Some conservatives join N.C. Mainstream Steering Committee

Several conservative North Carolina Baptists, including one who holds an elected office with Carolina Conservative Baptists (CCB), have agreed to serve on the Mainstream Baptists of North Carolina (MBNC) steering committee. CCB wants the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) to have closer ties to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which has taken a decidedly conservative shift in the past 21 years. MBNC wants the BSCNC to maintain its autonomy.

Larry Locklear, pastor of Island Grove Baptist Church, Pembroke, N.C., and a self-described theological "ultra-conservative," serves on the MBNC steering committee and as a CCB regional director. He said MBNC members who asked him to serve on the steering committee promised him the main goal of the group is to encourage cooperation between conservatives and moderates in North Carolina.

"That is the sole reason that I decided to be a part of the group as a whole and part of the steering committee," he said.

Locklear served on the Commission on Cooperation that proposed a leadership-sharing plan in the BSCNC. The proposal received a majority of votes but failed to get the needed two-thirds vote at the 1999 BSCNC meeting. Locklear said conservatives and moderates on the commission got to know each other while working together.

"In that almost two years of working together, my conclusion was our state was not that far apart," he said. "The things we disagree on, I found out, are not things that keep me from fellowshipping with my moderate brothers and sisters."

Locklear said he wants N.C. Baptists to keep working together.

"I think the good we do is more important than any personal agenda or the moderate or conservative agenda," he said. "During those two years I was never asked to compromise my conservative views...to work together, and I never asked a moderate to compromise...views...to work with me."

Bobby Blanton, pastor of Lake Norman Baptist Church,       Huntersville, N.C., and a conservative, also serves on the steering committee of Mainstream Baptists of North Carolina. He said he agreed to serve because of his love for N.C. Baptists and desire to help do the Lord's work.

Blanton said he got to know moderate N.C. Baptists while serving on both the executive director search committee that nominated Jim Royston to the North Carolina convention's top job in 1997, and on another group that met to talk about cooperation.

Blanton said the conservatives and moderates on the committees had preconceived notions of each other. After talking with moderates, he said he discovered that their views were "not very different from views I've always held."

"The older I get, there are certain things I have come to realize that are without compromise," Blanton said. "Other issues, as I get older, take on a less divisive nature. There are certain things I think are worth fighting for. Others are open to interpretation."

Blanton said he knows that conservatives and moderates don't see "eye to eye" on everything and may choose to do church differently.

"Most of these areas fall in the area of interpretation -- personal interpretation and church interpretation," he said. "Overall what unites us is our drive to win people to Jesus."

Mike Smith, pastor of Fruitland Baptist Church, Hendersonville, N.C., said he considers himself a theological conservative. Some N.C. Baptists might call him a liberal, while others might call him a fundamentalist, he said.

Smith said he believes in "all the orthodox teachings of the Christian faith." But he doesn't believe that someone has to be a member of the SBC to be a member of the state Baptist convention or a local association.

"It is non-Baptist," he said. "I believe in the end you end up infringing on the autonomy of the local church.

"In our autonomy we can't cooperate with the local association if the local association says we have to be a member of the Southern Baptist Convention."

Smith said he thinks the Mainstream Baptists of North Carolina have the best chance for reconciliation among N.C. Baptists.

"Mainstream is a non-legislative way to share leadership," he said.

Smith said he believes that God has been working among N.C. Baptists.

"Why tear that up for what I see as political gain?" he asked.

Smith said he fears N.C. Baptists could be facing a "divorce" between conservatives and moderates.

"No one wins in divorce," he said.

Locklear said he is working with a recently formed group called Native American Interfaith Ministries. The group includes Native American churches in the Pembroke, N.C., area that are trying to combat social problems.

"If I can do that with people of other denominations who I have major differences with, I can work with people I've been a part of all my life," he said.

May 2001