The times were hard. The Southern Baptist Convention attempted its first mammoth financial campaign. The name told just how big it was: the 75 Million Campaign. It was a bold and ambitious program over a five-year period to undergird the various boards, agencies and seminaries of the SBC. Many pledged with good intentions — $92 million pledged — but succumbed to the hard times with about $58 million realized. The various areas of SBC work had counted on the pledges and when they were not realized, some boards were left with heavy debts. They had been spending in anticipation.
Fred Anderson
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George White McDaniel was pastor of the significant First Baptist Church of Richmond and he had been among the chief promoters of the Campaign. His church pledged an enormous amount and they met their pledge, reaching $404,000 by 1925, but only at the expense of not funding their much-heralded and badly-needed new building fund.
In 1925 McDaniel, still “on the east of fifty,” was serving the second of three terms as president of the SBC. He was carrying heavy burdens — the final gifts to the Campaign, his own church’s building program and a tremendous sense of personal responsibility over the crushing debts of the various Southern Baptist boards. It was enough to lead him straight to a major stroke in July 1925.
But in January of that year, as SBC president, McDaniel made an assault on the consciences of the Baptist people who could bring the revenue and energy to the denominational enterprises. He wrote an article entitled “Discretion, or Lack of Faith, Which?” that was printed in the Religious Her-ald. It was reprinted, widely circulated and became the subject of discussion by many a Baptist.
“A time has arrived in our de-nominational life,” wrote McDaniel, “when all boards must exercise unusual discretion in expenditures. The indebtedness on three [SBC] boards and many state boards and institutions is too large for vigorous health. It is evident to my mind that we must readjust our program in many places or suffer dire consequences.
“God meant for man to use his brains. Three years ago a Southern Baptist expressed his concern that all should be cautious in incurring obligations for denominational objects. He received this reply, ‘The Lord will take care of us.’ The fact is the Lord has not and never promised that he would be responsible for man’s folly. Our Savior distinctly said that we have no right to place ourselves in perilous positions and expect God to deliver us.
“I would say nothing [about] the failure of individuals and churches to provide their proportionate share of fund for the denomination program. I know that if they had kept their promises the debt situation would not exist. But boards and committees who disburse funds must take account of things as they are. They must calculate on facts and not on fiction.
“A sound principle is that we ought to be more careful in handling the funds of others than we are in handling our own funds. If one wastes his own, it is a sin; if one wastes what has been entrusted to him by others, it is a sin plus a crime. The law calls it a breach of trust. Yet, it is to be feared, that men are sometimes more liberal in spending the money of others than they are in spending their private funds.
“It is not meant that any one in the denomination has done an intentional wrong. I would be among the last to believe that but among the first to say it if I believed it. Certainly I would be among the last to justify those who have withheld from the Lord and made possible our financial embarrassment. What I am endeavoring to impress is that in view of the present situation we must be very careful in spending denominational money lest the situation become worse.”
He had some practical suggestions. First, he urged that expenses of denominational offices be held to a minimum. Second, he called for a freezing of salaries of denominational employees until the crisis passed. “Any individual had better suffer than the cause suffer.” Third, he felt that increased obligations should be curtailed. “The denomination owes more money than it is safe to owe. These debts simply must be reduced. To increase them is stupid.” Fourth, he maintained that when a business showed a deficit it had only two ways to avoid bankruptcy: 1) reduce expenses and 2) increase profits.
“In the case of Southern Baptists the desired increase in receipts has not been realized. They should have been but they have not. I join my best efforts with all who endeavor to increase those receipts. But until larger success is achieved in this direction experience teaches that we reduce denominational expenses. If delayed it may fall heavily on all and fatally upon the Lord’s work.
“I am well aware that brethren may reply that this is pessimism. My whole bent is optimistic. But I believe in looking facts in the face and dealing with them.”
One of his friends of longest standing, “a denominational servant” himself, questioned Mc-Daniel’s concern. And McDaniel replied to his friend: “It seems to me that all the brethren should be burdened on account of the large interest account the denomination is paying on heavy debts — state and Southwide. The interest account is larger than the total gifts of our people to missions and education at the time I first attended the convention. Why does not Israel consider? Unless there is a change for the better we shall be in the dust of humiliation.” McDaniel feared that the SBC was headed for bankruptcy.
The pressure cooker was steaming in 1925. There was the evolution controversy and a fundamentalist faction stirring the controversy. Somebody intentionally threw out a verbal bomb by hinting of a possible division in the convention. There was the devising of an SBC doctrinal statement with all of its ramifications. And then there was the undeniable debt. A sheer stroke of genius emerged. It was called the Cooperative Program and it engineered systematic giving for denominational work. Often-times facing the facts is the only way to find a solution.
Fred Anderson ([email protected]) is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies.