Church Withholds Million Dollars from CP

[Jerome]

Plano, Texas congregation pastored by Jack Graham, a Conservative Resurgence SBC President, temporarily halts sending funds to the Cooperative Program due to the disconnect between some of the denomination's leaders and the churches:

http://baptistmessage.com/26902-2/

"Prestonwood Baptist Church has announced its decision to escrow gifts previously forwarded to support Southern Baptist cooperative missions and ministries while the congregation discusses concerns about the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention."

 

[rlvaughn]

I'm not an advocate for Prestonwood, but I find one charge against them confusing. According to Brent Hobbs at SBC Voices, "Yesterday’s press release indicated Prestonwood was withholding funding because of their concerns and that it likely would be restored if those concerns were satisfied. This is seeking to influence through financial pressure..." One heading in his article states, "Withholding Funds to Seek Influence Should Be Rejected."

Why complain about this? The precedent is already set. The very structure of the SBC grants influence/votes/power on a money basis. When you make money a basis of a seat at the table of power, seems to me that you must live with the other edge of it.

 

[StefanM]

It's just blatant manipulation.

 

[rlvaughn]

Of course it is, but money talks...

 

[StefanM]

Well I'm sure they're just "following as the Lord leads" or some other line of bull.

 

[rlvaughn]

Oh, but my main point was that seating power in the amount of money given is a two-edged sword that some don't like when the other edge comes back to cut them.

 

[Jerome]

It's just blatant manipulation.

Baptist Press - Prestonwood Escrows CP Funds, Citing ERLC Actions

"Threats to escrow CP funds have occurred periodically in SBC history. In the mid-1980s, some Southern Baptist conservatives threatened to escrow CP funds if moderates regained control of the convention presidency"

 

[rlvaughn]

"Threats to escrow CP funds have occurred periodically in SBC history. In the mid-1980s, some Southern Baptist conservatives threatened to escrow CP funds if moderates regained control of the convention presidency"

Jerome, am I understanding this correctly that up until now churches have only threatened to do so but never followed through with it?

 

[Revmitchell]

Nothing like people who know little to nothing about the SBC offering their expert view on the inner workings of the SBC.

 

[rlvaughn]

The Convention shall consist of messengers who are members of Baptist churches in cooperation with the Convention...

1. • (3) Has made undesignated, financial contribution(s) through the Cooperative Program, and/or through the Convention’s Executive Committee for Convention causes, and/or to any Convention entity during the fiscal year preceding.
2. Under the terms above, the Convention will recognize to participate in its annual meeting two (2) messengers from each cooperating church, and such additional messengers as are permitted below.
3. The Convention will recognize additional messengers from a cooperating church under one of the options described below. Whichever method allows the church the greater number of messengers shall apply:
   • (1) One additional messenger for each full percent of the church’s undesignated receipts which the church contributed during the fiscal year preceding through the Cooperative Program, and/or through the Convention’s Executive Committee for Convention causes, and/or to any Convention entity; or
   • (2) One additional messenger for each $6,000 which the church contributed during the fiscal year preceding through the Cooperative Program, and/or through the Convention’s Executive Committee for Convention causes, and/or to any Convention entity.
   • http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/legal/constitution.asp

 

[Baptist Brother]

Basically, the SBC president called Trump demoralizing and a racist nazi. He called Trump a cartoon character, etc., etc. Maybe Hillary Clinton has her hand up his back.

I can't fault a church for withholding funds.

 

[rlvaughn]

I think you mean the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. This is the person who has made people angry about politics, Calvinism and other things.

 

[Baptist Brother]

I think you mean the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. This is the person who has made people angry about politics, Calvinism and other things.

Sorry. Right, the president of that Commission, not the whole SBC.

 

[Jerome]

Jerome, am I understanding this correctly that up until now churches have only threatened to do so but never followed through with it?

Who knows?

