Baptist state conventions take up issues in fall meetings
By Bob Allen
(ABP Report)

Rifts between moderates and fundamentalists, stances on social issues including homosexuality and conflicts related to Baptist affiliated colleges and universities highlighted this fall’s round of annual meetings of Baptist state conventions.

Missouri

In Missouri fundamentalists captured all four elected offices following a campaign aimed at encouraging fundamentalists to attend and vote at the state convention. Materials for the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association “Project 1000” campaign said the group intends to move the Missouri Baptist Convention from a “center-left” to a “center-right” majority. The group accuses previous leadership of tolerating “liberalism,” including the Atlanta-based Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Among resolutions passed by the convention was one affirming “the legitimacy of home-based education” and supporting parents who choose to home school their children.

Louisiana

For the second year in a row, Louisiana Baptists elected a consensus candidate for president following several years of contested votes dividing moderates and fundamentalists mainly related to the operation of Louisiana College. Bob Anderson, who was elected last year on a platform of bringing peace to warring factions, was unchallenged for a second term. Resolutions passed by the convention opposed gambling, supported the passage of a state law to strengthen religious liberty, urged prayer for elected officials and encouraged efforts to fight illiteracy.

Georgia

The Georgia Baptist Convention amended its constitution to exclude churches which “affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior.” Proposed language to also withdraw fellowship from churches that encourage charismatic worship practices did not receive a required two-thirds majority.

Virginia

The Baptist General Association of Virginia “commended” a statement on homosexuality presented by the state’s Christian life committee. The statement affirmed “the biblical teaching that homosexual behavior is sinful and unacceptable for Christians” but also offered guidelines for expressing “Christ-like compassion for homosexual persons.”

Virginia Baptists approved a resolution affirming the sanctity of marriage while declining to consider a statement that would have affirmed the Southern Baptist Convention’s recent statement on the family.

A second Virginia state Baptist convention, meanwhile, met separately. Southern Baptist Fundamentalists of Virginia, which formed in 1996, welcomed 54 new churches, bringing its total to 212. Among business, the conservative convention passed a resolution affirming the new article on the family passed by the Southern Baptist Convention in June.

Tennessee

Tennessee Baptists voted to withhold $2.2 in funds budgeted for Carson-Newman College until a dispute over election of the school’s trustees is resolved. Trustees of the school in Jefferson City voted this spring to elect their own successors. Previously trustees were elected by the convention. A compromise aimed at ensuring that future trustees would be acceptable to both the state convention and three Tennessee Baptist- related schools was scheduled to be presented but was referred to a committee over reported conflicts with the convention’s constitution.

North Carolina

North Carolina Baptists passed a resolution criticizing alcohol sales on the campus of Wake Forest University but recognizing the right of the school’s trustees to set its policies. The convention backed off an earlier threat to sever a “fraternal relationship” with the university, which was founded by the state convention but is governed by a separate board. Despite the university’s Baptist roots, most students today are non-Baptists.

The North Carolina convention elected Mac Brunson, a fundamentalist, to a traditional second year as president and heard an interim report from a committee established last year to explore ways of sharing leadership among the state’s conservative and moderate factions.

Arkansas

In Arkansas, where President Clinton recently wrote a letter apologizing to his home church for his behavior in the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, the state convention passed a resolution urging prayer both for Clinton and for Congress as it considers impeachment proceedings. Other resolutions affirmed the priesthood of all believers and the autonomy of the local church, against a backdrop of criticism aimed at Immanuel Baptist Church for tolerating Clinton as a member. A resolution offered from the floor that would have affirmed churches’ responsibility to discipline erring members did not pass.

Arkansas convention president Greg Kirksey, a moderate, was elected to a traditional second term, despite a challenge by the outgoing president of the state’s annual pastors’ conference.

Indiana

Indiana Baptists heard a report that University Baptist Church in Bloomington has been thrown out of its association for calling a woman as pastor. A question about whether the state convention will take similar action was referred to the state’s executive committee. No action to disfellowship the church is expected until the 1999 annual meeting.

Florida

Florida Baptists elected their first-ever African-American president, Elroy Barber, pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Hollywood. They also took part in commissioning a record 90 appointees of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.

Kentucky

In Kentucky, Louisville bank executive Charles Barnes became the first layman in 23 years to be elected president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

Mississippi

In a peaceful convention, Mississippi Baptists re-elected an entire slate of officers by acclamation and gave final approval to constitutional changes to allow joint nomination of trustees to convention agencies. One convention resolution opposed “the plague of gambling.”

California

California Southern Baptists left in place a plan to offer state convention services regionally rather than just the current central state office. Efforts to derail the plan failed.

South Carolina

South Carolina passed a resolution opposing “all forms of legalized gambling” in the state which recently elected a governor who ran on a platform supporting a state lottery to fund education. Another resolution urged churches to support marriages as a way to fight divorce.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma Baptists also held a harmonious meeting, aside from an unsuccessful effort by a moderate group to pass a resolution distancing the fundamentalist state convention from the SBC’s recent statement on families.

Maryland/Delaware

Maryland/Delaware Baptists established a new partnership with Baptists in Mississippi and passed resolutions on a variety of moral issues. James McBride, a Delaware director of missions nominated as an “apolitical” presidential candidate, won the top office in a three-way race. Fundamentalists had held the office the last four years. Resolutions opposed abortion and the use of fetal tissue in research, spoke out against pornography, euthanasia and homosexuality and also called on religious leaders to live morally and for Christians not to be apathetic.

Utah/Idaho

Southern Baptists in Utah and Idaho welcomed seven new churches, crediting an increase in new-church starts to last summer’s Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Salt Lake City. Guest speakers included past SBC president Tom Elliff.

New York

New York Baptists installed a new executive director at their Nov. 5-6 convention in East Hanover, N.J. Jerry Boyd Graham, 62, became the convention’s fourth executive in June after taking early retirement from the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board.

Illinois

Illinois Baptists elected Effingham pastor Roger Marshall as their president. Messengers debated a resolution urging churches to “reinstitute the biblical practice of church discipline” before killing the measure by passing a motion to postpone it indefinitely.

Kansas/Nebraska

Kansas-Nebraska Baptists approved one resolution supporting crisis-pregnancy centers, another affirming godly families and one urging prayer for elected officials and the “moral crisis” in government.

Alaska

Baptists in Alaska entered into a 3-year missions partnership with Baptists in far eastern Russia.

Colorado

Colorado Baptists adopted a 10 percent budget increase, including funds for a women’s missions and ministries director. The job will include programming for Woman’s Missionary Union, which was cut during a budget crunch in the 1980s.

December 1998/January 1999