CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ABP) –Historian Bill Leonard encouraged fellow Baptists to “get over” being embarrassed by their denomination’s often-negative image and instead celebrate their lineage in an “audacious identity” established by their forebears.

Leonard, founding dean of Wake Forest University Divinity School, reminded listeners at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Charlotte, N.C., June 24 that both early Christians and early Baptists were viewed with disdain.

Bill Leonard urges CBF to celebrate, rather than apologize for, its Baptist identity.

The third-century Roman philosopher Celsus observed that the Christians of his day appealed to “only the silly, the mean and the stupid.” Leonard noted that “faith-tinged identities” continue to embarrass adherents in the 21st century.

“For many persons inside and outside the church, Christians in general and Baptists in particular often look less like children of God than childishly ‘silly, mean and stupid,’” Leonard said. “And sometimes we act the part.”

Leonard said the early Baptists are “not models to which we should return” but rather “spiritual guides” to understanding a Baptist witness today.

In 1611, two years after what historians consider the first Baptist church was established in Amsterdam, a Baptist statement of faith defined the church as “a company of faithful people separated from the world by the Word and Spirit of God, being knit together unto the Lord and one another by baptism upon their own confession of faith and sins.”

Leonard said it is hard for modern people to grasp how radical it was in 17th century Europe — when citizenship and church membership were linked inseparably – for a group to proclaim a believer’s church un-coerced by state or religious establishments.

“This understanding of faith set Baptists at odds with both the church and the culture of their day,” Leonard said. “In many places it still does.”

Leonard said that “audacious identity” marks Baptists today in that they welcome everyone, regardless of their faith or lack of faith, but require members to profess their faith in Jesus Christ.

Like their forebears, Leonard said, Baptists today also “cannot take it for granted that people in postmodern America, even those who show up in church, have the slightest idea of what we are talking about.”

Leonard said history also teaches Baptists to “be less concerned for a single plan of salvation that completes a required transaction than for a lifelong process of conversion that transforms human beings day by day.”

He cited two churches that he said illustrate such an “audacious witness” in moderate Baptist life today.

One, Highland Baptist Church, a predominantly white church, responded five years ago to drive-by shootings in Louisville, Ky., through an alliance with African-American churches to hold public vigils at killing sites and plant crosses in their church yards bearing the names of shooting victims.

“Will those acts help stop the shootings?” he asked. “They hope so, but even if the murders continue, a witness has been given by churches black and white, compelled by conscience to confront the madness.”

Another, Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, decided four years ago to ordain Andrew Daugherty to lead a new congregation for people who have been marginalized by traditional churches. After touching a variety of lives, Christ Church Baptist in Rockwall, Texas, next Sunday will end its ministry with a consensus that it has run its course.

“Was that fledgling church a failure?” Leonard asked. “No, it was a witness, reminding us what the early Baptists surely knew: not every calling has to last forever.”

“Don’t start with the question of whether your church is thriving or declining, growing or dying,” Leonard said. “Begin by asking whether you have a witness in the world, a call to conscience that is worth pursuing whether the initial endeavor lives or dies.”

Leonard said he thinks often of Ann Hasseltine Judson, a Congregationalist missionary who along with her newlywed husband, Adoniram, converted to the Baptist faith while reading the Greek New Testament after setting sail for India in 1812. She wrote a friend apologetically describing the couple as “confirmed Baptists, not because we wished to be, but because truth compelled us to be.”

Leonard said many non-fundamentalist Baptists today find themselves in a similar predicament.

“If conscience dictates, I suppose we can rip the word Baptist out of our literature, paint over it on our church signs or delete it from our Web page, Facebook, Twitter and podcast Internet connections,” Leonard said. “But before we do, let’s admit that there is no generic Christianity divorced from community or without an identity that centers us in the world or the Kingdom of God.”

“Tonight, let’s stop worrying about our name and start reclaiming our witness,” Leonard advised. “Let’s quit fretting over the loss of cultural dominance and turn loose our consciences. Let’s go out as children of God, born again, and again, and again, and again in one of the church’s dysfunctional but gladly grace-filled families; children of God in the water and at the table, in the Word and in the world, children of God knit together by grace.”

—Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ABP) – The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will be forced to recall missionaries from the field if donations to its annual Offering for Global Missions do not increase next year, CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal told the CBF Coordinating Council June 23.

“People are always saying ‘Why don’t you appoint more funded missionaries?’ The fact is we don’t have the money,” Vestal said at a meeting of the Coordinating Council on the eve of the CBF’s General Assembly June 23-26 in Charlotte, N.C. “What is amazing is that we have not had to call any missionaries home.”

Vestal said the Fellowship would have already reduced its missionary force had it not been for several generous designated gifts to global missions.

“Had it not been for these large anonymous gifts that we received the last six or seven years, we would be calling missionaries home,” Vestal said. “We try to be good stewards of those gifts by disbursing them over a period of years, but they run out next year. Unless the global mission offering increases in the next year, we will call missionaries home.”

Vestal’s comments followed a financial report showing contributions to the Offering for Global Missions running 29 percent behind budget eight months into the fiscal year. Total CBF revenues through May were $8.6 million, 73 percent of projected receipts of $11.9 million year-to-date toward an annual 2009-2010 budget of $16.1 million.

“We are operating in a contingency plan for 80 percent,” Larry Hurst, director of finance and accounting and controller, said. “We’re about 7 percent behind our contingency plan.”

Total October-May expenditures were $7.9 million, 76 percent of the budget. That resulted in a spending gap of $560,000 that Hurst said Fellowship leaders hope to close in the last four months of the fiscal year.

“At 80 percent our contingency plan is not adequate for the amount of revenues that are coming in,” Hurst said. He said that staff was looking at some further spending cuts, but added, “I think where our opportunity is really is on the revenue side.”

Ben McDade, coordinator of Fellowship advancement, said the CBF is looking at ways to increase revenue.

“I think we are experiencing the same economic impact as many others,” he said. “I do not think that we’re experiencing some kind of public relations downfall or some misstep there. When we had the Haiti disaster, we received over a million dollars from people who trust us enough to administer their funds on their behalf to the people in Haiti. I do think we are trustworthy. I do think people have faith in our integrity as an organization.”

Hurst said he believes churches are feeling the pressure of families being unemployed and people hanging on to more of their resources because of uncertainty about the economy.

“I don’t think people stopped giving to CBF because of anything we have done,” Hurst said. “I think it’s overall in the economy. Also, the over a million dollars for Haiti in the last six months says a lot, but we do know that anytime you have a natural disaster like this – like we experienced with the tsunami in 2004 and 2005 — sometimes people take their missions giving and they give it to relief because it seems much more urgent. That affects our budget. We’re not only dealing with a down economy. We’re also dealing with a disaster that is very visible and very powerful.”

Vestal called it “puzzling” that churches don’t give more to the Offering for Global Missions.

“I am totally puzzled,” he said. “I am confused. I don’t understand why churches don’t give to the Offering for Global Missions. Every dime goes either to pay a missionary’s salary or project or living ministries of a missionary.”

Rob Nash, coordinator of global missions, applauded the appointment of 16 new missionary personnel June 23 “at a time of financial crisis and all the challenges we are facing.”

“Despite all of that, God is calling people, they are responding and we are sending them,” Nash said. “That is something we can celebrate even as we deal with all those other challenges we have talked about. That is a miracle.”

In other business the Coordinating Council voted to endorse a study of the Fellowship’s structure started by Vestal based on discussion at a recent gathering of leaders of more than 20 CBF partner organizations and state and national CBF organizations to begin planning for the Fellowship’s 20th anniversary meeting next year in Tampa, Fla.

CBF moderator Hal Bass appointed a 14-member “2012 Task Force” to hold listening sessions and develop a report and recommendations at the next two annual meetings addressing three questions:

— “What is the new model of community that fosters missional collaboration rather than competition for resources?

— “How can we refocus and streamline organizational structures in order to provide leadership and resources for churches and other ministries to respond more effectively to global challenges?

— “How do we help Baptist churches and organizations embrace their identity as partners within the community.”

The recommendation passed by a wide majority recorded by voice vote, but some council members dissented, saying they didn’t have enough information to bless a process that could have far-reaching implications for the organization’s future.

–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

FORT WORTH—An organization of retired faculty and staff from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has asked the school’s trustees to reconsider a decision to discontinue providing health insurance coverage at no cost to retirees.

