Competing state convention pledges allegiance to SBC in annual meeting

November 4, 2002

Competing state convention pledges
allegiance to SBC in annual meeting
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___HOUSTON--Faithfulness to the Southern Baptist Convention echoed as a resounding theme throughout the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention's fifth annual meeting Oct. 28-29 in Houston.
___SBTC messengers:
___ Stood and applauded as their convention's ministry staff signed the latest version of the Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement, approved by the SBC in 2000.
___ Received reports and affirmation from seven SBC leaders representing all 12 SBC agencies and institutions.
___ Voted to give 52 percent of their convention's 2003 Cooperative Program unified budget to the SBC.
___ Presented their convention's highest award to a Texas native who leads the SBC's public policy agency.
___The SBTC formed in 1998, created by individuals and churches that felt the Baptist General Convention of Texas should mirror the Southern Baptist Convention, which had moved from conservative to ultra-conservative in the 1980s and '90s.
___The new Texas convention made support for the SBC and for the "inerrancy" of the Bible key tests of fellowship. Its constitution names the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message as the SBTC's own "statement of faith and message." It requires affiliated

SBTC messengers applauded as their convention's ministry staff signed the latest version of the Baptist Faith & Message statement, approved by the SBC in 2000.

churches to affirm the BF&M 2000 and to contribute financially to the convention's budget.
___Four years later, the SBTC relates to 1,200 churches that have contributed $43 million to its causes, SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards said in his report.
___"The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention is a confessional convention," Richards added, noting it is proud to "stand on the inerrant, infallible word of God."
___The young convention's 12 ministry staff members symbolized that commitment as they lined up to affix their names to a copy of the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
___"This is not coerced or contrived," Richards said as he introduced the signing ceremony.
___Gary Ledbetter, the SBTC's public relations director, then read a statement explaining the ceremony, noting, "We acknowledge the accountability relationship between the churches of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and their state ministry staff." SBTC messengers affirmed that sentiment, standing for prolonged applause as the staff finished signing the document.
___The 2000 Baptist Faith & Message has been a point of contention between the new convention and the older Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Since the SBC ratified the faith statement in June 2000, messengers to the BGCT annual session have rejected it twice. BGCT leaders have claimed the new Baptist Faith & Message, updated from 1963 and 1925 versions, has taken on the tone of a non-Baptist creed, since it defines itself as an "instrument of doctrinal accountability."
___They also have said it gives priority to the Bible over Jesus, skews the divine order of the home by commanding wives to "graciously submit" to their husbands, denigrates the historic Baptist notion of the priesthood of the Christian believer and seeks to limit local-church autonomy by telling congregations they should not call a woman as pastor.
___Although rarely mentioning the BGCT by name, speakers repeatedly refuted those claims.
___In the convention sermon, Mac Brunson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, built a case for the importance of the Bible alongside Jesus, with both of them God's revelation to humanity. He echoed remarks of several other speakers, and he cited as support statements from his legendary predecessors at the Dallas church, George W. Truett and W.A. Criswell.
___Two sermons and comments by at least one other major speaker keyed on Ephesians 5:22-33, the primary text used to support the Baptist Faith & Message's command that wives should "graciously submit" to their husbands.
___In one of four keynote addresses, Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, took on the notion of autonomy.
___The SBC does not deny local-church autonomy, because congregations have the freedom to make their own decisions, he said. However, all Baptist entities--local churches, associations of churches, state conventions and national conventions--have their own autonomy to decide their own policies and chart their own courses, he added.
___"The BGCT is denying the autonomy of the SBC," he claimed. "Well, I've got news for them. They don't have veto over the SBC."
___BGCT leaders have acknowledged that fact, stating the older state convention merely has exercised its own autonomy by refusing to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, an action that does not impose any restrictions on the SBC and its autonomy.
___Speakers repeatedly affirmed their belief in the inerrancy of the Bible--a belief in the word-for-word literalness of the original copies of the Bible, which became a political rallying point in the controversy that divided the SBC in the 1980s and '90s.
___Affirmation of "the authority of God's inerrant word" is part of the SBTC's mission statement. However, the words "inerrant" and "inerrancy" were not included in the SBC's 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith & Message.
