WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP) — Messengers to the annual meeting of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina Nov. 15-17 voted to keep the convention's four giving plans intact, including the plan favored by moderates.
Ted Stone, a freelance minister from Durham, N.C., made a motion to abolish the alternate plans, which let churches pick which organizations to support. His motion called for the state convention to go back to a single plan, with money being divided between North Carolina and the Southern Baptist Convention, deleting money for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and other moderate causes.
Stone's motion, which would have gone into effect with the 2006-07 budget, failed by at least a two-to-one margin on a show of ballots, according to convention officials.
Another motion Nov. 17 to delete one of the four giving plans was ruled out of order. Messengers also re-elected their officers and passed a resolution against same-sex marriage.
Currently churches giving to the state convention can choose one of four giving plans. In Plan A, the state convention keeps 68 percent of the money and sends 32 percent to the Southern Baptist Convention.
In Plan B, the state convention retains 68 percent and sends 10 percent to the SBC, with the remaining money going to missions partnerships, theological education and other causes. Plan C is similar to Plan B except the 10 percent is sent to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship rather than the SBC. Plans B and C also fund four independent Baptist ministries popular with moderates — Baptist World Alliance, Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty, Associated Baptist Press and Baptist Center for Ethics.
Under Plan D, the state convention keeps 50 percent and sends 32 percent to the SBC. The other 18 percent goes to the conservative Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute, church-planting efforts and missions partnerships.
During debate, Stone said all neighboring state conventions give a higher percentage of money to the SBC than the North Carolina convention. “It means we are not stepping up to the plate when it comes to supporting missionaries around the world,” said Stone, a trustee at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, an SBC seminary.
LeRoy Burke, chairman of the convention's budget committee, said that while he personally supports going back to one plan, 80 percent of the input the committee received was in favor of the alternate giving plans. “I rise today to ask the convention to vote against this at this time,” he said.
Jim Royston, the convention's executive director, also spoke against the motion. He said passing it might ultimately divide the state convention.
Paul Berry, of Grainger Baptist Church in Kinston, said the two groups involved in the Baptist controversy have different theologies. He asked how the state convention can continue to have integrity as long as it is composed of such groups.
J. D. Greear, pastor of Summit Church in Durham, called for eliminating the giving plan that funds the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. “Whenever we have diversity in action, we are not united and we are not as strong as we could be,” he said.
Greear said the CBF and the newer divinity schools formed in opposition to the Southern Baptist Convention because of differing stands on issues such as inerrancy, the exclusivity of the gospel, and the soundness of heterosexual marriage. “There just came a point when we could no longer work together,” he said.
Mark Olson, pastor of Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in Fayetteville, said churches should respect each other's decisions to give through the various plans. North Carolina Baptists should unite around the gospel of Jesus Christ, he said. “That's what unifies us, not giving plans.”
On Nov. 17, the last day of the convention, Stephen Owenby, pastor of Stewartsville Baptist Church in Laurinburg, tried to amend the budget again to eliminate Plan C, which funds the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and other causes popular with moderates.
Convention president David Horton ruled the motion out of order because it came during consideration of the convention's missions offering. “The pending motion [on the missions offering] does not affect plans A, B, C and D,” he said. “Therefore the amendment to do that would be out of order.”
Owenby asked if there would be an opportunity to amend the budget to remove Plan C. “Not at this year's convention,” Horton said, noting the convention had already adopted a budget last year to cover 2004 and 2005. “At next year's convention, we will be voting on a budget for two years,” Horton said. “Motions relating to the budget would certainly be in order at that time.”
In an interview after the meeting, Horton said there are some people who will not let the giving plan issue go away. “My feeling is we'll be back considering it all again next year,” he said.
In other business, the convention's three top officers — all conservatives — were re-elected without opposition, including Horton, pastor of Gate City Baptist Church in Greensboro, Phyllis Foy, first vice president, and Brian Davis, second vice president.
In a resolution, North Carolina Baptists called for amendments to the federal and state constitutions that would ban same-sex marriages by defining marriage as “the union of a man and a woman.”
Messengers easily amended a similar statement presented by the resolutions committee that included the same definition of marriage but did not call for constitutional amendments.
During debate, Paul Raybon of Asheville argued against turning the constitutions into theological or moral statements. “The last amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] that tried to legislate morality was called Prohibition and you remember what happened with that,” said Raybon. “We are guardians of God's gift of marriage through the church, not the state.”
Other speakers, however, argued that constitutional amendments are necessary. Mark Creech, head of the North Carolina Christian Action League, stressed that “the threat of gay marriage is of such magnitude that we need to go on record for a federal marriage amendment” and similar amendments to state constitutions. “We have no other means for protecting the sanctity of marriage from activist judges,” he said.
The resolution adopted by messengers voices concern that successful legal challenges could force North Carolina and other states to “accept same sex marriage as the law of the land without any vote of our elected legislators in the U.S. Congress.”
Messengers easily defeated a motion calling for a study of the North Carolina convention's Baptist identity to determine if the convention is “Southern Baptist.” James McLean, pastor of Darlington Baptist Church in Littleton, who made the motion, said there seems to be some question about whether N.C. Baptists are Southern Baptists.
His motion would have directed the convention's board of directors to determine if the convention is Southern Baptist. If not, he said, the board should “decide what we are and what our core values are and report back at next year's convention.”
McLean said the convention's membership includes two basic viewpoints, “and we have tiptoed around it for a long time. If we are Southern Baptists, we need to believe as Southern Baptists. If our schools want money from Southern Baptists, they need to believe what Southern Baptists do,” he said.
Rick Matthews, a layman from Winston-Salem, spoke against the motion, saying laypeople are not divided as pastors are but are more interested in missions than politics. “The Baptists outside of this room are not divided,” he said: “They want to win souls, not votes.”
Messengers also passed several measures paving the way to incorporation of the state convention. Previously the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina existed as an unincorporated association, while its assets were held by three trustees.
— The article includes information from Tony Cartledge and David Wilkinson.