WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP) — Conservatives in North Carolina elected their candidate as president, replaced the interim executive director of the Baptist State Convention, approved new institutional trustees without dissent, and toughened their stance against gay-friendly churches. But they failed in another key objective — to eliminate a budget plan that allowed moderate churches in North Carolina to fund non-Southern Baptist causes.
The flurry of actions came Nov. 15, the second day of the three-day annual meeting of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina in Winston-Salem.
The budget change, introduced by Ted Stone of Durham, would have eliminated four spending plans that allow churches to choose what Baptist causes they support outside North Carolina –including the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Stone's motion would have returned the North Carolina convention to a single budget plan, sending 35 percent of funds to the Southern Baptist Convention and nothing to CBF.
Stone's motion was expected to pass when he postponed its effective date to 2008, so that conservatives who had promised not to delete the alternative plans immediately could support the motion. However, it lost on a closer-than-expected ballot vote, 56 percent to 44 percent.
During debate, Stone said of the four-option budget, “Instead of bringing us together, it has divided us,” he said, and “undermined the work” of the Southern Baptist Convention and North Carolina convention. Eliminating the option of CBF support would “restore a sense of honesty to the way we do cooperative missions in North Carolina,” Stone said.
But Dave Stratton of Brunswick Island Baptist Church in Supply argued eliminating the four plans “will have the effect of further splintering this convention” and would actually decrease funding for Baptist causes in the state as moderate churches move funding elsewhere.
Most moderate Baptists in the state have quit attending the annual convention after losing a string of elections. No moderate candidate for president was announced ahead of time.
Conservative Stan Welch, pastor of Blackwelder Park Baptist Church in Kannapolis, was elected president with 70 percent of the vote. But the surprise nomination of moderate leader Blythe Taylor, associate minister at St. John's Baptist Church in Charlotte, drew 30 percent of the votes from the 3,276 messengers registered.
Messengers easily approved a motion to instruct the convention's Board of Directors to implement a policy that would expel from membership any church that “knowingly affirms, approves, or endorses homosexual behavior.”
North Carolina Baptists already have a financial policy that prohibits churches that condone homosexuality from contributing to the convention, which is a condition of membership. It is unclear how many churches would be affected by the new policy. But if, as Stone proposes, the new strictures exclude congregations “that affiliate with any group that the church knows to affirm homosexual behavior,” it will exclude about 25 North Carolina churches that are members of the Alliance of Baptists, a national organization that conservatives say has a “pro-homosexual stance.”
In other business, the Board of Directors elected Mike Cummings, director of missions for the Burnt Swamp Baptist Association, as acting executive director. Cummings, whose association includes Lumbee Indian congregations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Maryland, replaces George Bullard, current associate executive director. Bullard had been expected to remain until a search committee finds a new executive director next year. Instead he will retire.
Messengers approved all nominees to trustee positions in the convention despite complaints the process excluded moderates. The nominating committee earlier rejected several nominees because they are members of churches affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists and rejected several candidates for the board of the Biblical Recorder, the convention's newspaper, replacing them with hard-line conservatives. No objection was raised when the nominee slate was presented Nov. 15.
Ricky Speas, conservative pastor of Old Town Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, was elected first vice president without opposition.
In another surprise, however, Leland Kerr, pastor of Eastside Baptist Church in Shelby, defeated the conservative-endorsed candidate Barry Nealy, a director of missions from Boone. Kerr, who is not clearly aligned with one of the state's factions, was nominated by Jim Royston, who recently retired as executive director of the convention.
The North Carolina convention concludes Nov. 16, with action on the budget still to come.
— This article includes material from Tony Cartledge and Steve DeVane of the Biblical Recorder.