MEMPHIS, Tenn. (ABP) — Conservative Southern Baptist Convention loyalists won battles over doctrinal matters, offices and nominations during the Tennessee Baptist Convention's annual meeting Nov. 14-15.
Messengers to the convention, meeting at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, voted overwhelmingly Nov. 14 to embrace a controversial confession adopted by the national Southern Baptist Convention. Earlier, they had voted by a similar margin to publicize whether potential nominees to the convention's boards and committees affirm the 2000 version of the “Baptist Faith and Message.”
Messengers also elected a president supported by a conservative group, heard an update on a lawsuit the convention recently filed against one of its affiliated colleges, rejected a proposed nominee to the convention's executive board and adopted a budget after a marathon session where the messengers reversed their own earlier action to amend that budget.
On a show-of-ballots vote Nov. 14, 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 restricting the office of pastor to men only and teaching that wives should be submissive to their husbands.
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 20-25 yeas, 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, referring to the SBC's unified budget for statewide and national ministries.
“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 sends most of its missions giving directly to the Southern Baptist Convention, bypassing the Tennessee body.
“It seems to me that those who want to make budget allocations should be people who give to the Cooperative Program, whose gifts are not designated around the Cooperative Program, but who give strongly supportive of the cooperative work of this convention,” said James Robertson of Sharon Baptist Church in Knoxville.
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.”
Sherman offered an amendment to Sutton's motion that would replace the question about the 2000 “Baptist Faith and Message” with the following question: “Do you affirm your belief in the Bible alone in matter[s] of faith and behavior?”
Sherman's amendment failed on a show-of-ballots vote by a margin that appeared to be at least 2-1.
A short time later, messengers made the constitutional concerns moot by affirming the confession.
Paul Brown, a messenger from the host church, moved that the TBC “go on record as affirming the 2000 'Baptist Faith and Message.'”
“With all my heart I believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant word of God…. I don't believe that affirming a statement like that in any way would imply that we are placing a statement of man on par with the word of God,” Brown said. “The point of it is not in any way to establish a creed or any such thing. It is an effort to clarify what we believe the Bible teaches.”
Sherman again attempted to soften the motion with an amendment stating that Tennessee Baptists “accept any of the three [Southern] Baptist confessions of faith — either 1925, 1963 or 2000 — according to the consciences of the people in this room.”
Sherman's amendment failed by a large margin on a show-of-ballots vote. By a similar majority, the group then affirmed Brown's original motion to embrace the confession.
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 given the school since the two became affiliated.
Clay Austin, chairman of the study committee and the convention's executive board, 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. In most cases, the complaint is filed before mediation begins. This gives both sides access to information found in [the legal fact-finding process called] discovery,” Austin, pastor of First Baptist Church of Blountville, said. “It is our hope that this issue will be settled out of court.”
In presenting the committee's report Nov. 14, Austin said discussion of it would be postponed until the next day and limited, because of the pending lawsuit, to written questions submitted ahead of time. On Nov. 15, he reported that no messengers had submitted questions.
Kenn Hucks, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Lebanon, introduced a motion Nov. 14 “that the Tennessee Baptist Convention end all litigation with Belmont University.” It died for lack of a second.
In a show of strength from conservatives dissatisfied with the convention's leadership, messengers questioned the financial loyalty of some proposed nominees' churches to the SBC. They also rejected a nominee that the TBC committee on boards had recommended for a slot on the TBC executive board.
Larry Reagan, pastor of Adam's Chapel Baptist Church in Dresden, proposed amending the committee's report to replace the name of Ken Durham for a three-year spot on the executive board with Ken Polk.
Reagan noted that Polk's congregation, Northside Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, gave a much larger percentage of its 2005 undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program than Radnor Baptist Church in Nashville, where Durham is pastor.
TBC rules require publicizing the CP giving of the churches from which nominees are drawn in the nominating committees' report to messengers. Radnor was listed as having given only 1.42 percent of its undesignated 2005 receipts through the unified budget.