But here is a Baptist Press article from 1989 about Richard Jackson (North Phoenix Baptist) considering scaling back or ending CP support over the establishment of the precursor to the ERLC and noting Judge Paul Pressler's non-support of the CP over a period of years:

Baptist Press, March 23, 1989

"Jackson's mention of a Washington lobby was a reference to the proposed establishment by the SEC of a new Religious Liberty Commission in Washington to represent the denomination in church/state affairs. Jackson opposed the proposal while attending the February meeting of the SEC Executive Committee in Nashville. It broke his heart, he said, to see the Executive Committee approve the Religious Liberty Commission proposal after SBC Foreign Mission Board President R. Keith Parks had told them it would hurt the SEC missions program. 'They not only didn't agree with him, they didn't even listen to him," Jackson said. "They showed him no respect.'"

"'If the convention goes down the road of church interference with the state or over-concern about Washington, D.C., I am not going. I am a died-in-the-wool church/state separationist.'"

"'I hope the decision can be that we can stay as Southern Baptists and continue full cooperation and full support.' 'I don't say these things lightly,but with an aching heart,"'he said. 'This is not an idle threat, but it is not something I am going to do overnight. I pray I will never have to do it.'"

"Jackson again raised the question of the Cooperative Program support of conservative leader Paul Pressler of Houston, with whom he broached the issue during a confrontation at the Executive Committee meeting in Nashville in February. At the Executive Committee meeting and again in mid-March, Jackson questioned if Pressler had supported Southern Baptist causes during a nine-year period while he was a member and deacon of Second Baptist Church of Houston. Jackson said he knew Pressler did not support SBC causes through Second Church during the period. Pressler, contacted by the Baptist Standard, said he didn't know what he 'did or didn't do 20 years ago.'"

 

[JonC]

It's just blatant manipulation.

On both sides -
https://titusterrebonneblog.wordpre...rev-jack-graham-scheduled-to-speak-in-chapel/

(My point being that if the local church decides it is proper to withhold funds, they should do so quietly - it's their stewardship. Likewise, it is not up to those outside of the church to protest how that church decides to allocate their funding).

 

[Jerome]

Jerome, am I understanding this correctly that up until now churches have only threatened to do so but never followed through with it?

From a 1991 Baptist Press story; after the fundamentalists had consolidated power after a dozen years of mostly narrow victories for their candidates, they moved to exclude any church that tried to bypass the denominations's 'CP' unified funding scheme via designated giving:

http://media.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/7100,22-Feb-1991.PDF

During the 12-year controversy in the SBC, some churches on both sides of the conflict have designated funds away from various SBC causes that they find objectionable.

In the early years of the current SBC controversy, conservatives were criticized for designating gifts away from certain SBC causes. However, as conservatives have gained control of the denomination's agencies, some moderates have led their churches to begin designating funds.

Under the convention's current constitution, however, those churches have not been denied participation in the annual Southern Baptist Convention meetings. Any church that contributes some money to any Southern Baptist cause currently is eligible to send at least one messenger to the annual meeting. The proposed change would have limited participation in the SBC to churches that contribute at least some money to both state and national causes through the Cooperative Program. Only "undesignated" or unrestricted contributions to the CP would have counted as contributions "to the Convention's work."

 

[Jerome]

Another article from 1990, featuring newly elected SBC President Morris Chapman and his ally former SBC President Jimmy Draper:

http://media.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/7048,26-Oct-1990.PDF

Chapman said he invited 36 pastors he described as "theological conservatives" to the two-day meeting at a hotel at Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport....reporters were not allowed in

Chapman....added he is not ready to decide whether to invite moderate-conservatives. Draper...said he and other "conservatives" are uncertain about including moderate-conservatives because of threats some have made to the Cooperative Program, the SBC's unified-giving plan.

Chapman said he disagrees with the term "taxation without representation" to describe the predicament of moderate-conservatives

Draper was himself accused of proposing an economic boycott in 1985 when he said thousands of churches might withhold CP support if Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley was not re-elected SBC president.

Draper's suggestion in 1985 was to place CP gifts in escrow