But in a phone interview, Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson said: “The matter will not be revisited by the trustees. They were provided thorough information to begin with, and they knew for some time in advance this was being considered.”

Trustee board Chairman Geoffrey Kolander of Austin agreed, saying: “The trustees will not revisit this issue.  Over the past several years, Dr. Patterson and his administration have been forthright and thorough in communicating with the board of trustees on this issue.”

The announced termination of medical insurance benefits effective Aug. 1 was “completely unexpected and will create financial burdens for all,” according to a June 7 letter to trustees from the Seniors of Southwestern retiree group.

The names of more than 60 retired seminary employees, along with many of their spouses, were affixed to the letter. However, Wynona Elder of North Richland Hills, immediate past chair of the organization, acknowledged the names of one couple inadvertently were included on the list without their consent, and she recommended they write Patterson to express their disagreement with the letter.

Patterson insisted the seminary first notified retirees seven years ago to let them know about the possible loss of the benefit, but administrators managed to delay the action until economic factors forced the issue this year.

“This is a decision that affects us all, not just those who are retired at the present time,” Patterson said. “It affects everybody presently on the faculty as well.”

Kolander affirmed the seminary’s administration for the way the situation was handled.

“The seminary administration carefully considered all available options in reaching this very difficult decision,” he said, noting Patterson “began communicating with trustees and retirees about this issue several years ago.”

“I commend Dr. Patterson for the courage and foresight he has shown in leading the seminary on this issue.  I know for a fact this decision pains Dr. Patterson greatly, and if he could have found a way to continue the benefit, without hampering the long term financial viability of the seminary, he would have done so.”

Southwestern Seminary had remained one of the few Baptist institutions—if not the only Baptist seminary—still providing no-cost insurance to all its retirees, Patterson said.

Some Baptist entities have limited—if not eliminated—insurance benefits for retirees in recent years. The Baptist Standard board of directors several years ago set a $300 per month maximum benefit for retiree insurance premiums.

For Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board employees who retired prior to April 1, 1993, the BGCT still pays the entire cost of premiums for both the employee and spouse. The BGCT supplements the premium costs of other retirees—$235 per month for employees who retired between April 1, 1993, and Dec. 31, 2010. It will pay $120 per month for those who retire after the end of this year.

The Southwestern Seminary retiree group insisted they learned they would lose the no-cost insurance when they received an April 27 letter from Patterson saying the benefit would be discontinued because of steadily rising costs.

“With these increasing costs, a tremendous burden continues to be placed on Southwestern Seminary,” Patterson wrote. “We now have to consider and weigh this increasing burden in light of the furtherance of the ministries of Southwestern Seminary.”

The seminary carries a $20.1 million liability that is expected to exceed $21.6 million in the current fiscal year, and current out-of-pocket expenses for seminary health benefits are projected to top $3.3 million in the next fiscal year, he stated.

The seminary would continue to offer a group plan to current and future retirees, but the premium costs would have to be borne by the insured individuals, not the seminary, Patterson announced.

“Never did I dream that I would have to make a decision that causes me such personal agony,” he wrote. “Please know that this decision was not made lightly, and we pray for your understanding of our decision and for your wisdom in the decisions you have to make. Southwestern is one of the few schools still attempting to do this ministry for our retirees, and now a change must be made.”

One week after they received the letter from Patterson, retirees received a letter from Steven Goodspeed, director of human resources and internal counsel at the seminary, summarizing the options available for supplemental Medicare coverage through GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Retirees were given a July 1 deadline for selecting a plan.

At a June 3 meeting in Fort Worth, retirees approved a letter to trustees asking the board to reconsider the action.

“We, as retirees, recognize that Southwestern is experiencing financial difficulties. This is not the first time this has happened,” the letter said. “We know the retiree supplemental insurance is a cost consideration during this financial crisis, but also feel that this matter could have been handled much more appropriately.”

The letter expressed appreciation to the seminary for providing the insurance benefit to retirees many years and acknowledged the expense it has added to the school’s budget.

However, the retirees also pointed out faculty and staff for generations served at the seminary out of a sense of calling, often giving up larger salaries they could have received elsewhere.

“The faculty and staff felt even though their salaries were not large, Southwestern would help them as promised as they got older,” the letter stated. “We recognize things change, but the care and commitment of an institution for its retirees should not change no matter what other institutions do.

