Conservatives in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina elected their candidate as president, toughened the convention's stance against gay-friendly churches, replaced the interim executive director and approved new institutional trustees without dissent.
But they failed in another key objective-to eliminate a budget arrangement that allows churches in North Carolina to fund non-Southern Baptist Convention causes.
The flurry of actions came during the Nov. 14-16 annual meeting of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina in Winston-Salem.
A motion to eliminate four spending plans that allow churches to choose what Baptist causes they support outside North Carolina-including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-failed on a close vote. But money contributed to CBF through the convention's budget will no longer count as state Cooperative Program funds.
This was the second year in a row that Ted Stone of Durham made a motion to delete the four budget options and return to the traditional one budget channel that requires contributions sent outside of North Carolina to go only to the SBC. Many moderate Baptist churches have remained involved in the North Carolina convention because they could support CBF and not support the SBC.
The budget change that prevents support for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship from counting as Cooperative Program giving came from the convention's budget committee. Two attempts to delete or alter that proposal failed during budget discussion Nov. 16.
Conservatives said the Cooperative Program is a Southern Baptist plan and should not include funds for the CBF, even on the state level. Moderates say counting all their gifts sent through the state convention keeps them included as full participants in the state convention, even if they don't participate in the SBC.
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 the new strictures likely will exclude congregations “that affiliate with any group that the church knows to affirm homosexual behavior.” That would shut out about 25 North Carolina churches that are members of the Alliance of Baptists, a national organization that conservatives say has a “pro-homosexual stance.”
Most moderate Baptists in North Carolina have quit attending the annual convention, conceding conservatives now control the nation's second largest Baptist state convention. After losing a string of elections, moderates did not offer a candidate for president 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 of St. John's Baptist Church in Charlotte, drew 30 percent of the votes from the 3,276 messengers registered.
In other business, the board of directors elected Mike Cummings, director of missions for the Burnt Swamp Baptist Association, as acting executive director. Cummings 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 in August.
Associated Baptist Press