Autonomy makes Baptist life so interesting

Our polity that puts autonomy at every level of Baptist life does make for some interesting situations.

I wrote earlier of the church in a Missouri association that retained their pastor even after he was arrested on felony charges for sexual crimes with minors. They exercised their autonomy to keep an accused pedophile in their pulpit. No other Baptist church, association, state convention, or national organization can do a doggone thing about it.

Autonomy at work.

The church’s local association, exercising their autonomy, expelled the church but not for the retention of the pastor but rather for not being cooperative.

Autonomy at work.

Consider the case of a Virginia church and their association. The Ginter Park Baptist Church in Richmond ordained an openly gay man after which the Richmond Baptist Association appointed a group to examine the matter and that committee voted to retain the church. The entire association narrowly ratified the committee’s recommendation and the church remains a member in good standing with Richmond Baptist Association.

Autonomy at work.

Vote to retain church brings backlash is the story on the latter situation, carried by ABP.

Now, a number of churches have quit the association and a considerable number of others are considering such a move. Together, these churches represent about 40% of the association’s budget.

A church ordains a gay man. The association votes to "embrace Giner Park Baptist Church as a sister church" but without endorsing its views on ordaining homosexuals. Evidently, the association does not feel that such actions rise to the level necessary to expel a member church. 

Autonomy at work. 

Now, other churches in the association are withdrawing from the group over the decision. 

Autonomy at work.

The beleaguered associational missionary, concerned about the fragmentation of his group and loss of a significant amount of funding takes a group to the pastor and others of the church that started this mess, the one that ordained the homosexual man, "to share with [Ginter Park leaders] the impact of [the vote] and to let them know the serious situation we find ourselves in". 

Translation: “Our budget is shot to pieces. Would you help us out by withdrawing?”

To her credit, the Ginter Park pastor, Mandy England Cole, refused to quit, neither did she allow the associational missionary to make her and her church responsible for the association’s actual and potential budget woes. After all, the association did not "find" themselves in the current dire situation; they created it by exercising their autonomy to “embrace” her church - the Big Hug that will likely end the association as it has been known.

Autonomy at work.

If the same circumstances arose in my association, I would (a) vote to expel the church, and if that failed (b) leave the association.

I suspect that another autonomous association will spring up in Richmond, proving once again that the way we Baptists start new churches, associations, and state conventions is the old fashioned way – we split the ones we have.

Autonomy at work.

Come on, CBF, pull the trigger on homosexuality.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is rather heavily invested in the recently completed [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant. Mercer University was the sponsor. Mercer ethics professor David Gushee is the individual most identified with it and despite his assurances otherwise, it looks as if the woolly mammoth in the room was homosexuality.

If I may be permitted:

The immediate past Moderator of the CBF, Colleen Burroughs had already, and notably, said as she was leaving office that the revisioned CBF’s first order of business ought to be to revisit the organization’s policy that prohibits the hiring of gays and lesbians.

In a gushing commentary on the conference, one CBF pastor “wonder[ed] if someday we’ll look on this event as a launching pad from which we were propelled to boldly go where we’ve not gone before.”

One report from the conference said that “those in attendance agreed that the conference, in the least, laid the intellectual foundation necessary for pro-LGBT advocates to gain momentum within the denomination...” a statement not disputed by any observers I have seen.

News reports summarized a keynote speaker’s presentation that “Christians no longer share a consensus that sex outside of marriage is always wrong and must find new ways to deal with that reality besides splitting into smaller and smaller groups over issues like homosexuality and contraception…”.

Sure, it’s not really any of this SBCer’s business what that autonomous Baptist entity does but I find myself asking why there is all this language about dialogue and conversations. Looks to me like the exercise is simply to build up the fortitude to go ahead and do it.

So, come on, CBF, pull the trigger on homosexuality. We know it's going to happen.

As always, happy to help.

A tale of two Baptist schools in Georgia

The two schools:

Mercer University is a top tier private school in Macon, Georgia. It had a long history of affiliation with the Georgia Baptist Convention but is no longer connected to or funded by the GBC.

Shorter University is a Georgia Baptist school, closely held and controlled by the GBC, and that after a failed attempt by earlier trustees to sever ties with the GBC and transfer the school's assets to an entity not controlled by the GBC.

Mercer has just approved a policy granting domestic partner benefits for gays. Mercer is also hosting a Baptist sexuality conference next year.

Shorter has just required all employees to sign a personal lifestyle statement that pledges rejection of unbiblical sexual activity, including homosexual activity.

Mercer is a superior educational institution. Shorter is held in lower regard in academic reputation.

Shorter makes national news with their pointedly conservative, many use the term 'fundamentalist', stance on morality, homosexuality, and Biblical inerrancy.

Mercer makes news, though not national news, by granting gays domestic partner benefits.

Mercer and some connected with the school, including Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (co-sponsor of the conference on Baptist sexuality), may (and please note my partisan speculation rather than fact here) be among the first Baptists to outline a theology of affirmation and acceptance of homosexuality.

No Georgia Baptist Convention church contributes to Mercer through their Cooperative Program gifts but they do contribute to Shorter which receives over one million dollars annually from the GBC.

Mercer is on very solid long term footing and its future looks strong and secure. Enrollment is growing at Shorter and its short to medium future looks strong.

When Southern Baptist life began to splinter thirty years ago, it was probably a good and necessary thing, something these two schools illustrate. My reading of SBC and state convention life is that the experiences of these two schools and their affiliations is typical. Does anyone think that we could all just go along and get along with each other and cooperate with such a contrast in beliefs and practices? Surely not.

Baptists have a clear choice. Let each one choose.

Our sacred tax loophole, the housing allowance, survives once again

Suit against housing allowance dismissed


We ordained clergy like our tax break, the minister's housing allowance, because it makes us feel so special, that, along with not paying some of our taxes. The housing allowance permits us to exclude some of our income from income tax. GuideStone explains it here.

The minister’s housing allow­ance is among the most important tax benefits available to ministers. Section 107 of the Internal Revenue Code allows “ministers of the gospel” to exclude some or all of their ministerial income—as designated by their church or church-related employer—as a housing allowance from income for federal income tax purposes.

Not only that but when we take the housing allowance on a house we are buying and for which we have a mortgage, we get a double tax break by (1) being able to exclude income spent on housing (mortgage, repairs, furnishings, taxes, insurance etc) from W-2 wages, and (2) use interest expenses a second time if we itemize deductions. I know of no legitimate justification for this tax break, but then who said tax policy in this country had to be legitimate, sensible, or fair?

What a great country anyway!

Lest we become too proud the gummit insists that we pay Self Employment taxes on the amount of the housing allowance. Truth is, most SBC clergy pay far more in SECA taxes that income taxes.

Of all the issues raging in the SBC these days - Mohler on homosexuality, Great Commission Resurgence stuff, changes at NAMB, the runup to the 2012 election - what really counts for the bank accounts of SBC pastors and clergy might get lost.

Plodder is happy to keep the brethren/sistren informed.