D.C. convention says its autonomy threatened by NAMB’s demands
By Robert Marus
ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)—The Southern Baptist Convention’s 124-year-old witness in the nation’s capital may be in jeopardy following charges that the District of Columbia Baptist Convention is out of step with the SBC’s conservative leaders.

Unlike other autonomous state and regional conventions affiliated with the SBC, the D.C. convention is aligned not only with Southern Baptists, but also with American Baptists and a predominantly African- American Baptist convention. Fundamentalists control the 16 million-member SBC, the largest Protestant faith group in the United States. The D.C. convention’s other national supporters, the 1.5-millionmember American Baptist Churches in the USA and 2.5-million-member Progressive National Baptist Convention, tend to be more liberal in theology and on social issues.

Southern Baptists, emerging from their own two-decade struggle to oust moderates from control of SBC entities, say they provide 10 times the amount of financial support as Washington Baptists’ other national sponsors. Despite that, SBC officials charge, the D.C. convention has “grown increasingly distant from the SBC, its positions and priorities.”

As a result, officials with the SBC’s North American Mission Board have requested unprecedented governance of an autonomous state or regional convention. In an Oct. 24 letter to D.C. Baptist leaders, NAMB officials outlined a number of conditions for continued funding of Baptist work in Washington after next year. Among them are hiring a NAMB representative to supervise D.C. convention employees who are partially or completely funded by NAMB and administer funds in consultation with the D.C. convention’s executive director.

Baptist leaders in Washington have refused the NAMB proposal. They have responded with indignation to this proposal, saying it violates traditional Baptist forms of church government, where state conventions and the SBC cooperate with each other but are considered autonomous in their own spheres.

“This proposal ... offends fundamental principles of Baptist polity such as autonomy, priesthood of all believers and soul freedom,” said Jeffrey Haggray, D.C. Baptists’ executive director. Haggray, an African-American from a Progressive National Baptist Convention background, assumed office in August. He succeeded Jere Allen, a Southern Baptist.

Haggray’s stand could be costly for D.C. Baptists. Southern Baptists provide $475,000 of the D.C. convention’s $1.5 million budget in the form of salary subsidies and program dollars. Unlike larger state conventions, which contribute more money to NAMB than they receive through those partnerships, D.C. Baptists get about twice what they give to all SBC causes through the Cooperative Program unified budget.

The NAMB proposal questions the “stewardship” of providing SBC funds for starting churches that might choose not to affiliate with the SBC. It also demands that D.C. leaders refrain from public criticism of SBC policies, including censoring the content of the convention’s newspaper, the Capital Baptist. It questions theological views of other D.C. sponsors and requires that all speakers at D.C. convention events reflect “theological tenets” of the SBC. It also forbids the D.C. convention from participating in events sponsored by ecumenical organizations.

Opponents said the NAMB proposal would effectively gut the administrative role of Haggray, the first African-American employed to lead an SBC-affiliated state convention.

In the Dec. 6 issue of the Capital Baptist, Haggray said the NAMB proposal would “surrender the direction and control” of state convention programs to NAMB President Bob Reccord, reducing the autonomous affiliate to “the only NAMB-run state convention in the nation.”

A NAMB spokesman said Reccord and other top officials were unavailable for interview.

Haggray said the new requirements would change the unique character of the D.C. convention and “impugn our cherished three-way relationship with the Southern Baptist Convention, American Baptist Churches in the USA and Progressive National Baptist Convention.”

Other D.C. Baptist leaders also reacted strongly to the NAMB proposal. “This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Paul Clark, a member of the executive committee from Washington’s National Memorial Baptist Church. He said the NAMB proposal was written “with arrogance and with disrespect.”

Gail Lacy, a convention employee who is paid partially by NAMB, said the proposal is unnecessary because NAMB already approves how its money is spent. “They approve it in advance as one lump, and they approve it individually,” Lacy said. “They have approved every penny they’ve spent; they can’t come now and find fault with it. So, if they approve of their funds, then the rest of it is none of their business.”

April 2002