BaptistLife.Com Forums.

Too much softening of hiring stance, or not enough?

Referencing this?
https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/te ... ng-option/

From what I can learn, the SBC Executive Committee leadership is blackmailing state conventions that those who allow a funding channel to CBF through their organizations will lose funding for the partnership personnel which the SBC helps to fund.

Partner support from the SBC comes in funding those staff that work with the Annuity Board, church program organization staff, and some ministry support types of partnerships.

There is also this report, though probably not the one Leland saw, either:

If the SBC plays mean with funding, can’t the state convention just decide to send less funding to the SBC? I don’t remember the percentages anymore but, isn’t the system that CP funds go to the state convention and then are divided by a formula adopted by the state convention? (This is really digging into old brain cells now, so I could be mistaken.)

One reality that I am seeing across the board theologically is that local Baptist churches seem less and less concerned with national bodies. Some in Virginia identify themselves as BGAV only and contribute only to BGAV ministries. Others are simply reducing their percentages given to national and international ministries since there is so much strife among them. I understand their frustration, but I seem this as pulling back from the wider mission of the church.

https://cbfblog.com/2018/02/26/while-bg ... a-pastors/

Looks like the BGAV will also stop forwarding receipts for CBF through the state convention.

It looks like the Illumination Project isn't going to please anybody. The governing board was soundly criticized by those who favored eliminating the hiring restrictions on LGBTQ persons altogether, claiming that they were being treated as second class citizens, and though most of them had supported CBF during a time when there was no compromise at all on the issue, now that there is one that moved in their direction, they've become rigid and intolerant, and churches are pulling their funding because they didn't get exactly what they wanted. The response from the more conservative side is that the compromise crossed a theological and spiritual line that they can't accept, so they are pulling their funding because they didn't get what they wanted.

The exec director has come out with some flowery-worded statements about being disappointed in the moves of the state conventions, but celebrating the fact that "beautiful cooperation" will continue with the churches. Except that many of those churches aren't going to go around their state convention to continue supporting CBF. If you think about it, many of those executive board members in those state conventions that made the decisions to stop being a pass-through for CBF are from the churches within their convention that support CBF.

CBF has spent a lot of time and effort on re-organizing and restructuring their leadership, consolidating the decision-making power in a governing board much smaller than the coordinating council used to be, and moving away from the consensus of the general assembly. We had a few discussions here about the push to change the hiring policy before, and the potential it had for being divisive. Does the will for unity exist? CBF has been on a very fragile financial footing for a decade, with declining revenues and dependence on the timing of a couple of major donors. I don't believe CBF can be sustained, at least, not anywhere near its current level, without the support of its more conservative wing. It probably could survive without its far left wing. I've never seen CBF's leadership do anything other than to accept the fait accompli and then downsize to ensure at least some salaries of prominent leaders continue. If there was real confidence in this decision, then where are the governing board members and exec protesting what these state conventions are doing, and standing up for principles they claim are "prophetic"?

Or, is this the end of CBF?

Pretty good long ranging assessment, Sandy. It's not clear to me if churches have pulled funding yet, though the moves by the Texas and Virginia conventions cannot help.

I would wonder if this was the beginning of the end. Old CBF hands like Dave and Ed may know.

The problem is that it is darn hard to be a "moderate" on certain issues. The sexuality issues are so polarizing that ultimately you are expected/forced to pick a side.

There is no practical way to just be sort of for pro-LGBTQ inclusion or sort of against it. So the CBF has ended up in the darned if you do, darned if you don't position. No matter what position you take you lose people.

Hope you'll enjoy the Black Hills, Ed. We went there almost every summer when I was a kid, spent three days or more usually in one of the housekeeping cabins at the Game Lodge. It's one of my dreams to get back there and show it to Mrs. H. before we are both too decrepit to drive anywhere.