Education journal studies Baptist governance_81103

Posted: 8/8/03

Education journal studies Baptist governance

By John Pierce

Baptists Today

Tension that sometimes leads to separation between Baptist-related colleges and state Baptist conventions was the focus of a July 4 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The writer looked to Georgia and Missouri for the latest examples to support her notion that colleges and conventions are increasingly at odds over trustee control and academic freedom.

“More than a dozen colleges have either split entirely with their state conventions, by creating self-perpetuating boards of trustees, or significantly limited the convention's power over the trustee-election process,” Beth McMurtrie reported.

Shorter College, which legally separated from the Georgia Baptist Convention after overt efforts by convention leaders to influence composition of the trustee board, received the most ink. The liberal-arts school in Rome, Ga., is still entangled with the convention over frozen funds.

Shorter President Ed Schrader, a geologist and Baptist layman, told the Chronicle he was unaware of “Georgia Baptist politics” until pastor Mike Everson began questioning him about issues such as homosexuality, biblical literalism and the revised Baptist Faith & Message statement.

Schrader told the Chronicle he could tell Everson was not pleased with the president's responses although he “didn't say much and scowled a lot.”

Everson said he concluded from the meeting that Schrader “was not conservative in his values, and that the school would not be.”

Everson told the Chronicle that Schrader misrepresented their informal meeting. “The president has no character and is just a habitual liar,” he charged.

Everson said he questioned Schrader from the role of a pastor who recommends colleges to his members, not as a convention leader. However, the Douglasville, Ga., pastor chaired the GBC nominating committee that reported a slate of trustees for Shorter in November 2002 that contained none of the names suggested by the current college board. Shorter officials claimed that action to be unprecedented.

Shorter trustees responded by severing ties with the convention. Their reorganization to a new legal entity with self-perpetuating trustees was upheld by an April court decision.

College officials said the move was necessary to protect Shorter's accreditation. They cited an accreditation review team report asking them to demonstrate that trustees were independent and not under “undue pressure” from outside sources.

GBC Executive Director Bob White claimed the convention never sought control of Shorter's board and compared the separation to having a prize treasure stolen.

Current Shorter trustee Chairman Gary Eubanks, an attorney from Marietta, Ga., described a different agenda. “The convention really wants Bible colleges,” he told the Chronicle. “They don't want liberal-arts colleges.”

The Missouri Baptist Convention, now under fundamentalist control, has seen five of its entities including Missouri Baptist College create self-perpetuating boards to avoid takeovers similar to what has occurred at Southern Baptist Convention seminaries and agencies over the past two decades.

Like Shorter, courts likely will decide the future relationships between Missouri Baptist College and the state convention.

The Chronicle article also noted tensions between Missouri Baptists and William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., over concerns about homosexuality and other issues.