FORT WORTH, Texas (ABP) — Trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary delayed action on a recommendation to transfer $90 million in seminary endowment funds from the Baptist Foundation of Texas to Southwestern's in-house foundation.
According to a trustee document provided to Associated Baptist Press, Paige Patterson, president of the Fort Worth-based seminary, recommended moving the funds at the Oct. 16-17 trustee meeting. A Southwestern spokesman did not say why the funds were being moved but acknowledged the action was delayed.
In the days leading up to the meeting, several Southern Baptist bloggers questioned the proposal. Some suggested Patterson, a leading conservative, wanted to take a swipe at the Baptist Foundation of Texas, one of the largest Christian foundations, because it is affiliated with the moderate Baptist General Convention of Texas rather than the fundamentalist Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
Other bloggers objected to the recommendation because it included a provision that the transferred funds be invested through a consortium of non-profit endowments called The Investment Fund for Foundations, or TIFF. TIFF's various investment funds include several “sin stocks” — shares in companies related to alcohol, tobacco and gambling interests.
Noting the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in June expressing “our total opposition to the manufacturing, advertising, distributing and consuming of alcoholic beverages,” blogger Marty Duren asked: “[I]s the Southwestern Seminary Foundation board now to be encouraged to profit from all the above?”
Duren, a Georgia pastor who operates the SBC Outpost blog (www.sbcoutpost.com), and other SBC bloggers also objected to Patterson's recommendation of John McStay to become the new chairman of the Southwestern Seminary Foundation board.
McStay is managing partner of a Dallas investment firm. A previous firm he ran was cited for conflicts of interest and nondisclosure to clients and fined $200,000 by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Southern Baptists need to know with crystal clarity that Mr. McStay is above reproach in the handling of $90 million of our endowment assets, as well as the propriety of moving those assets from a trustworthy management situation to a questionable one,” Duren wrote.
In addition, a biographical sketch of McStay that Southwestern officials provided to the trustees' institutional advancement committee lists him as an elder at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in suburban Dallas. The congregation is part of the Presbyterian Church (USA), a mainline Protestant group that allows women in pastoral roles and takes other positions at odds with the conservative SBC.
An official in Southwestern's communications office did not supply details of the trustee proposal. And an official with the Baptist Foundation of Texas did not return an Associated Baptist Press reporter's telephone message requesting comment for this story.
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