The SBC has certainly felt free to make its own unilateral changes - including major revisions to the faith statement that underlies the cooperative relationship - without consulting the states.

News from Texas is making waves as the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) ponders changes to the state's cooperative giving plan. The proposal would allow churches to continue sending funds to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in the traditional way, but creates a new basic plan that customizes BGCT giving to national missions causes.

The proposed formula would sharply reduce Texas giving to the SBC Executive Committee, defund the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and base contributions to the six SBC seminaries on the number of Texas students attending each school. Redirected funds would support in-state ministries and theological schools Ñ and possibly other Baptist causes indicated by the churches.

SBC leaders have blasted the Texas plan and accused BGCT leaders of breaking faith with the SBC.

There is something to be said for both sides in the issue. Southern Baptists have thrived on cooperation, accomplishing much together that individual churches or states could not have done alone.

The spirit that birthed and blessed the Cooperative Program (CP) was based on a strong spirit of trust. Individuals, churches and states could gladly forward their money to the SBC, confident that it would be spent in ways that would advance the cause of Jesus Christ in an appropriately Baptist manner.

Sadly, that trust no longer exists, and it hasn't existed for a long time. In the 1960s and 1970s, many of the most conservative churches redirected much of their giving from the CP because they didn't like what was being taught in the seminaries. They were criticized for not being cooperative, but defended their virtual defunding of the Cooperative Program as a matter of conscience.

Now that the tables are turned and other Baptists, as a matter of conscience, have reduced their carte blanche CP giving, SBC leaders are accusing dissenters of betraying the cause of cooperation.

In an Aug. 3 statement, SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman charged Texas Baptist leaders with having an "anti-SBC spirit": "Of course, the churches are always free to give as they wish but the states and Southern Baptist Convention have a covenant with each other in the Cooperative Program," Chapman said. "The agreement is that the state convention will not only promote and receive contributions for its own ministries but also will promote and receive contributions for the Southern Baptist Convention ministries."

No informed Baptist would question that the Cooperative Program calls for state conventions to voluntarily promote and receive contributions for SBC ministries. Chapman implies, however, that the states have no freedom to determine the parameters of their own cooperative effort: While churches are free to make their own budget decisions, he said, state conventions are covenant-bound to support the SBC exclusively.

Chapman's critique also charged states such as North Carolina, where churches have cooperative giving options, with betrayal. "We believe it is also breaking faith for state conventions to encourage or permit churches to identify contributions as Cooperative Program when those contributions are not to be distributed exclusively to the SBC and state convention budgets."

The Council of Seminary Presidents responded to the Texas proposal through a statement issued Sept. 11 by William Crews, president of Golden Gate Theological Seminary. The press release decried the "defunding" of the seminaries and said the move would mean the end of the Cooperative Program.

The statement went on to say: "The Cooperative Program is an agreement between the SBC and the state conventions. No state convention has the right to redefine this agreement unilaterally."

Pardon me?

No state convention has the right to redefine its own voluntary agreement with the SBC?

The SBC has certainly felt free to make its own unilateral changes - including major revisions to the faith statement that underlies the cooperative relationship - without consulting the states.

Granted, if the SBC holds copyright to the term "Cooperative Program" and reserves the right to define what gifts qualify as "CP dollars," then states that don't toe the SBC budget line might need to find another name for their contributions.

But what state conventions can and can't do with the money entrusted to them by their member churches is for the states to decide.

State conventions are not franchises or subsidiaries of the SBC. They are autonomous bodies, made up of autonomous associations and autonomous churches.

Baptist bodies, from local associations to state conventions to national entities, exist for no other reason than to serve their member churches and to help those churches carry out their God-given mission. If denominational bodies at any of those levels should ever forget their purpose now, that would be breaking faith.

October 2000