New Orleans seminary trustees OK sole membership with reservations_110104

Posted: 10/29/04

New Orleans seminary trustees
OK sole membership with reservations

By Lacy Thompson

Louisiana Baptist Messager

NEW ORLEANS (ABP)–After months of sometimes pointed discussion, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary trustees have agreed to adopt proposed charter amendments designed to tie it securely to the Southern Baptist Convention–but with some reservations.

Spending 90 minutes in a closed-door session, seminary trustees essentially acceded to the request of messengers to the 2004 national convention to adopt a sole membership model of corporate organization proposed by the SBC Executive Committee.

At the same time, however, trustees asked seminary President Chuck Kelley to report concerns regarding the sole membership model to convention messengers who must give final approval to the changes at the 2005 annual meeting next June in Nashville, Tenn.

The model makes the convention the sole member–or single controlling member–of the seminary corporation and outlines the specific rights entitled.

It is intended to prevent the seminary–and other convention entities–from arbitrarily acting to distance itself from the denomination, as some state convention entities have done in recent years.

Since 1997, Southern Baptist leaders have sought to secure its entities by having them adopt sole membership charters.

In so doing, they grant the convention ultimate and specific authority. As designed, a sole member cannot leave the denominational fold without the approval of convention messengers.

Prior to the board meeting, all convention entities had agreed to the sole membership structure except New Orleans Seminary.

Last fall, after extensive study of the matter, trustees at the New Orleans school declined to adopt the sole membership model, citing legal and Baptist polity concerns.

They argued sole membership eventually could be used by the Executive Committee to exert undue authority over the school; would be a problem because of the unique nature of Louisiana law; would increase legal liability for the convention; and violates historic Baptist polity.

Executive Committee leaders insisted the concerns are unfounded. They asserted the sole membership model can work in Louisiana, that it actually strengthens the convention's liability protection and simply represents a legal solution to a legal problem.

Seminary leaders have not been convinced. But even in rejecting the sole membership model, they committed to finding an alternative that would secure its ties to the convention. Last spring, leaders agreed to bring a pair of options–including a sole membership proposal–to the 2005 convention for messengers to decide the issue.

But Executive Committee members wanted to bring the issue to Southern Baptist Convention messengers this year, and at the annual meeting in June messengers voted 63.5 percent to 36.5 percent to ask the seminary to adopt the sole membership model as proposed by the Executive Committee.

At their meeting, seminary trustees voted to adopt the model, but the board also offered a second motion asking its executive committee and legal counsel to review a document outlining concerns. The document is to be presented to trustees for final approval before the scheduled April 2005 meeting.

Following the meeting, Kelley emphasized the trustee action is exactly what the convention messengers asked them to do.

At the same time, seminary leaders and trustees are convinced the sole membership model is flawed in regard to use in Louisiana, Kelley added.

In light of that, the seminary opted to fulfill the request of the convention–while stating its reservations–and allow messengers to the 2005 annual meeting to decide the issue, he explained.

Spending 90 minutes in a closed-door session, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary trustees essentially acceded to the request of messengers to the 2004 Southern Baptist Convention to adopt a sole membership model of corporate organization proposed by the SBC Executive Committee.