___Still, speakers referenced that belief as a key distinctive of their convention. "Aren't you glad to be part of a convention that's not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ?" asked Gregg Simmons, the convention's first vice president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Borger. "Aren't you glad to be part of a convention that's part of the Southern Baptist Convention?"
___All seven of the national convention's representatives affirmed they are glad the new convention is part of the SBC.
___"The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention is my favorite of all the (state) conventions," proclaimed native Texan Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
___"We love the SBTC," declared David Hankins, vice president for Cooperative Program promotion at the SBC Executive Committee.
___"We love you for what you stand for," Hankins said. "We thank you for reaching this state for Christ. We thank you because you love the SBC."
___The SBTC ranks 11th out of 42 state or regional conventions in total gifts to the SBC's Cooperative Program unified budget, he reported, adding the young convention is "leading the way" in percentage giving.
___Messengers increased that lead during the convention in Houston. They approved a 2003 budget of almost $13.9 million that increases the amount forwarded to the SBC from 51 percent of receipts to 52 percent.
___If the SBTC meets next year's budget--and the growing convention has eclipsed its budget each year--it will forward slightly more than $6.9 million to the SBC while retaining almost $6.4 million for its own use.
___The SBTC is able to contribute that proportion of its funds to the national convention because it is committed to the SBC and its funding mechanism, Executive Director Richards said.
___"The Cooperative Program must remain the avenue for Southern Baptists," he said to sustained applause.
___Richards and other speakers indirectly contrasted the SBTC's 49/51 percent Cooperative Program split with the SBC to the Baptist General Convention of Texas' split, which currently allocates about 72 percent of undesignated receipts to the BGCT and 28 percent to worldwide causes, including the SBC.
___However, because the BGCT allows churches to divide their allocations as they deem best, the actual percentage split averages out to 68 percent Texas/32 percent worldwide. And when missions offerings are considered, the BGCT channels about half its income to worldwide causes.
___The SBTC is able to contribute so much to the SBC by avoiding "an over-reaching bureaucracy," Richards said.
___The SBTC is committed to capping its institutional expenditures at 15 percent of its budget, he said. It currently helps to fund one institution, Criswell College, which next year will receive $170,000, or 1.2 percent of the budget.
___The BGCT helps support 23 institutions--including universities, schools, seminaries, child- and family-care ministries, aging-care ministries and health-care systems.
___The SBTC made overtures to create fraternal relationships with those BGCT agencies, but the agencies declined because they did not wish to comply with the SBTC's requirements for affirming the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
___The SBTC's new in-state budget will allocate $2.5 million for missions and evangelism, including $1.2 million for church starting; $722,013 for communications; $900,000 for operational and financial services; $1.3 million for church ministry support; $1.1 million for minister/church relations; and $300,000 for administration.
___In another demonstration of solidarity with the SBC, the new convention presented its Paul Pressler Distinguished Service Award to Houston native Land.
___The award is named for Pressler, a retired Houston judge who, with Patterson, is credited with piloting the so-called "conservative resurgence" that gained control of the SBC.
___The award is presented to a Texan who has demonstrated "strong leadership and faithful service to the SBC and the SBTC."
___Land said he met Pressler, then a young attorney and graduate of Princeton University, who "learned a Southern Baptist preacher boy from the other side of town had applied to Princeton."
___"I would not be in the ministry today if it were not for the ministry of Paul and Nancy Pressler in my life," Land said.
___Land is privileged to speak on behalf of Southern Baptists, who are "Christ-honoring, Bible-believing evangelistic Christians," he said.
___"Southern Baptists are changing America," he added. "When I talk to Tom Brokaw, Bill O'Reilly, the Dallas Morning News or the Houston Chronicle, I'm reminded of Winston Churchill ... (who said of his speeches during World War II), 'I am giving voice to the lion's roar.' This has been my honor and my privilege."
___In other business, SBTC messengers re-elected George Harris, retired pastor of Castle Hills First Baptist Church in San Antonio, as president. They elected David Galvan, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista Nueva Vida in Garland, as first vice president and re-elected Steve Swofford, pastor of First Baptist Church in Rockwall, as second vice president and Bob Pearle, pastor of Birchman Baptist Church in Fort Worth, as recording secretary.
___This year's annual meeting attracted 955 messengers and 347 visitors to Reliant Park Arena, adjacent to the Astrodome and Reliant Stadium in Houston.

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