CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ABP) — On Feb. 4, St. John's Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., became the second church in a week to decide to break ties with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina over its new anti-gay policy.
Four days earlier, members of Park Road Baptist Church, also in Charlotte, voted likewise to sever ties with the group.
The decisions came as a result of the convention's move in 2006 to cut ties with congregations that affirm homosexuality or that are aligned with organizations that convention officials view as affirming homosexuality.
The November vote changed the convention's bylaws, which had initially required member churches only to support the entity through partnerships and financial donations. But under the new policy, churches that “knowingly act to affirm, approve, endorse, promote, support or bless homosexual behavior” will lose membership.
All told, 11 moderate and progressive churches have publicly pulled out of the convention in the last four years, citing its rightward drift. Members of the disgruntled congregations say increasingly conservative policies embraced by convention leaders have harmed their ministry.
Two other churches have left the convention for the opposite reason: A perception that it has become too liberal.
Nineteen Baptist churches in North Carolina, including St. John's and Park Road, are affiliated with the Alliance of Baptists. The Washington-based group is comprised mainly of the most progressive of the churches that began to split from the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s.
As a group, the Alliance is officially welcoming and affirming of gays and advocates the legalization of same-sex civil marriage. However, not all of its partner congregations have made that move on the local level.
The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists — the nation's largest pro-gay Baptist group — only lists six North Carolina congregations on its website. At least two of those had already been ejected from the state convention for affirming gays, in the early 1990s.
However, North Carolina convention leaders have said they may interpret the new policy to encompass any church that supports an officially pro-gay group, such as the Alliance.
The 84-year-old St. John's congregation has 600 members and has given up to $50,000 to the state convention in prior years, pastor Richard Kremer told the Charlotte Observer.
Stephen Shoemaker, pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church, also in Charlotte, said his deacons decided to take a “proactive stance” and challenge the convention to expel it. The 1,941-member church has publicly invited convention leaders to visit before deciding to eject the congregation. Myers Park is one of the largest churches affiliated with the Alliance and the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists.
Milton Hollifield Jr., the convention's executive director, has said he always “feels a sense of loss” when a church decides to leave, but he recognized their right to do so. That autonomy is inherent in every Baptist body, he said in a statement about the previous departures.
The convention already had an anti-gay policy on the books. But Stan Welch, the group's president, told reporters when the new policy was passed that the old one “did not have teeth.”
Messengers have never voted to include the policy in the convention's written articles of incorporation, and it didn't include a structure to allow the convention to investigate churches suspected of being gay-friendly.
Baptist state conventions in Georgia and Florida also require churches to oppose homosexuality.
The North Carolina convention is the second-largest Baptist state convention in the country. It includes 1.2 million members and 4,080 churches.
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— Robert Marus contributed to this story
Read more:
N.C. Baptists adopt strictest policy against gay-friendly churches
More Baptist churches cut ties with North Carolina convention