SBC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE SEEKS TO INFLUENCE STATE CONVENTIONS: McBRIDE RESPONDS

The SBC Executive Committee has just passed a resolution urging “extreme caution in any departure from this God-given and time honored approach to funding a world mission strategy.”

We suggest they might want to read some of the excellent information provided in this newsletter about the relationship of conventions and local churches and the history of the Cooperative Program.

But nothing we could write would compare to the excellent response given by BGCT president, Jerold McBride. We would only mention how wonderful it is to have a President who stands so strongly against non-Baptist actions and yet is always fair and patient. Below is the complete text of his response to the SBC Executive Committee action:

“The action of the SBC Executive Committee concerning state convention’s exercising their freedom to determine how they will allow churches to channel their cooperative mission dollars outside their state is typical of a fundamentalist mind set which seeks to control, dictate and dominate.

“In light of New Testament Baptist church polity such action is unthinkable. There are other denominations whose polity calls for power to flow down from the national level, to the state level, to the district or association and to the local churches. But such polity has no place in Baptist life.

“The Baptist Press release by Hollinger and Toalston reports that the Executive Committee “urged extreme caution” and “seeks to remind state conventions.” Such language reflects a continuing effort to make the Cooperative Program into the “Coercive Program.”

“I am convinced that cooperative mission giving will increase as state conventions and local churches are assured they are free to direct their gifts as they feel led of God.”

September 1994