Tennessee Baptists voted overwhelmingly Nov. 14 to publicize whether nominees to leadership posts in the convention affirm the Baptist Faith and Message, a controversial confession of faith adopted by the national Southern Baptist Convention.
Messengers to Tennessee Baptist Convention's annual meeting, held at Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, also elected a conservative candidate as president and heard an update from a committee dealing with a dispute between the TBC and one of its affiliated colleges.
On a show-of-ballots vote, a large majority of messengers approved a motion asking potential nominees to the boards and committees if they affirm the 2000 version of the Baptist Faith and Message.
The 2000 document, a more strict revision of two earlier versions of the SBC's confession of faith, includes conservative views to which many moderate Baptists object, such as affirming biblical inerrancy, restricting the office of pastor to men only and treating all women as subservient to men.
Jerry Sutton, pastor of Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, proposed making the change to the questionnaire submitted by potential nominees. Sutton said messengers had a right to know if the convention's leaders affirm the document.
“When we make decisions on who goes on various board and agencies as trustees, there is a tacit assumption historically, with Southern Baptists and Tennessee Baptists, that Tennessee Baptists are vitally connected with the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said. “In the past 20 to 25 years, we've got a group that's not loyal to Southern Baptists, and yet these people go on … the executive board, and they make Cooperative Program allocation decisions for those of us who are committed to the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said.
“It's like we have someone on the finance committee who not only doesn't tithe but who isn't a member of the church,” Sutton continued.
A messenger opposed to the motion alluded to the fact that Sutton's own church does not give through the Tennessee convention's Cooperative Program but designates much of its giving to the Southern Baptist Convention through the Tennessee body.
Messengers amended Sutton's motion to include a provision that the nominees' answers to the Baptist Faith and Message question be included in the nominating committees' report, which is published prior to the convention's votes on the nominees.
Randall Adkisson, chairman of the convention's committee on boards and pastor of First Baptist Church in Cookeville, asked if the motion was in order, since the convention had chosen in 2000 not to adopt the Baptist Faith and Message as its own statement of faith.
“I would be opposed to this amendment because I believe it is infringing upon the constitution and bylaws and [I] would suggest to the parliamentarian and the convention that this would be unconstitutional … in seeking to get the convention to do something that it has not legitimately voted to do,” he said.
The convention's parliamentarians said the motion was in order, since it was only to add a question to a questionnaire and not to require that nominees affirm the confession in order to be elected.
But Bill Sherman, a messenger from First Baptist Church in Fairview, said the question and its publicized answer were intended to make adherence to the confession a de facto litmus test for service in Tennessee Baptist life. That, he said, makes it a creed—something Baptists have historically opposed as a test of faith.
“You're placing [the confessional statement] above the Word of God, and I don't think any word of man is better than the Word of God,” he said. “My conscience is captive to the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit should be the one who tells us how to interpret Scripture. I cannot believe that anybody, any committee, any denomination, any group can improve upon the Word of God.”
In other business, messengers heard a report on a special committee appointed earlier in the year to study the convention's relationship with Belmont University in Nashville. The school's trustees amended their charter last year to remove the power of appointing board members from the convention, making the board self-perpetuating.
Attempts to negotiate a settlement with Belmont failed, and the convention filed a lawsuit against the school earlier this year to reclaim the more than $50 million that the convention has donated to the school since the two became affiliated.
Clay Austin, pastor of First Baptist Church in Blountville and chairman of the study committee, said filing the lawsuit was a legal formality in hopes that the move would encourage negotiations and legal arbitration to settle the two institutions' standoff.
“First, both sides have discussed mediation and indicated a desire…to pursue that course. …” Austin said. “It is our hope that this issue will be settled out of court.”
Austin, who was nominated for the convention's presidency, lost to Ron Stewart, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Knoxville, 575-413. Stewart had the support of conservative groups in Tennessee Baptist life.