Adkisson, the committee on boards chairman, defended the Durham nomination. While acknowledging that Radnor's CP giving was low, Adkisson pointed out that Radnor is a poor inner-city church and that Durham has only been pastor there for a year. In that time, however, he has led the congregation to increase CP giving to 2.5 percent.
While CP giving is an important criterion in selecting nominees, it is not the only one, Adkisson said. He also pointed out that Radnor's 2005 CP giving percentage was similar to that of “this wonderful church we are in” — a reference to Bellevue, whose 2005 CP giving percentage was 1.54 percent. A Bellevue member was among the nominees to other TBC boards.
Reagan responded with a complaint shared by many conservative Tennessee Baptists. Polk's church, Northside, “has never, ever, ever had anyone serve on [TBC boards or committees], but they have nominated people many, many times.”
Kelly Porch, a messenger from Radnor, defended her pastor. “There are nominees from very large churches that have very large budgets that have Cooperative Program percentages of only 1.5 percent or much less than one percent, yet they are not being challenged,” she said. “I am somewhat confused as to why my pastor is being singled out.”
After debate, messengers took a ballot vote on the amendment to replace Durham's name with Polk's on the nominee slate. It passed by a 302-272 margin. The amended slate then passed on a show-of-hands vote, with only a smattering of dissenting votes.
D.C. Cobb, a messenger from Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, also questioned Adkisson on a nominee to the board of the Tennseee Baptist Adult Homes, David Drumel. He noted that Drumel is a member of the First Baptist Church of Memphis, and that he was “very disappointed to see that church is only giving two-tenths of a percent to the Cooperative Program.”
He added, “There are other examples you can look at up the page,” an apparent reference to nominees from Second Baptist Church in Memphis and Central Baptist Church of Bearden in Knoxville. Each church sent less than one percent of its undesignated funds through the Cooperative Program last year. All three churches send the vast majority of their missions giving through the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship rather than the CP, which channels national missions funds to the conservative-dominated SBC.
“My question is, what are our criteria for trustees on these boards?” Cobb asked. “We got in trouble with Belmont because we did not have criteria and we did not enforce them. Do we have criteria? Will we have criteria next year?”
Adkisson noted that the convention's governing documents call for the heads of agencies affiliated with the convention to submit a name for each open slot on their board, which the committee usually accepts. “We…look at those potential nominees and decide whether they are functioning, good supporting Tennessee Baptists from cooperating churches.”
He continued: “When they bring someone to us when they do not come from a church that has high Cooperative Program giving, we have brought that to their attention.”
Cobb shot back: “If I understand, you do not have any criteria. You state criteria, but you do not have criteria that you enforce.”
There were contested elections for each of the convention's top three officers. Messengers elected two candidates endorsed by Concerned Tennessee Baptists, a conservative caucus in the statewide body.
Ron Stewart, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Knoxville, beat Austin, the executive board chairman, 575-413. Tom McCoy, pastor of Thompson Station Baptist Church, Thompson Station, was elected first vice president over Michael Adams, pastor of First Baptist Church, Lexington, by a vote of 548 to 342.
Buddy Boston, pastor of First Baptist Church of Covington, beat Tim McGehee, the CTB-endorsed candidate for second vice president on a 365-350 vote.
Messengers initially adopted a substitute budget different from the $37 million budget recommended by convention leaders.
However, in a highly unusual Nov. 15 session that lasted about two hours longer than it was scheduled, messengers rescinded the substitute budget and finally adopted the original budget presented by the executive board.
Messenger Bob Agee, who had presented the substitute in order to distribute funds that would have been provided to Belmont in a fashion he considered more equitable, said a glitch with the language in his motion had caused unintended negative consequences for some Tennessee Baptist ministries. However, convention governing documents prevented messengers from amending the amended budget proposal without one day's advance notice.
Messengers rescinded their motion to approve Agee's amended budget, and passed the original budget proposal. They then adopted a motion requesting the board to alter the new budget to reflect Agee's intent.
Next year's TBC annual meeting is scheduled for Nov. 13-14 in Kingsport.
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— Lonnie Wilkey of the Baptist and Reflector contributed to this story.