COLUMBUS, Ga. (ABP) — Georgia Baptists voted Nov. 15 to begin the process of severing their last ties with Mercer University, one of the nation's oldest and largest Baptist institutions of higher learning.
The move comes in the immediate wake of a controversy over homosexuality at the school, whose main campus is in Macon. But it also follows years of conflict between leaders of the conservative-dominated convention and the moderate-controlled school.
Georgia Baptist Convention messengers, meeting in Columbus, approved a recommendation from the group's executive committee that the GBC begin the process of severing ties with the 7,000-student school. Mercer was founded in 1833 by three men who also played instrumental roles in founding the convention.
The move must be approved a second time, by messengers to next year's GBC annual meeting, before it takes effect. If given final approval, it would cut approximately $3.5 million in annual donations from the convention to the university. Mercer uses all of the funds — matching them two-for-one — to fund scholarships for students from Georgia Baptist churches.
The motion noted reports — appearing just before the convention meeting in the Macon Telegraph and the convention 's Christian Index newspaper — about the Mercer Triangle Symposium. The group billed itself as Mercer's “GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] rights student organization. In conjunction with the Human Rights Campaign — the national gay-rights advocacy group — the symposium sponsored a “National Coming Out Day” event Oct. 11 on the Macon campus.
The group also bought an ad in the campus newspaper naming several famous gay and lesbian “individuals who have contributed to the arts, sciences, politics, and sports throughout history,” such as poet Walt Whitman, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and tennis star Martina Navratilova.
“We, the undersigned, value equally the GLBT students, faculty, and staff members at Mercer who bring their gifts to our campus and add to the richness and diversity of our intellectual community,” the ad read. Several dozen students and faculty, including two professors of Christianity, signed their names to it.
According to the Index, the group was recognized by the student government but not officially endorsed by the school's administration. Mercer President Kirby Godsey told the paper that the administration distances itself from such student groups in order not to squelch the college's academic and intellectual freedom.
“Holding steadfastly to the rich and noble heritage of our Baptist forbearers and the Christian values that have shaped and sustained Mercer for generations, we affirm our historic values, while including within them an unwavering devotion to the open search for truth, to religious and intellectual freedom, and to respect for the diversity of beliefs among the members of the university community,” Godsey told the paper.
But Robert White, the convention's executive director, said inviting students to meetings where gay rights are openly advocated was a step too far for the convention.
“At the very least, on-campus meetings give the impression of approval by the administration,” White told the paper. “I understand that a part of the university experience, whether Baptist or otherwise, is being exposed to a broad variety of thought. At the same time, I believe that Georgia Baptist parents should be able to have the confidence that their young people who attend a Georgia Baptist institution will not receive errant signals.”
Whatever the case, Mercer spokesperson Judy Lunsford said that, as she understood it, the symposium had “held its last meeting” Nov. 14.
David Hudson, an Augusta attorney and longtime Mercer trustee, said the most recent problem cited by Georgia Baptists “has been remedied; the university has already taken steps to deny use of facilities for such a group of students.”
He said the homosexuality issue was merely a “pretext” for a parting of ways long desired by many conservative Georgia Baptist leaders.
“Anybody that's intellectually honest, that is concerned about students being exposed to the gay agenda because Mercer has some students who speak for equal rights for gay people should immediately have their children stop using their computers and take them out of their homes — because there's no greater avenue for deviant sexual information than the computer,” he said. Hudson is a member of First Baptist Church in Augusta.
“Put it this way,” Hudson said. “I think it's more than coincidence that that [article about the symposium] surfaced in the Christian Index the week before the convention.”
The motion convention messengers approved mentions several older complaints conservatives have had against Mercer, including references to Godsey's 1996 book, “When We Talk About God…Let's be Honest,” which some GBC conservatives considered heretical.
“The convention censured the president and condemned the fact that a president of one of its institutions would publish a book which deviated from Biblical theology and doctrine,” the motion noted. “At the same time, the book was endorsed by Mercer's trustees.”
The convention's motion also made an allusion to the school's relationship with several moderate Baptist organizations that emerged out of the Southern Baptist Convention's hard rightward shift in the 1980s and '90s, such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
“Other Georgia Baptists recognize a concern that Mercer has no commitment to the Southern Baptist Convention, the affiliate of the Georgia Baptist Convention,” the motion read. “Mercer, instead, has chosen to become connected with other, non-Southern-Baptist organizations which [sic] do not support the [SBC] Cooperative Program, to the detriment of its historic ties to the Cooperative Program and the Southern Baptist Convention. This lack of commitment has led many Georgia Baptists to question continuing Cooperative Program funding for Mercer.”
Mercer trustee Jimmy Elder, pastor of First Baptist Church in Columbus, said the decision was worse for the convention than for the university. “They have an institution that faithfully and strongly has been teaching future leaders based on Baptist principles and on Baptist values, and they have basically turned their back on them and walked away — and that's sad.”
He said limiting scholarships for its own students will hurt the convention. “It's sort of like, you get mad at the institution and you hurt the people who are least able to defend themselves,” Elder said.