KINGSPORT, Tenn. (ABP) — An organized conservative group defeated a coalition of moderates and unaligned conservatives during the Tennessee Baptist Convention annual meeting Nov. 13-14 in Kingsport, Tenn.
Messengers elected presidential and vice-presidential candidates endorsed by Concerned Tennessee Baptists, whose leaders have long accused the convention's leadership of over-representing “liberals” and congregations that partner with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
In the race for the presidency, Tom McCoy, pastor of Thompson Station Church in suburban Nashville, Tenn., defeated Bruce McCoy, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cookeville, Tenn., 630-431. For the position of vice president, Tim McGehee, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tenn., bested Randall Pressnell, pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Mt. Carmel, Tenn., 394-296.
Messengers also rejected two attempts to revise a controversial new policy regarding nominees to the convention's boards and committees. During its meeting last year in suburban Memphis, the convention adopted a rule requiring both the TBC committee on boards and the committee on committees to ask nominees if they endorsed the 2000 revision of the Southern Baptist Convention's “Baptist Faith and Message” statement. The nominees' responses are published along with other information including their church's contributions to the Cooperative Program, the SBC's unified budget.
The statement became controversial for its statement that female pastors are unbiblical and for removing language that said the Bible should be interpreted through the life of Jesus Christ.
In the first attempt to revise the nominee policy, Clay Faircloth, pastor of Shelby Avenue Baptist Church in Nashville, asked his fellow messengers to change the question to “whether a nominee will affirm the Holy Bible as His perfect and complete revelation” rather than merely asking about their agreement with the confessional statement.
“The ‘Baptist Faith and Message' 2000 is just another document created by men, to govern men. I say let us be governed by no document save the word of God himself,” Faircloth said.
But Larry Reagan, pastor of Adams Chapel Baptist Church in Dresden, Tenn., disagreed with what he considered to be Faircloth's premise.
“This amendment implies that [his fellow Concerned Tennessee Baptists members] have more confidence in the ‘Baptist Faith and Message' than we do the word of God, and that is simply not true,” he said. “In that Bible there are several other doctrines. Some of those are covered in the ‘Baptist Faith and Message' and some are not. Those that are covered in the ‘Baptist Faith and Message' are those that Baptists consider pertinent and important.
Faircloth's motion lost on a vote, taken by secret ballot, that failed by a 2-1 margin.
Later, messengers more narrowly defeated a different attempt to change the question asked of nominees. Greg Fay, a messenger from the First Baptist Church of Clinton, Tenn., proposed that the question be altered to ask nominees if they supported any version of the Baptist Faith and Message — including two earlier versions, from 1925 and 1963, that moderates find more acceptable.
Bill Sherman, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Fairvew, Tenn., said the motion was necessary to preserve what was left of the convention's unity.
“We've got to lay aside agendas. We've got to come together at the foot of the cross, and the time has come for us to come and be happy again. We're sick and tired of calling names, printing things that are intemperate,” he said. “We can have a unity of spirit without a uniformity of agreement.”
But Reagan, who is Concerned Tennessee Baptists' newsletter editor, said Tennessee Baptists had spoken loud and clear the previous year by repeatedly endorsing the 2000 version of the statement.
“I keep wondering, how many times do Tennessee Baptists have to say we believe in doctrinal accountability?” he said. “This is not us trying to be divisive. This is the messengers earnestly contending for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.”
Fay's motion, also taken by secret-ballot vote, failed 497-490.
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