COOPERATIVE GIVING: A FINAL WORD
By David R. Currie

Why does Texas Baptists Committed support the Cooperative Missions Giving Committee report so strongly? If you listen to the fundamentalists, we are supporting a “blatant attempt to openly support the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.” Is this our primary motivation? Not at all.

The primary reason we support the report so strongly is simply that it offers a good way for Texas Baptists to remain unified. That is the honest truth. The SBC is in such a mess, it is impossible for many Texas Baptists to unify around the SBC and its programs. Too many people have been fired; too many agencies or institutions defunded or radically changed; too much trust destroyed.

This recommendation grants freedom and still urges cooperation. It is fair to all groups and viewpoints. It allows churches to be “part of the process” of cooperative giving, not just give money. They can “design” their own program of cooperation.

I am especially excited because it points to the future. As I wrote elsewhere in this newsletter, we can not be open to God’s leadership looking backward and feeling bad about what used to be. It is time for Texas Baptists to move beyond the controversy into more ministry. This is a step in that direction.

What forms of cooperation will Baptists be involved in five or ten years from now? Only the Lord knows that answer. Many of our supporters do support the CBF as a home to express their traditional values and principles. Many of our supporters are not identified with CBF. Some feel that CBF needs to better identify itself and its ministry. Some want a third or fourth alternative.

Where churches direct their worldwide mission gifts is completely a local church decision. That is the Baptist Way. This plan does not direct gifts anywhere. What it does do is treat fairly all Baptist causes that Texas churches choose to support.

Such freedom should preserve unity. That is why we support it. That is what we are about. The only thing that will stop this plan from preserving unity is for people who do not want freedom given to others to defeat it. That would be a shame.

September 1994