SBC TO DE-FUND BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE
By David Currie

You have probably read that the SBC is going to reduce their contribution to the Baptist World Alliance from $425,000 to $300,000. This will be a reduction in gifts of $125,000.

In reality, the SBC will soon completely de-fund the Baptist World Alliance. Fundamentalists always separate themselves from things they cannot control or that they have the slightest difference of opinion with.

SBC leaders, which will cooperate with Catholics and many other groups when they share the same viewpoint on a secular political issue, have always hated the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The fact that the BWA is going to accept CBF as a part of the larger Baptist family is something the SBC leadership simply cannot stomach.

They will totally de-fund the BWA soon, despite the fact that SBC leaders Morris Chapman and Jimmy Draper chair key BWA committees, and despite their denials that they will do this.

This is standard operating procedure for SBC leaders. How do I know this? Because I’ve seen it up close and personal.

In 1988, I attended the SBC Executive Committee meeting with Richard Jackson, candidate for president of the SBC. We watched Paul Pressler argue to take $50,000 away from the Baptist Joint Committee. Pressler won the vote.

During a break in the meeting, Richard Jackson confronted Pressler regarding his actions. Pressler denied that he had any plans to totally de-fund the Baptist Joint Committee.

1n 1990, the SBC totally de-funded the Baptist Joint Committee with Pressler leading the charge.

Once CBF is officially recognized as a Baptist member of the BWA, watch for Pressler to lead the charge to totally defund the BWA.

History has a remarkable way of repeating itself.

BWA leaders are probably losing sleep trying to figure out how to keep the SBC cooperating with the BWA. There is nothing they can do. The SBC does not cooperate with other Baptists unless they control them. The BWA and its leadership have done nothing wrong. They simply are not the “right” kind of Baptists, which is by SBC definition, “Baptists who do what we say, when we say it and how we want it done.”

April 2003