The Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board is happy to take money from Texas Baptists but unwilling to give money back to shared missions causes, the editor of the Texas Baptist Standard said in a May 23 editorial.
In the editorial titled “BGCT, NAMB and the Money,” Editor Eric Black referenced a report recently given by Julio Guarneri, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Eric Black
The BGCT is the historic convention of Baptist churches in Texas. In 1998, a group of conservative churches formed a competing state Baptist convention, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, because they believed the BGCT was not falling in line with the “conservative resurgence” in the SBC.
Today, the BGCT offers multiple ways of affiliating and includes churches that give missions money to the SBC and others that give mission money only to the BGCT. These are known as “Texas only” churches. The BGCT previously allowed pass-through giving to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship but no longer permits that.
Black quotes Guarneri as telling the BGCT Executive Board: “I have learned that NAMB will no longer fund any church starts of singly aligned BGCT churches in Texas. They will only fund churches in Texas who are affiliated with SBTC either singly or dually.”
The reason for this change, Guarneri said, “is because the BGCT has not adopted the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Regardless of whether the sponsoring church or the church start, whether they adopt the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 or not, as long as BGCT doesn’t have it as our official (statement), they will not fund that.”
The 2000 update to the Baptist Faith and Message was a major bone of contention with the BGCT, which continues to affirm the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message and more recently has published its own faith statement called GC2.
The BGCT website says of its beliefs: “The 1963 Baptist Faith and Message has been adopted by messengers of the BGCT annual meeting. Some BGCT churches use other confessions of faith, including the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. Neither confession of faith is a requirement for inclusion in the BGCT. The GC2 Summary of Faith has also been approved by the BGCT Executive Board.”
SBC leaders increasingly want mission partners to adhere strictly to the 2000 version of the Baptist Faith and Message. That connects to another movement within the SBC, with messengers to this summer’s annual meeting being asked to adopt a constitutional amendment that says women may not be ordained, may not preach and may not be called “pastor.”
“NAMB doesn’t seem to have a problem receiving $5.5 million from BGCT churches (but) NAMB does seem to have a problem giving money to those same churches to plant more BGCT churches.”
Concern over that rigid enforcement of an issue many SBC and BGCT churches disagree on is causing some churches in other states to consider affiliating with the BGCT rather than their own state Baptist conventions. The BGCT currently has a study group looking at the feasibility of out-of-state affiliations. The BGCT also recently took steps toward more fully affirming women in ministry.
Yet because of the historic connection between the BGCT and SBC, Texas Baptists continue to send millions of dollars in missions money to the SBC. In the past, some of that money came back to the state convention through shared missions endeavors, particularly in church planting.
At the same time, NAMB has changed the way it works with all state Baptist conventions, abandoning previous collaborations in favor of a national strategy that often bypasses the state conventions.
Black wrote in his editorial that in 2023, BGCT churches sent $3.3 million to the Annie Armstrong Offering that benefits NAMB and another $2.2 million that made its way to NAMB through the SBC Cooperative Program.
Julio Guarneri
In receiving those funds, “NAMB did not ask to what iteration of the Baptist Faith and Message the BGCT ascribes,” he noted.
Black’s editorial reports that in recent years the BGCT has received $300,000 a year from NAMB for church planting and evangelism ministries. And the church planting portion of those funds have only been used to start churches that affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
Based on Guarneri’s report, those funds will no longer come back to the BGCT, regardless of how much money Texas Baptist churches give to the SBC and NAMB.
“It’s a hard thing to say NAMB doesn’t seem to have a problem receiving $5.5 million from BGCT churches when NAMB does seem to have a problem giving money to those same churches to plant more BGCT churches,” Black wrote. “It may feel like the kind of thing a person says who’s itching for a fight.”
In his report to the BGCT Executive Board, Guarneri classified the BGCT as a centrist organization that welcomes churches that believe only men may be pastors and churches that believe both men and women can serve in any ministerial role.
“Local church autonomy in this matter means complementarian churches do not impose their view on other churches. It also means egalitarian churches do not impose their view on other churches,” he said. “It implies that we respect each other and that we work together. We don’t believe that the topic of women in ministry is a matter of scriptural authority. We believe it is a matter of scriptural interpretation.”
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