“The decision to totally withdraw the insurance was completely unexpected and will create financial burdens for all, some more serious than others. We had been promised that Southwestern would continue this long history of caring for its retirees, while recognizing that the amounts might change through time. This is demonstrated in the way the faculty and staff employee manuals were worded.”

Patterson, however, insisted policy handbooks specify the benefit is offered “as long as funds are available,” and that no longer was the case.

Requiring retirees to assume the cost of premiums would add $5,256 annually to couples on fixed incomes, the letter stated. Considering the discontinuation of a wellness program that helped cover deductible costs, the group estimated single individuals could be liable for an additional $7,871 in medical and drug expenses, with a cost to couples of $15,742.

“Where are we going to get this money?” the retirees asked in their letter, noting a freeze in Social Security until 2011 and losses sustained in the stock market.

“As an example of the difficulty of finding the money to pay the premiums, consider this: If a couple could earn 5 percent annually on a secure investment, it would take above $100,000 of additional corpus to make just enough to pay the annual insurance premiums. Most of us do not have that kind of additional money to invest.”

The letter from the retiree group asked the trustees to request their executive committee table the action until its next meeting, at which point it could be reconsidered. The letter also asked for a response prior to July 1.

“We are asking you trustees to reconsider this entire action at your upcoming meeting,” the letter stated. “We have reason to believe that this decision was made in April without consideration of all the facts. This was based on the fact that there was very little talk with any of us retirees and no discussion with all of us prior to receiving the letter from President Patterson. You can imagine our surprise.”

Patterson insisted vice presidents from the seminary went personally to several retirees whom they believed would have difficulty dealing with the loss of the benefit to discuss it with them.

He also noted the seminary maintains a fund from which retirees—and others related to the seminary—who are “in dire need” can request assistance.

Administration and trustees maintained the no-cost insurance benefit for retirees as long as possible, but the seminary finally had to discontinue it in order to fulfill its primary task of providing theological education to students at a relatively low cost, both Patterson and Kolander said.

“The mission of Southwestern Seminary is to train the next generation of Southern Baptist preachers, missionaries and evangelists,” Kolander said.

“Southwestern Seminary trustees are entrusted to ensure the long-term viability of the seminary so that it can fulfill its mission for years to come. Providing no-cost health insurance to retirees is not economically sustainable and could hinder the mission of the seminary over the long term.  As trustees, we cannot allow that to happen.” 

ORLANDO, Fla.—Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando, Fla., June 15-16 defeated an attempt to unseal written and audio recordings of Great Commission Resurgence task force proceedings.

The task force recently announced it would seal the records for 15 years at the Southern Baptist Historical Library & Archives in Nashville, Tenn.

Jay Adkins of First Baptist Church in Westwego, La., introduced a motion to make the records available “in the spirit of openness and transparency” for review by any interested Southern Baptist.

In debate on his motion, the only one scheduled by the SBC Committee on Order Business, Adkins said Southern Baptist would benefit from “seeing the process” of the task force. “What better way could we as a body come together?” he asked.

But task force members argued against the effort to open the records immediately, saying it would require them to break promises of confidentiality they made with Southern Baptists they consulted with in their deliberations.

“We promised them confidentiality during deliberations,” said Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and a task force member. “This recommendation would require this task force to break its word.”

It would also “rob us of our own historical record” and have a chilling effect on future committees, he said: “The consequence of this motion is no future convention committees could record their proceedings because they would be compromised form the beginning.

“It is a very important thing that this convention seek to collect and maintain a historical memory” by being able to maintain such records, Mohler added. “We wanted to invest in this denomination’s history.”

Calling journalism “the first draft of history,” James A. Smith, editor of the Florida Baptist Witness and a member of Gracepointe Baptist Church in St. Augustine, Fla., supported the motion, saying history could be written “now and in future weeks.”

But Greg Wills, a church history professor at La Grange (Ky.) Baptist Church, suggesting 15 years “is an entirely reasonable, brief period” for sealing such records. Opening the records now “may serve a short term political agenda, but we will lose the history of our committees at the most critical time.”

An effort by Doug Hibbard of Calvary Baptist Church in Monticello, Ark., to amend the motion so selected portions of the proceedings could be released also failed.

