Making practical sense of the Sexuality conference

[Dave Roberts]

[Gene Scarborough]

I think it becomes a sad day when morality = money!

If that were true with Jesus, he would have run away from the impending cross. He certainly didn't have the backing of the rich nor the Temple.

Anyone turning the Church of Jesus Christ into a "glorified social club" risks God's judgement. In Nazi Germany morality = money brought the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals.

The real question is over how moral and in line with God's way shown through Christ is any major decision. Us humans tend to a gradual down slope so our consciences hurt us little. Enough of that can led you straight to hell given enough time and rationalization.

I agree with Dave that the right to make our own decisions outside any group official decision give enough breadth to organized religion so that all is not lost over the decisions of a few.

[Sandy]

It is very important to consider who makes up CBF, and who is supporting it financially to determine how policy decisions related to issues like this are made.

CBF was formed by Southern Baptists, many of whom had been high profile leaders prior to 1979, and who were generally opposed to the conservative leaders who were being elected and nominated to replace the old guard. Being opposed to the conservative resurgence does not necessarily translate directly into holding a more liberal, progressive theological perspective. The fact is that the main difference was over where to draw the lines with regard to missions cooperation, not over whether the Bible was inerrant and infallible. It isn't likely that anyone would have been able to hold a leadership position in the SBC, even prior to 1979, without open acceptance of the 1963 BFM, which clearly states the belief in a Bible that is "truth without any mixture of error."

The Alliance of Baptists represents most of the former SBC congregations that would be liberal and progressive enough to have the "welcoming and affirming" label which would go so far as to allow for hiring individuals living in an openly gay relationship. The Alliance has about 100 churches, of which fewer than 30 are also supporting CBF. On the other hand, about 90% of CBF's partnering churches still support the Cooperative Program of the SBC. CBF's leaders, for the most part, seem to be pretty happy with their position of cooperating with other Baptists, even though they disagree with their position on homosexuality, but they themselves are not going to ordain or call gays or lesbians to vocational ministry. It's pretty clear that most of them aren't going to call women as pastors, either.

The argument about having to hold certain conservative theological positions to satisfy Texas Baptists who tend to be more conservative does not hold water. There are few CBF churches anywhere that are "welcoming and affirming" and few that would be persuaded to move CBF in a direction toward changing its hiring policy. CBF doesn't restrict its more progressive churches from doing as they please with regard to their vocational ministers and employees. Why are they insisting that CBF change its policy to be more in line with them?

[Gene Scarborough]

[Dave Roberts]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

It is fairly easy to determine the overlap between the Alliance and CBF. The Alliance is a very small group, and has a list of all 125 churches on its website. It is very easy to go down the list of churches and find those that are dually affiliated with CBF, by comparing it with the CBF listing of churches, also on line. It takes a little more time to check the CBF list against the list of contributing churches found on the SBC website, but you can go state by state. CBF lists 21 churches in Alabama, 20 of whom are still affiliated with the Alabama Baptist Convention and the SBC. Georgia has 61 CBF supporting churches, out of which 57 still support the GBC and SBC. North Carolina has more CBF congregations than any other state, with a unique alignment that includes churches which contribute to the state organization, CBFNC, but don't contribute to the national organization, and vice-versa, but even out of that list of over 300 churches, with about 180 that contribute to the national CBF, there are only 22 that I can't find on any SBC or BSCNC contributing list, well under 10%. In fact, the states with the highest percentages of CBF churches not supporting the SBC are Virginia, with 10 churches out of 107 not on the SBC list, but still on the BGAV list, and Texas, with 8 out of 72 not on the SBC list, and 6 of those not on the BGCT list.

The giving will give you another clue as to the level of support for CBF among churches that dually support the SBC. The average gift to CBF from one of its partnering churches is $8,000. I get that by dividing their total receipts from churches by the total number of contributing churches they report. That's an average. So among "uniquely aligned" CBF congregations like South Main Houston, which gave $250,000, or FBC Asheville, NC which gave over $150,000, those kinds of amounts are common. With receipts running less than $14 million, that means that about 10% of the churches are giving 90% of the money. That's consistent with the number of churches which are uniquely affiliated with CBF as opposed to those which remain in the SBC.

[Haruo]

Sandy, did your research show any Alliance churches that are still SBC or SBC-state-convention-supporting?

[Dave Roberts]

[Sandy]

Dave, I don't think you can do any kind of research at all with Baptist statistics and get more than just a "reasonably accurate" picture. I spotted at least one church listed on CBF's website that I know hasn't contributed to the fellowship since around 2000, when their last pastor left. At any rate, comparisons of pages on websites give a general idea of the perspective, though my point is that there are not very many churches or individuals involved in CBF who would be inclined to revisit, and revise, its current hiring policy regarding openly gay or lesbian individuals.

[Neil Heath]

Perhaps there are more churches like mine out there, Sandy. We give a very small amount to SBC and the rest to CBF. The SBC amount comes from a few older members who still want their money to go there (and in my opinion have never understood the dramatic changes in SBC).
Being Baptist, we honor giving wishes of every member, but I would guess our SBC amount is well under 3% of our missions giving, and will decline each time we have a funeral.

Neil

[Sandy]

[Neil Heath]

I moved the last several posts to a new topic on the NC vote since they related more to that and it seemed likely to attract additional posts.

Neil

[Gene Scarborough]

Good move, Neil!

[Neil Heath]

Just recently received the latest issue of "Christian Ethics Today", which has published a special issue containing the Proceedings of the Sexuality Conference. Papers by all the presenters are included. The editor, Pat Anderson, says they will also publish it in book form at a future date. I found it helpful to read the second article, which explained how the conference came about and the process that was followed to shape its content and format. The publication has some excellent, thought-provoking material, and is free to subscribers.

The entire Sexuality Conference special issue is also available on their web site at .

[Ed Pettibone]

[Neil Heath]

I haven't read beyond the first two articles, Ed. Not suggesting you should look at it again, just making the material available for people like me who didn't attend the event or watch it online.

I seem to recall a good bit of discussion here as to the motivations of those who planned the conference. I thought the second article about how it came to be might answer some of those questions.

Neil

[Ed Pettibone]

[Michael Wrenn]

[TrudyU]

[Sandy]

[TrudyU]

Ed stiil on Trudys computer, Bought a new vehicle Tuesday but am still solvent, may get my Desktop fixed one of these days :

Sandy you are entitled to your opinions even if their is little to no real basis presented. Texas Baptist are but part of CBF. Bill Leonard pointed out the danger of regional competitiveness twenty years ago.