The Cooperative Program, started in 1925 as a cooperative fund-raising venture between the Baptist state conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention, appears to be in a state of flux. The report of an ad hoc committee appointed to study and make recommendations about the Cooperative Program says early on that, “The committee believes it imperative that a new working definition of the Cooperative Program be written.”
The suggestion that a new definition is needed implies that some influential people are no longer pleased with the definition that has served well for 81 years. The traditional method of contributing to the Cooperative Program calls for churches to send funds to their state conventions, which retain a portion for state ministries and forward a portion to Nashville for use by the SBC's mission boards, seminaries and agencies.
An increasing number of churches are bypassing their state conventions, however, and sending funds directly to to the SBC Executive Committee.
One of those churches is First Baptist of Springdale, Ark., where SBC presidential candidate Ronnie Floyd is pastor. Floyd has been critiqued as a candidate because his church contributes only 0.27 percent of its nearly $12 million dollar budget to the Cooperative Program, in a year when the above mentioned ad-hoc committee has urged that all officers come from churches that contribute at least 10 percent.
Three seminary presidents — Paige Patterson of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Danny Akin of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary — have publicly endorsed Floyd's candidacy despite the church's anemic Cooperative Program giving, pointing out that the church still contributes strongly to missions in other ways.
One might expect seminary presidents, whose schools benefit greatly from Cooperative Program funds, not to pass over the matter so glibly.
Here's something to think about: the truth is that the seminaries get a much larger cut of the money when gifts are sent directly to Nashville, bypassing the Cooperative Program, than when funds are contributed through the state convention.
Take Floyd's church, for instance. In 2005, the church gave $32,000 for the Cooperative Program through the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. The Arkansas convention keeps 58.25 percent and passes on 41.75 percent to the SBC.
The church also sent $189,000 directly to Nashville. If the church had sent the $189,000 through the Arkansas convention, only $78,908 of it would have gone to Nashville. Southwestern's share of that (5.18 percent) would have been $4,087, and Southeastern would have received $3,219 (4.08 percent).
With the money bypassing the Cooperative Program and going straight to the SBC, however, Southwestern would get $9,790 and Southeastern's share would be $7,711 — more than twice the amount they would have received otherwise.
If a significant number of churches took this option of bypassing the state conventions, it could be quite profitable for the seminaries and other SBC beneficiaries, while leaving the state conventions in a pinch.
I can't judge the motives of those who don't find Floyd's 0.27 percent record of Cooperative Program giving to be troublesome, but the fact that their institutions benefit directly from his church's side-stepping of the traditional Cooperative Program should not be overlooked.
Tony Cartledge is editor of North Carolina Baptists' Biblical Recorder.