Messengers referred 13 motions to the SBC Executive Committee for action. Other than the motion to open task force records, only one elicted discussion from the floor.

Dwight McKissic of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, proposed amending Article III, Section 1 of the SBC Constitution to include “racial discrimination” in the definition of churches “not in cooperation” with the SBC.

“I’m excited about the Great Commission resurgence efforts and I think it’s absolutely vital that a statement be made to people we want to reach that this convention is prepared to make a bold statement that in no way we’ll tolerate racial discrimination,” McKissic offered. “It will catapult us into our efforts to reach this world for Jesus.”

Committee on Order of Business Chairman Jonathan Whitehead of Missouri, expressed agreement for the intent of the motion, but suggested the need to refer it to the SBC Executive Committee.

“We do not disagree with the spirit behind your motion at all,” Whitehead said.  “Whenever we go amending our legal documents we should probably follow the process of letting the proper entities deal with the appropriate legal processes.”

A motion from Bruce Shortt from North Oaks Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, requesting a strategy for expanding Christian schooling alternatives, was referred to the North American Mission Board.

LifeWay Christian resources received a motion from Channing Kilgore of South Whitewell, Tenn., asking the publishing agency to “reconsider the validity” of selling books from T.D. Jakes, Don Piper and William Young.

A motion from Bill Wood from Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston asking the SBC to adopt guidelines for stating positions on partisan political issues, was referred to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

ORLANDO, Fla.—The Southern Baptist Convention decried ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, focused on the family and opposed the normalization of homosexuality as messengers approved seven resolutions with no debate during the SBC annual meeting in Orlando June 16.

A resolution on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico lamented the deaths of 11 oilrig workers and pledged to pray for their families. It also called on Southern Baptists and other Christians “to pray for the end of this catastrophe and for the homes, lives, cultures and livelihoods in the Gulf Coast region.”

It urged the government to end the crisis, ensure corporate accountability to clean up and restore the Gulf region, plan contingencies to respond to future oil spills and “promote future energy policies based upon prudence, conservation, accountability and safety.”

James Merritt, pastor of Cross Point Church in Duluth, Ga., voices an opinion about resolutions during the afternoon session of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., June 15. (SBC Photo by Kent Harville)

Messengers called for “ways to lessen the potentiality of such tragic accidents and of such devastating pollution in order that we may protect what God loves and safeguard the lives, livelihoods, health and well-being of our neighbors and of future generations.”

Although the resolution did not explicitly call for lifestyle changes to decrease dependence on oil, that concept is implicit, said Russell Moore, chairman of the SBC Resolutions Committee and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

The resolution’s call for improved energy policies and assertion that humanity’s “God-given dominion over the creation is not unlimited” point to individual and societal responsibility to reduce petroleum consumption, Moore said.

The resolution also urged Southern Baptists to assist Gulf Coast communities and churches with the same vigor that characterized their response to Hurricane Katrina.

Two SBC resolutions targeted the health and well-being of families.

“On the Scandal of Southern Baptist Divorce” cited two studies on divorce. One demonstrates conservative Protestants divorce at the same, if not higher, rate than the U.S. population. The other reveals regions where Southern Baptists predominate have higher divorce rates than regions without a strong evangelical witness.

“Even the most expansive view of the biblical exceptions allowing for divorce and remarriage would rule out many, if not most, of the divorces in our churches,” the resolution insisted. It cited “cultural accommodation” as the reason for accelerating divorce rates among Southern Baptists.

The resolution called on churches to “proclaim the word of God on the permanence of marriage,” provide marriage enrichment opportunities, marry “only those who are biblically qualified to be married to one another,” emphasize the gravity of marital vows in wedding ceremonies, minister to couples and families in crisis, and demonstrate compassion to “those who have been left in the wake of family brokenness.”

“We call on our churches to proclaim God’s mercy and grace to all people—including those who have been divorced without biblical grounds—due to the truth that the blood of Jesus can atone for any sin,” it said.

A related resolution encouraged churches and families to “rekindle the spiritual discipline of family worship.” This practice “has the capacity to nurture stronger families, a stronger church and a stronger nation,” it added.

It particularly called on fathers to “fulfill their divinely mandated responsibility to lead their families toward spiritual maturity.”

