KINGSPORT, Tenn. (ABP) — Neither an organized conservative group nor a coalition of moderates and unaligned conservatives were the clear-cut winners during the Tennessee Baptist Convention annual meeting, held Nov. 13-14 in Kingsport, Tenn.
Messengers elected presidential and vice presidential candidates endorsed by Concerned Tennessee Baptists, which has long accused the convention's leadership of over-representing “liberals” and congregations that partner with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Messengers also turned away two attempts to soften a CTB-supported policy regarding nominees to the convention's boards and committees.
However, messengers also defeated a second vice presidential candidate the group had endorsed, killed CTB supporters' attempts to present alternate nominees for convention boards, and defeated a measure to strengthen the convention president's appointive powers. Concerned Tennessee Baptists' leaders had described passage of the amendment as their No. 1 priority for the meeting.
For president, Tom McCoy, pastor of Thompson Station Baptist Church in suburban Nashville, defeated Bruce McCoy, pastor of First Baptist Church of Cookeville, 630-431. For vice president, Tim McGehee, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Tullahoma, bested Randall Pressnell, pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Mt. Carmel, 394-296. Both of the winners had been endorsed by Concerned Tennessee Baptists.
However, in the contest for second vice president, CTB-supported candidate Todd Stinnett, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Morristown, lost to Tommy Holtzclaw, retired director of missions for Sullivan Baptist Association in the convention's host city, 278-479.
During its meeting last year in suburban Memphis, the convention adopted a rule requiring the TBC committee on boards and committee on committees to ask nominees if they endorsed the more restrictive 2000 revision of the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Faith and Message statement. The nominees' responses are published along with other information the committees have traditionally provided about nominees, including their church's contributions to the Cooperative Program.
The statement became controversial for saying female pastors were unbiblical and removing language that said the Bible should be interpreted through the filter of the life of Jesus Christ.
In the first attempt to revise the nominee policy during a Nov. 13 business session, Clay Faircloth, pastor of Shelby Avenue Baptist Church in Nashville, asked his fellow messengers to change the question asked to “whether a nominee will affirm the Holy Bible as [God's] 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, of 651-395.
Later on Nov. 13, messengers more narrowly defeated a different attempt to change the question asked of nominees. Greg Fay, a messenger from 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 much more acceptable.
Bill Sherman, pastor of 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 the convention 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.
A proposed constitutional amendment would have effectively given the convention president power to name two of the annual nominees to the body's powerful committee on committees. If approved by messengers, members of the committee on committees would then have power to nominate members of several convention committees, as well as its committee on boards. The committee on boards, in turn, nominates members for boards of Tennessee Baptist institutions as well as the convention's executive board and the committee on committees.
Unlike many other state Baptist bodies, the TBC presidency currently holds little appointive power. While conservative takeovers of the Southern Baptist Convention and other state conventions quickly trickled down to board and agency trustees, several victories by conservatives in TBC officer elections in recent years have not had the same effect. Concerned Tennessee Baptists leaders have long complained that the peculiar system — with the committee on boards and committee on committees nominating each other — has caused inbreeding in convention leadership. They claim it creates a system where moderate churches are disproportionately represented.
“I understand that change is difficult, but change to me is the definition of growth, and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's necessary,” said Ron Stewart, the convention's 2006-07 president, in urging messengers to approve the amendment. Stewart, who also had Concerned Tennessee Baptists' support, recommended the amendment last year.
“There's a problem with fair representation on key Tennessee Baptist Convention committees and boards,” he continued. “Whether it's real or whether it's a perception is not an issue — it's a perception for a fair many.”
But Leonard Markham, pastor of First Baptist Church of Fairfield Glade, Tenn., and a former TBC executive board president, said having an entire committee come up with nominees together is a fairer way than granting that power to the president.
“I believe that, if you have 16 people who are looking from different sections of our state, considering different individuals, then you have a much broader input than you have from just one person,” he said. “I do not believe that you want the burden placed upon the president of this convention to try to decide who are those individuals who could best serve us in these positions. I believe that it would politicize the office of president …. I think that it is going to divide us, not unite us.”
The vote on the proposal was extremely close — 50.5 percent in favor to 49.5 against — but the measure would have required two-thirds majorities for two years in a row to pass.
CTB also failed in their efforts to present alternate nominees to those recommended by the committee on boards for positions on the Tennessee Baptist executive board and committee on committees. The alternates would have replaced nominees who refused to endorse the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.