As the Baptist General Convention of Texas prepares for a decisive annual
meeting, a war of words between state and Southern Baptist leaders continues.
State convention leaders have approved a proposal that would
reduce drastically funding for Southern Baptist Convention seminaries and the
national Executive Committee and would eliminate funding for the Ethics and
Religious Liberty Commission.
As the Baptist General Convention of Texas prepares for a decisive annual
meeting, a war of words between state and Southern Baptist leaders continues.
State convention leaders have approved a proposal that would
reduce drastically funding for Southern Baptist Convention seminaries and the
national Executive Committee and would eliminate funding for the Ethics and
Religious Liberty Commission.
The proposal still must be approved by messengers to the state
conventions annual meeting at the end of October in order to become effective.
More than $4 million in funding is at stake in the issue.
Prior to the meeting, both state and national leaders are seeking
to make their cases through mailings and other means.
Southern Baptist leaders have mailed a brochure entitled “The
Truth About the SBC & Texas” to churches for distribution. They also
have included documents related to the controversy on a new website.
The 12-page brochure contains several articles written by Executive
Committee staff members. The leaders urge Texas Baptists to be informed on the
funding issue, to reject “anti-SBC sentiments” and to maintain the
historic partnership between the state and national conventions.
The articles dispute a number of assertions attributed to Texas
Baptist leaders as rationale for the funding change and characterize state leaders
as “anti-SBC.”
“These SBC critics have made statements like the Southern
Baptist Convention is no longer Baptist and that it has adopted practices that
are untrue to our Baptist heritage,” SBC Executive Committee President
Morris Chapman said. “Some are suggesting that the theological education
and/or missions programs of the SBC are somehow corrupted and, therefore, not
worthy recipients of missions gifts from Southern Baptist churches in Texas.
“These assertions are false.”
The brochure decries the funding proposal as an attack on the
Cooperative Program and promises to make channels available for giving to national
causes should the Texas proposal be adopted.
Meanwhile, the new website includes collections of speeches
by Southern Baptist leaders, information about the Cooperative Program and recent
Baptist Press articles regarding the Texas controversy.
In addition, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary students
have been urged to attend the Texas Convention as messengers and to explain
to churches how to bypass the state and support the school.
In a campus newspaper column, Southwestern President Ken Hemphill
urged students to go to the convention as messengers and vote their convictions.
He also urged students to help their churches understand how they can continue
to fund the seminary by bypassing the state convention.
Texas Baptist leaders have characterized such efforts as “all-out,”
expensive, biased and desperate. “It would be interesting to know how much
Cooperative Program money went into such an … approach,” said John Wilkerson,
chair of the Texas Committee on Baptist Integrity charged with the responsibility
of speaking on the issue.
“Thats money that could have been spent reaching
the lost rather than serving a political agenda,” Wilkerson said.
In contrast, Texas Baptist materials have been distributed
with the use of private donations, Wilkerson explained.
Wilkerson also criticized the Southern Baptist materials for
not including responses from Texas Baptist leaders.
Actions by the national convention led to the proposed budget
changes, Wilkerson insisted. “The SBC has departed from several historic
Baptist principles of polity and doctrine. It has embraced creedalism, rejected
the centrality of Christ as the interpretive guide to Scripture and interfered
with the autonomy of the local church. …
“Its time for Texas Baptists to move on, …”
Wilkerson emphasized. “Its time for us to quit spending precious
resources countering bickering, finger-pointing, distortions and misinformation.”
Finally, a Baptist Press report indicated efforts to have Southern
and Texas Baptist leaders meet have failed.
Chapman and Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director
Charles Wade had agreed to enlist leaders to attend an October 19 meeting. However,
Wade told Chapman recently that leaders he was seeking to enlist were unwilling
to meet. Wade stated he would be willing to meet with Chapman after the state
convention.
“I determined that it was not reasonable to put together
a meeting before the convention,” Wade said. “Texas Baptists are at
a crossroads. The decisions that will be made at the (annual) meeting will have
a profound and wide-ranging impact.”
Chapman suggested the unwillingness of Texas Baptist leaders
to meet signals their “absolute resolve” to press for approval of
the funding proposal. He urged Texas Baptists to attend the state convention.
But he acknowledged if the convention majority remains the same as in recent
years, the funding proposals likely will pass.
(This article includes information from Associated Baptist Press, Baptist Press
and Texas Baptist Standard reports. Information from the new Southern Baptist
website may be accessed at www.Baptist2Baptist.net.