BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (ABP) — Tennessee Baptist leaders Sept. 13 rejected a proposal from Belmont University to allow up to 40 percent of the Nashville school's trustees to be non-Baptists.
Currently all trustees must be members of churches affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention and be approved by convention messengers. The proposal was contained in a “covenant” agreement rejected by the convention's Executive Board on a secret-ballot vote of 44-29.
Belmont president Bob Fisher said he is disappointed in the outcome. “Moving forward, Belmont's board of trustees will evaluate the message they believe is embedded in the vote and decide if there is anything else we can do to try to maintain this relationship,” he told the Baptist and Reflector.
Belmont trustees said adding non-Baptist Christians would have made the board more representative of the school's increasingly diverse nature.
Tennessee Baptists would have retained a “super majority” of 60 percent of trustees, however, assuring continued control of the school, but the proposal would have given Belmont some insulation from a takeover by fundamentalists — a fear that has prompted other Baptist schools nationwide to seek greater independence.
That rationale was not part of the stated purpose of the proposal, however, which was offered by the convention's education committee.
Committee chairman Joe Stacker, who presented the proposal, told board members it “is a right direction for the university at this time,” adding, “as a matter of conscience, I have a problem with an organization which only gives 3 percent support having total control of said institution.”
Belmont, which has 4,300 students, receives about $2.3 million a year from the convention, representing about 2.8 percent of its revenue. Under the rejected plan, Belmont would have spent all convention funds on aid for Tennessee Baptist students.
Trent Bullock, a pastor from Halls and member of the education committee, argued against the committee's proposal. “We have sufficient and qualified members of TBC churches” who could serve as trustees, he said.
Mickey Basham, a pastor from Riceville, also argued against, saying Belmont's new covenant would “send a signal to our other institutions. What will they do?”
Joey Rosas, a Nashville pastor, supported the covenant. Since the school pledged to maintain its Baptist identity, he said, “we ought to trust them until we have reason to say otherwise.”
Fisher, the president, acknowledged tensions that have arisen between Belmont and the convention. “It seems we've come to a point in this process where our differences can't be reconciled,” he told the board. Giving the convention “a super majority” of trustees was “the best way to preserve a Baptist heritage at Belmont.”
The proposed covenant noted Belmont and other TBC-affiliated institutions “are autonomous nonprofit corporations, neither owned nor operated by the convention” with governance vested in trustees. Belmont pledged to remain “a Christ-centered, student-focused Christian community with a Baptist heritage.”
The Executive Board Sept. 13 did approve covenant agreements submitted by eight other TBC entities, including Carson-Newman College and Union University. The covenants, if adopted by messengers at the TBC annual meeting in November, will replace existing program statements.
Last November, messengers to the Tennessee Baptist Convention asked the education committee to investigate what is taught at those three TBC-related colleges. The action came in response to an allegation by a current Carson-Newman student that the college teaches the Bible has errors and contradictions.
The covenant-drafting process was in motion before those allegations surfaced, however.
— Based on reporting by Lonnie Wilkey and Connie Davis Bushey of the Baptist and Reflector, newsjournal of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.