The resolutions that opposed the normalization of homosexuality in American society targeted an effort to repeal the U.S. military’s homosexual policy and the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act introduced in Congress.

The resolution on homosexuals in the military noted, “The Bible describes homosexual behavior as both a contributing cause and a consequence of God’s judgment on nations and individuals.”

It cited the 1993 law that supports the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as stating no one has a constitutional right to serve in the armed forces.

“It is the seasoned judgment of most military leaders that normalizing the open presence of homosexuals in the military is incompatible with generating, strengthening and maintaining good discipline, unit cohesion and combat readiness,” it stressed.

Messengers affirmed “the Bible’s declaration that homosexual behavior is intrinsically disordered and sinful” and noted “the Bible’s promise of forgiveness, change and eternal life to all sinners—including those engaged in homosexual sin—who repent of sin and trust in the saving power of Jesus Christ.”

They went on record as opposing efforts to change current law to “normalize the open presence of homosexuals in the armed forces.” They also deplored acts of violence related to homosexuality, expressed their “pride in and support for all now serving in the United States armed forces” and commended “loving, redemptive ministry to homosexuals.”

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act resolution characterized the proposed bill as “granting such things as sexual orientation the same employment protections as gender and race, placing these immoral and aberrant behaviors on the same level as the immutable traits of gender and ancestry.”

“Homosexual persons are not our enemies but our neighbors whom we love and wish to see find the same forgiveness and freedom we have found in Christ,” the resolution said.

But it warned “businesses with a religious character,” such as religious bookstores, publishers and parachurch ministries, would not be exempted from policies that would deny them the right to fire or refuse to hire employees based upon sexual orientation. And the law could jeopardize the First Amendment’s protections of religious liberty, it added.

Messengers voted to express “our profound opposition to ENDA and any similar legislation.” The resolution also put them on record as calling on the U.S. president and Congress to appoint and affirm “only nominees to federal judicial positions who will protect foundational religious freedoms.”

The resolution reflects implications for the appointment of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court but does not directly oppose her nomination, Resolutions Committee leaders told reporters.

“The committee was concerned about homosexual rights and religious liberty. The Kagan nomination brings that into highlight,” said Barrett Duke, a staff member for the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and an adviser to the committee.

Specifically, some of Kagan’s writings indicate religious liberty rights should be trumped by homosexual rights, Duke explained.

Still, the committee did not directly speak to and oppose Kagan’s nomination, Moore said.

Another resolution affirmed “the centrality of the gospel.”

It called on Southern Baptists to “reaffirm our commitment to the supremacy and centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our churches” and encouraged pastors to “keep the gospel foremost in every sermon they preach.”

It exhorted churches to proclaim the gospel to unbelievers and to “display the gospel by transcending ethnic, racial, economic and social barriers due to our unity in Christ.”

“We recommit ourselves to the glory of the gospel by greater faithfulness to the Great Commission, both in personal witness and in sending more gospel workers to the unreached peoples of the world,” it said. “We commit to speak to the outside world as those who are forgiven sinners, who have received mercy as a free gift, and not as those who are morally or ethically superior to anyone.”

A final traditional resolution expressed appreciation for all the people responsible for planning and conducting the annual meeting and hosting it in Orlando.

ORLANDO, Fla.—When it comes to reaching the world for Christ, Southern Baptists “are not there yet,” said Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board.

In his final report to the Southern Baptist Convention on June 15, Rankin observed he has had the honor of seeing more than 10,000 missionaries being sent to minister during a time “God has chosen to work in unprecedented ways.”

Out-going International Mission Board (IMB) president Jerry Rankin challenges Southern Baptist Convention messengers to personally engage unreached people groups with the Gospel during IMB’s presentation June 15 at the annual meeting of the SBC in Orlando, Fla. (Photo by Baptist Press)

Rankin, who retires in August after 17 years at the helm of the IMB, cited statistics that indicate progress. But, he asked, “Are we there yet?”

Success on the mission field cannot be measured by the record number of missionaries sent, church growth statistics overseas or the number of new believers baptized, Rankin said.

The only way to determine success is to determine the job that is still to be done, he continued.

“How many people have yet to be touched by the gospel?”

Rankin informed Southern Baptist messengers there are 11,000-plus distinct, ethnic people groups in the world, and more than 6,400 of those are still unreached with less than 2 percent of them who have heard the gospel.

