GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship affirmed a proposal for how the moderate group relates to its partner institutions and agencies, in spite of concern that the plan favors the strongest partners and harms the most vulnerable.
“We've adopted what seems to be a survival-of-the-fittest mentality,” said David Hinson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Frankfort, Ky., in an interview after the vote July 1.
Participants in the CBF general assembly in Grapevine, Texas, affirmed the CBF Coordinating Council's approval of a report and recommendations from a partner study committee chaired by Charles Cantrell of Mountain View, Mo. Cantrell said the guidelines for partners recommended by his committee are “only the beginning of a process” that will include changes and flexibility, as well as input from partners and others.
Committee member Michael Duncan of Eminence, Ky., stressed that if the assembly rejected the recommended guidelines, the CBF would be left without any clear criteria for determining partner relationships. “It's not etched in stone,” Duncan said. “This is a living document.”
The new plan caps funding for partners at 25 percent of an organization's previous year's receipts, and it establishes a three-tiered approach to relationships with theological schools — identity partners, leadership partners and global partners.
Current CBF partners — excluding educational institutions — include Associated Baptist Press, the Baptist Center for Ethics, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Baptists Today news journal and the Baptist World Alliance. Of those partners, Cantrell said, Associated Baptist Press and the Baptist Center for Ethics will lose money to the funding cap, which will be phased in over three years.
Based on 2003 receipts of $306,888 — the last year for which definitive figures are available — the 25 percent cap would mean the Baptist Center for Ethics would lose $4,830 if applied to the current CBF allocation.
Based on 2004 receipts of $455,528, Associated Baptist Press would lose $18,237 if applied to the current CBF allocation.
Schools in each partner category will be eligible for scholarships and collaborative initiative funding, as well as “relational resources” such as references and referrals. But only identity partners will be eligible for ongoing institutional funding, and no more than six of the 14 theological-education partner schools can be designated as identity partners.
“Criteria for defining of these institutions will include factors such as enrollment, the number of graduates in congregational ministry, level of support for CBF, geographic location, willingness to self-identify as a CBF-affiliated school and historical connection to CBF,” the report stated.
Critics claimed that by setting up loyalty to the CBF as a criteria for institutional funding, the Fellowship was establishing the same kind of coercive conformity moderates had criticized in the Southern Baptist Convention.
“We're on verge of going the wrong way in theological education,” said Charles Yarbrough of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, who asserted divinity schools at non-Baptist universities will be disproportionately affected. “Only those who do what we want done and say what we want say get funding.”
In a breakout session devoted to discussing the partner proposal, Hinson commented a day earlier: “I believe there are 12 stipulations for identity partners to fulfill. We're asking them to do everything except sing a CBF song at graduation.”
CBF has partnerships with four free-standing seminaries — Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Central Baptist Theological Seminary, in Kansas City, Kan., and International Baptist Seminary, in Prague, the Czech Republic — and six schools of theology or divinity schools associated with Baptist universities or schools with Baptist roots — Campbell University Divinity School, Logsdon School of Theology at Hardin-Simmons University, McAfee School of Theology at Mercer University, Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University, Wake Forest Divinity School and White School of Divinity at Gardner-Webb University.
The Fellowship also partners with three Baptist studies programs at non-Baptist schools — Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School, Emory University's Candler School of Theology, and Duke Divinity School — and one theological university — Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio.
At the partner proposal breakout session, Mark Olson of Fayetteville, N.C., pointed out the much-larger Southern Baptist Convention financially supports only six seminaries, while the CBF has 14 partner schools.
The Fellowship — with its limited financial resources — runs the risk of “slicing the pie thinner and thinner” and losing the ability to make a substantive difference to any of its partners, he said.
The CBF also approved constitution and bylaws revisions, including a new mission statement that drew opposition from the floor of the assembly.
In other business, assembly participants approved a $16.47 million operating budget for 2005-06. The current budget is $16,008,123. Expenditures for 2005-06 total $21,580,058 including more than $5.1 million in expenditures from designated gifts, mostly for missions.