NOBTS Situation

Associated Baptist Press

April 22, 2004 Volume: 04-38


New Orleans Seminary trustees
ask messengers to resolve dispute

By Lacy Thompson and Robert Marus
NEW ORLEANS (ABP) -- New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary trustees will leave up to Southern Baptist Convention messengers a final decision on how best to tie the institution to the denominational body -- but in the process may have only deepened their dispute with the SBC's Executive Committee.

At their April meeting, the seminary's trustees approved a motion to present two alternatives to convention messengers during the denomination's 2005 annual meeting on how best to assert the convention's ownership of the seminary. The trustees will ask messengers to decide between making the denomination the "sole member" of the institution's corporation or asserting the convention's ownership through another, yet-to-be-determined legal means.

Trustees approved the motion by a 33-to-6 vote, after a lengthy and often lively discussion in which several seminary leaders raised concerns about the Executive Committee's handling of the case.

It has been an issue since 1997, when the SBC's North American Mission Board became the first denominational institution to amend its legal charter to declare the SBC its sole member. SBC leaders and the Executive Committee have encouraged other denominational entities to make the same move. Their motivation has been to ensure that no entity could follow the lead of some state-convention-related institutions and choose to leave the control of the convention.

SBC leaders also have cited concerns with limiting the spread of liability to other entities if one institution or the denomination is sued.

The "sole member" approach makes the Southern Baptist Convention the single controlling legal member of an entity. Thus far, all convention entities have agreed to the sole membership structure except one -- New Orleans Seminary.

Last fall, after extensive study, the school's trustees declined to adopt the sole membership model, citing legal and Baptist polity concerns. That has resulted in a rare public dispute between leaders in the fundamentalist-controlled denomination.

Seminary leaders have argued sole membership could be used by the Executive Committee to exert undue authority over the seminary -- thus violating historic Southern Baptist polity. Seminary leaders also have said adopting a "sole membership" clause would present special problems in Louisiana because of that state's unique system of state law, which has its origins in Napoleonic code rather than in English common law like the rest of the states.

In fact, attorneys for the seminary have said that such an arrangement under Louisiana law would give the denomination total control over the seminary, thus actually increasing its exposure to liability in lawsuits against the institution.

However, even in rejecting sole membership last fall, seminary trustees indicated their intent to find an acceptable alternative -- one that would offer the same protections sought by convention leaders.

During the Executive Committee's February meeting, seminary president Chuck Kelley and committee members presented competing cases on the issue. Following discussion, committee members voted to officially request seminary trustees to amend the school's charter and adopt sole membership.

At the seminary trustee meeting, Kelley offered trustees a chance to "lament" and voice whatever frustrations they felt about the ongoing process.

Kelley himself acknowledged he was disappointed by it. He noted that seminary leaders had previously been assured their decision on the issue would be accepted no matter what -- only to find that was not the case when the decision they reached was not the one desired by the Executive Committee.

Kelley also said he did not find the seminary's appearance at the recent Executive Committee meeting to be "an entirely pleasant experience."

However, he assured trustees that he has a "very settled peace" in his heart about the way the seminary has handled the issue.

Trustee Chair Tommy French of Baton Rouge agreed that the seminary "picked up a lot of heat" at the Executive Committee meeting and that he and Kelley were spoken to "very plainly" by committee leaders.

However, French said he is determined not to be adversarial. "Let us not, as a board, develop friction between us and the Executive Committee. They have one opinion, and we have another opinion," French said.

"Let us do our work [and] let them do their work -- and then, the Southern Baptist Convention will settle the matter," French continued. "And we'll still be friends, and we'll still work together for the kingdom of God and for this institution and for our great denomination."

Trustee Don Taylor of Alameda, Calif., said he has been unable to get answers to questions directed to the Executive Committee. He said he came to the trustee meeting with a "heavy heart," unable to support adoption of sole membership.

Kelley presented the board with several options for responding to the Executive Committee's ultimatum. He warned that delaying a decision until the SBC's 2005 meeting could expose the seminary to further attack on the issue. He said the school would have to spend the time educating Southern Baptists on the issue.

Kelley and some trustees noted that presenting the issue to convention messengers at their 2004 meeting -- only two months away -- would leave little time for educating them on the issues at stake. Historically, SBC messengers have almost always voted in favor of Executive Committee recommendations.

Kelley maintained the committee has violated convention bylaws by seeking to dictate a timetable for the seminary to act.

"My conscience tells me what is right is to give the Southern Baptist Convention an alternative to sole membership that accomplishes the same thing." Kelley said. "I would love to do the very best alternative and to be able to get it evaluated, looked up one side and down the other."

French agreed, urging seminary trustees to listen to Louisiana attorneys, none of which have agreed with the Executive Committee's stance so far. Characterizing the school as a "seminary of innovation," French suggested trustees could move in a direction that "could save us a lot of headache down the road."

Taylor then proposed the motion that ultimately passed -- that trustees set a deadline of resolving the issue by 2005. At that point, the seminary would "put two alternatives before the SBC, pre-approved by the board, and ask the convention to choose which it prefers," Taylor noted. "Whichever one the convention [chooses] would be enacted immediately without further action by the board."

Another trustee questioned if a misinformation campaign is likely regarding whatever alternative is developed.

Kelley said that was possible. He emphasized that it will fall to the seminary to make clear that sole membership "will be an option" and to publicize the alternative as well.

He also suggested that by setting a deadline and guaranteeing the convention a chance to vote on sole membership or an alternative, it will be difficult for people to say the seminary is trying to avoid the issue.

"They can try to put a negative spin on it," he said. "They can say all kinds of things. But we are just going to make it plain and clear."

Another trustee wondered if the seminary simply was delaying the inevitable, since Executive Committee leaders have made it clear sole membership is the option they want. One trustee even said SBC President Jack Graham had suggested to him the convention could vote to remove the trustees en masse and replace them with a slate more open to giving the SBC sole membership.

That could be, Kelley said. "But we might convince them [otherwise], ..." he added. "We don't know because we haven't been able to get all the way through [the process].... That's my biggest frustration."

Kelley also reminded trustees that the seminary must communicate its intentions clearly. "This is a good faith effort," he said. "We're not trying to sandbag anybody."

Trustees also discussed Kelley's view that sole membership could give the Executive Committee too much control.

It is a step in the direction of allowing the committee to shut off a grassroots movement such as the conservative group that captured the SBC's leadership during the 1980s and '90s, Kelley argued. "Whoever's at the top will have a much easier means of staying at the top ... and shutting off a conservative resurgence," he emphasized.

"My fear is that if it's me or somebody else at the top and something starts bubbling up from the grassroots, this could be used to stop it," Kelley warned. "[This] makes whoever is at the top harder to dislodge."

Executive Committee President Morris Chapman released a statement April 19 expressing strong dismay at the "spirit" of the seminary's trustee meeting.

"The unwarranted and unjustified characterizations that cast aspersions upon the integrity and credibility of the SBC Executive Committee is a sad day for Southern Baptists, one of the saddest since I have been at the Executive Committee," he said, in a communication carried by the SBC's Baptist Press arm. "I am grieved for Southern Baptists and the Executive Committee and earnestly pray there will be no escalation of the spirit of confrontation evident in the New Orleans seminary trustee meeting."

 

gb,

What hath Olin Collins to do with the NOBTS situation?

 

Nothing that I know of at this time. I think it clearly illustrates that we do not always know what is behind the cloak of what is presented.

 

No, the local SBC church where I live has 12 people in attendance with all over the age of 75.