North Carolina convention removes church for baptizing homosexuals_102003

Posted: 10/17/03

North Carolina convention removes
church for baptizing homosexuals

By Steve DeVane

N.C. Biblical Recorder

CONCORD, N.C. (ABP)–A church that was removed from its association in April has been quietly taken off the rolls of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina as well.

McGill Baptist Church was voted out of Cabarrus Baptist Association for baptizing two homosexuals. Jim Royston, executive director-treasurer of the state convention, said he and convention officers decided after hearing about the association's move that McGill should be removed from the convention's membership as well. Convention policy makes the church ineligible, he said.

In 1992, the convention's General Board changed its financial policy to exclude “any church which knowingly takes, or has taken, any official action which manifests public approval, promotion or blessing of homosexuality.” Such churches, the General Board said, are not “cooperating churches”–the terminology for membership.

“Technically, it wasn't because they were removed from the association,” Royston said. “It was the issue that brought it about. The issue, as far as I could tell, that impacted us was the public action of a church being removed from an association related to the homosexual issue.”

Steve Ayers, pastor of McGill Baptist, said the church has not made homosexuality an issue.

“We're just talking about accepting members,” he said. “I hope this doesn't mean that all gay members of churches would be purged from churches affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.”

Ayers said he thinks the convention is “treading on very shaky ground” if it's going to decide who can be members of cooperating churches. “If someone thinks there (are) not gay people in churches, somebody needs to look around,” he said.

Ayers said the church has not asked the men if they are gay, but he doesn't doubt that they are. The men first came to the church because they were invited, he said. Ayers said he wonders if churches now must have a list of questions to ask people before the church agrees to baptize them.

“When someone says they've accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of their life, do you believe them or not?” he said. “That's what it comes down to.”

The convention's anti-gay policy was first used in 1992 to remove Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh and Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill. Pullen voted to bless the union of two homosexual males. Binkley voted to license a gay man to the ministry.

In 1999, the policy was used to remove Wake Forest Baptist Church in Winston-Salem. The church held a same-sex union for two lesbian members in September 2000.