For The Record
By Michael Bell

I’m thankful for a new year. The road ahead is filled with hope and promise. And as 2006 recedes into the distance, I want to take one last quick glance in the rearview mirror.

But, before we take one final look over our shoulders, let me say that I’m writing this knowing that there are those who will spend too many hours and spill too much ink in an attempt to put a negative spin on what I say here. I do not intend to get involved in a tête-à-tête with our convention’s decriers, those who don’t have a “life wish” for the BGCT.

First, allow me to say what a marvelous job the Committee on Convention Business did with the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, held in Dallas. I attended the Weekend Fest’s Battle of the Bands and the music was as loud as I expected it would be and most of the audience was less than half my age and appeared to enjoy every minute of it. The committee leadership, the BGCT staff, and a cadre of outstanding volunteers who gave of their time, energy, and resources to make the entire event happen are to be commended and deserve our appreciation.

I have received so much support from our Texas Baptist family in these weeks following the convention. Even those who strongly disagreed with the chair’s ruling have done so amicably. In fact, many of my friends have told me that they had questions about the ruling. But, the truth is that even before the convention messengers and visitors heard the ruling, the BGCT executive director expressed his desire to have the motion voted on. Initially, I agreed with the executive director until I heard one of the parliamentarians utter the words no president can ignore: “It would set a bad precedent.” And, believe me, no president wants to establish a benchmark that might hamper the good work of our convention or any future BGCT officers.

Admittedly, I am not an expert in the interpretation or application of Robert’s Rules of Order. I have, in my library, three copies of Roberts and one of them is an illustrated version. Frankly, I can talk with a person ad nauseam about Hegel’s conception of Geist or Nicholas’ idea of God as the coincidentia oppositorium; but when it comes to parliamentary procedure, I have no problem yielding to the professionals.

Now, before we get too far afield, let me contextualize the setting. We have new governance documents that we are still becoming acquainted with and chances are that the parliamentarians’ reading of our new constitution and by-laws might have been a bit too technical. But, that is really beside the point. There is an obvious challenge in the interpretation of a very human document. In all fairness, the parliamentarians have a few precious hours, from the end of one session to the beginning of another, to research and script the answer to a motion. They labor untiringly before and throughout the annual gathering. Even The Baptist Standard editorial following the convention did not dispute the accuracy of the decision but called for better clarity to guarantee that messengers have the right to vote on such issues.

Does anybody remember the motion on page 9, of the Tuesday, November 14th bulletin? The motion was that the “Convention ask for a criminal investigation into the activities of the misuse of funds in the Rio Grande Valley by the FBI.” The Chair ruled that the Executive Board had acted “with regard to the Valley Investigation and specifically in special session yesterday directed the Executive Director, in consultation with the BGCT’s attorneys to evaluate the advisability of referring the findings of the October 31, 2006 report to any appropriate government investigatory agency...” The ruling did not state that the Executive Board took priority over the convention proper. The ruling did not state that the Convention-in-session had no voice. The parliamentarians’ reading of the motion was that it would have been redundant simply because the very capable BGCT Executive Board Chairman, in his report on the afternoon of the first day of the convention, had already posited the intention to do just what the motion, offered later that night, asked for. For what it’s worth, even the maker of the motion would later, in writing, express his doubts that the motion would have passed.

I agree that the wording of the ruling was bewildering and overdrawn, and, consequently, left the door wide open for misinterpretation of its intent. The ruling was supposed to communicate that the proposed motion was a replication. Given the ongoing dialogue precipitated by the finding, it is obvious, that the wording was not as tight and translucent as it should have been. The result is that it gave birth to the mistaken idea that the ruling’s intent was to communicate that role of the conventionin- session had been usurped by the Executive Board. This was never the point of the ruling.

Since I have already stepped out this far, let me add this caveat. The Executive Board is membered by very committed Texas Baptists and they’d met the morning prior to the Convention being called into session, because, since the October 31st emergency Executive Board meeting, they’d heard loud-and-clear from fellow Baptists across the state that they should step-up-to-the-plate. Those courageous men and women acted because they listened to the folk they were elected to represent and they did not want to come to the Convention floor without having done what they were commissioned to do.

The good news is that our Executive Board officers and the officers of the convention are presently working on a response that will provide apparentness to its role in relation to the convention-in-session.

Now, although there’s much more for us to look at in the rearview mirror, if we are to get to where God is leading us we must focus on the road ahead. The BGCT is worth our involvement, support, prayers, and commitment, even though sometimes we forget to cross every “t” and dot every “i” that we should.

February 2007