North Carolina candidate proposes dismantling all political groups_102003

Posted: 10/17/03

North Carolina candidate proposes
dismantling all political groups

By Steve DeVane

N.C. Biblical Recorder

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP)–The moderate candidate for president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has released a campaign platform that calls for dismantling political groups and decreasing the amount of money the state group sends to the Southern Baptist Convention.

David Hughes, pastor of First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, released the information in a four-part statement called “A New Vision for a New Day.”

Hughes said Beaufort layman Raymond Earp, who is running for first vice president, and Greensboro pastor Ken Massey, who is seeking the second vice presidency, agree with the statement.

All three have been endorsed by Mainstream Baptists of North Carolina, the state's moderate group. In November, they will face candidates endorsed by Conservative Carolina Baptists–Greensboro pastor David Horton, who is running for president; Phyllis Foy, a laywoman from Mooresville, who is running for first vice president, the office currently held by her husband; and East Flat Rock pastor Brian Davis, who is running for second vice president.

Hughes calls for groups like Mainstream Baptists and Conservative Carolina Baptists to be dismantled.

“I will ask for balance in appointments, working to assure that both moderates and conservatives have a meaningful place in the North Carolina Baptist family,” he said in the statement.

In an interview, Hughes acknowledged he helped form the Mainstream group, “but I'm now saying that the best thing that can happen is for all groups to shut down.”

Hughes said in his written statement that the convention needs to regain financial stability: “Plainly stated, our current budget formula and our multiple giving plans have contributed to the current budget crisis.”

Hughes said he would work toward changing Plan A, one of the convention's giving options, to increase the amount allocated to the state convention from 68 percent to 70 percent and decrease the amount given to the SBC from 32 percent to 30 percent. The plan would provide an extra $500,000 for use in-state, he said.

He acknowledged conservatives might react negatively to the plan to cut funds to the SBC, but he added, “We need to do something and do something quickly.” Hughes said he realizes some moderates, likewise, will be “surprised and confused” by his stance on the giving plans.

“While we had the best of intentions in creating the giving plans, and I myself have defended the giving plans in the past, it now seems clear that the state convention has suffered from them,” he said.

The state convention staff must “reinvent” itself to “meet the unique needs of an increasingly diverse array of churches,” Hughes said. A “growing number of North Carolina Baptists feel they no longer have a meaningful place in the (state convention) and are wondering aloud about their future relationship to the convention.”