Long Term Effects of the CBF "Illumination Project"

[Sandy]

Two state conventions which have been sympathetic to and supportive of CBF have taken the option of supporting CBF financially off the record, so to speak, those being the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Baptist General Association of Virginia. Now at least one state convention is citing CBF's illumination project and the resulting hiring policy regarding LGBT persons as their reason for disfellowshipping churches in their convention which continue to support CBF.

https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/ba ... -churches/

I see this sort of thing moving pretty rapidly through other state groups. We may be coming to the end of the days of dually affiliated Baptist churches that support both CBF and the SBC.

[Tim Bonney]

Well, ultimately, thank God for SBC conventions kicking out CBF churches. The CBF is better off shed of its past affiliation with the eternally backwards SBC. The waters warm outside the SBC. Let it go.

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

I don't get excited about what is happening because I see in it the continuing fracture of Christian fellowship. Somewhere Jesus gets lost in all this and especially his prayer "that they may be one." Most churches in CBF are not any more "gay friendly" than a lot of SBC churches where I have met staff leaders and others who are known to be gay. The Kentucky action does not hurt CBF or the 28 churches who were identified as dually aligned. I can't speak to the action of the BGCT, but I can speak to the BGAV situation which was basically a response to 3 large SBC churches who threatened to take away over $1-million a year in contributions to the state body. I'm afraid the action was a response to blackmail, not to a considered theological position, which I fear will haunt the BGAV in the future. The overwhelming response of the churches who were part of the giving plan that included CBF has been to continue to support the BGAV without sending funds through the BGAV to any national body, and continuing to give CBF about the same amount of money directly that they were receiving through the BGAV. I wrote a model for this that is being used by CBF churches in VA to keep a relationship with the BGAV but to separate their CBF support through direct giving. In CBFVA, we will not have full figures on how this has worked until we reach the end of the CBF and CBFVA fiscal years. BGAV voted to decrease its next annual budget by $900,000 for 2019, possible evidence that the BGAV has been impacted more by its decision that CBF, but that is preliminary at this time.

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

Dave, how many va CBF churches are uniquely aligned and how many dually?

[Sandy]

[Dave Roberts]

First for William, in VA, there are some 300 churches who contribute to CBF. As to the question of unique and dual alignments, I have no knowledge of these. Also, because the BGAV maintains multiple giving plans (3 in the past) and permits churches to create their own plans, I can only be certain that there were about 100 churches using the now altered WM-3 plan that sent 28% of what a church contributed in the plan to CBF. Those would be unique alignments, but how many more is uncertain.

Then for Sandy, the most vocal criticism I have heard toward the Illumination Project has come from two sources. The first, as was expected, came from SBC groups. The second, which was not expected, came from those in CBF who felt that the Illumination Project was entirely too limited and did not fully take any position on the issues except to allow CBF to remove the question of "sexual orientation" from its employment questionnaire for those serving in the Decatur offices, but not for missions or ordained personnel. Losses to CBF up to this point appear to be among churches who were headed toward the Alliance.

[Tim Bonney]

[Dave Roberts]

I do not envy those in the UMC orb who must deal with this set of issues. There is not a good answer because of the entanglement of church and state in marriage laws in conveying state authority to ministers to perform wedding under a license from the state. In Virginia, I had to be sworn before a circuit court judge to uphold the laws of the state. We would be far better off being able to bless marriages than to execute them under state authority, but that is how we got to this place.

My larger concern is how we are going to respond to the future. The constellation of LGBTQ issues is not going away, and the causes of these trends among us are still up for debate. There are obviously behaviors from "gay bars" and similar meeting places that have more in common with the heterosexual hook-up culture than with the questions of gay commitments to each other. I have read a good bit of psychological material across the last forty years, and I think the jury is still out on why same-sex attraction exists. However, I am firmly convinced that God loves each person who may be LGBTQ just as much as he loves me. Official church positions become problematic because either they fail to express love or fail to grapple seriously with many of these issues. I don't expect to solve them in my lifetime, but I am also convinced these are not the most critical issues facing humanity or facing the church.

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

At the local level, though it isn't a guarantee, there's a greater chance that a congregation is already unified around a particular view, or in agreement that they won't let it be divisive. It requires respect for those with whom you disagree. You have to get away from thinking that just because you support the same missions cause that another church does, you have to buy into all of the other church's doctrinal views.

Some of the best friends I've made over the past eight years have been individuals who come from religious based schools of different religious backgrounds--Catholic, Jewish, Quaker, Evangelical, Mainline Protestant--who came together regularly to advocate at the state level for all of the issues private education has in common. We had four quarterly meetings and one annual gathering in Washington, DC. The advocacy went hand in hand with the fellowship in spite of the doctrinal and religious differences. A year ago next month I served on an accreditation team led by a Catholic Priest, and with a Jewish Rabbi and a Quaker school principal in addition to one other Evangelical who was Assembly of God. There is something to be said about unity around a common cause, the almost insurmountable job of getting through an accreditation team visit in three days, along with sharing three meals a day and working into the night back at your hotel that causes a level of respect to develop. That's the sort of thing you already have in a local congregation.