeled back to BGCT-related projects in Texas. Still, all the other NAMB money from Texas Baptist churches would continue to go to the mission board, as would all the Texas money collected for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. That means the BGCT still will contribute to NAMB about $10.5 million annually--historically the most money from any state--with no loss of funds earmarked to missions efforts outside Texas.
___ But rather than express appreciation for the BGCT's sacrificial support and the committee's careful study, Reccord and Hankins took the lead in the SBC's quest to misrepresent and discredit the BGCT. Both issued statements last week in Baptist Press, the SBC's public relations arm.
___The most flagrant deception is Hankins' claim that $600,000 which ordinarily would be sent to the International Mission Board will remain at the BGCT. This illogic is based on the division of Cooperative Program funds nationally, with half of all receipts channeled to the IMB. According to Hankins, if the BGCT withholds $1.28 million for Texas use, half that amount would be withheld from the IMB. However, the committee specifically noted the BGCT would send notes with its national CP gifts, spelling out the amount withheld from NAMB so that other agencies, particularly the IMB, would not be penalized. Hankins' scare tactic is patently false.
___Reccord plays a shell game with the "cooperative agreement" contract between the state conventions and NAMB. To begin with, NAMB continually presents itself as a 4-year-old organization created when the SBC reorganized in 1997. However, Reccord seeks to bind the BGCT to the cooperative agreement the BGCT negotiated with NAMB's predecessor, the SBC Home Mission Board, in 1991. On the one hand, according to Reccord, NAMB is a brand-new organization. On the other, the states had better hold to HMB agreements.
___Worse, Reccord ignores two blatant violations by NAMB of the covenant agreement. First, the agreement says the board will not unilaterally sponsor projects in Texas or assign personnel except through the BGCT. However, NAMB is working actively with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, a new organization created in opposition to the BGCT. Second, NAMB also has unilaterally added new requirements-- specifically that personnel affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message--for employees jointly hired by the BGCT and NAMB.
___In addition, Reccord and Hankins both act as if disaffection with NAMB were a problem only noted by the BGCT. To the contrary, Mississippi Baptists already have taken this funding step. And dissatisfaction with NAMB's operations is widespread among numerous Baptist state convention executives and missions directors, regardless of their political affiliations.
___Ultimately, the opinions of Reccord and Hankins do not matter. Yours does. Read the committee's report on the Baptist Standard's website, www.baptiststandard. com. And if you have questions, contact members of the committee.
___Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com
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