Rankin stressed the only way these people can hear the gospel is to send missionaries who are willing to answer God’s call.

The IMB leader related that after sending out more than 900 new missionaries in 2008 and reaching a record level of 5,624 missionary personnel overseas, the IMB is having to cut back to no more than 5,000 missionaries by the end of 2010 due to budget restrictions.

And this is happening despite Southern Baptists having given almost $149 million to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in 2009, an increase of more than 5 percent over the previous year’s offering. “We will still have to restrict appointments and restrict our missionary force,” he said.

After showing a video presentation describing the work being done, Rankin challenged Southern Baptists to do more than ever before to reach the world for Christ.

“Have we walked every road, climbed every hill, told every soul?” Rankin asked.

God has blessed Southern Baptists in numbers and in resources, but we are not there yet, he said.

Rankin challenged Southern Baptists to resolve that “reaching his people with the gospel of Christ” is the calling that “God has placed on each of us.”

ORLANDO, Fla.—Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Fla., approved a pared down budget for 2010-2011 and honored two agency presidents who retire this year.

They approved a $199,822,090 Cooperative Program allocation budget recommended by the SBC Executive Committee—down 1.21 percent from the previous year’s budget—with 50 percent directed to the International Mission Board and 22.79 percent to the North American Mission Board.

It earmarks $44,280,576, or 22.16 percent, for the SBC’s six seminaries and its historical archives, while setting aside $3,397,064, or 1.65 percent, for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Messengers also adopted an SBC Operating Budget of $8,643,951, a decrease of approximately 5.5 percent from last year’s budget. The operating budget includes the SBC Executive Committee, the SBC annual meeting and committees, special programs such as Empowering Kingdom Growth, building maintenance and administration.

Frank Page, who was elected as president and chief executive officer of the Executive Committee during its June 14 meeting in Orlando, Fla., was introduced to convention messengers during the committee’s report to the convention.

In presenting Page, Executive Committee Chairman Randall James of Orlando said, “We didn’t want to pick who we wanted, but who the Lord Jesus Christ had already chosen before the foundation of the world.”

Page, a former South Carolina pastor who currently serves as vice president of evangelization at the North American Mission Board, succeeds Morris Chapman, who is retiring after 18 years of service. He will assume his new duties Oct. 1.

Expressing appreciation

Messengers adopted resolutions of appreciation for Morris Chapman, who will retire Sept. 30 as president and chief executive officer of the Executive Committee, and for Jerry Rankin, who retires July 31 as president of International Mission Board.

Praising his contributions to Southern Baptist life as “enduring, extensive and extraordinary” in helping to change and shape the course of Southern Baptist life, the resolution for Chapman noted that he “has distinguished himself as a consummate statesman.”

Under Chapman’s leadership, the Executive Committee and the SBC adopted the Covenant for a New Century, calling for a restructuring of the SBC’s entities, reducing them from 19 to 12 and redirecting significant funds into “frontline ministry.” The Executive Committee also approved establishment of the Council on Family Life, and the SBC adopted “Empowering Kingdom Growth,” a vision calling churches and member to pursue the Kingdom of God.

Prior to his appointment, Chapman served as pastor of four churches over a span of 25 years—three in Texas and one in New Mexico. A former SBC president, he also has held various appointed and elected positions in three Baptist state conventions.

In expressing the gratitude of Southern Baptists, a resolution honoring Rankin pointed not only to his 17-year tenure as IMB president, but also to his 23 years of service with the former Foreign Mission Board, starting with his appointment as a missionary in 1970.

“Under his leadership,” the resolution stated, “the International Mission Board saw an increase in its missionary force from 4,000 missionaries in 142 countries in 1993, to more than 5,500 missionaries working with 1,190 people groups.”

IMB missionaries and their national Baptist partners have seen church starts increase from 2,000 to about 27,000 and baptisms increase from more than 260,000 to more 565,000 during his tenure, the resolution noted.

“As you leave this position,” Chapman told Rankin, “we know that your passion for missions will continue through the lives of thousands of individuals you have touched as both a personal evangelist of the gospel of our Lord Jesus and as a leader of God’s people on mission to the farthest reaches of our world.”

Joined on stage by his wife, Bobbye, Rankin remarked: “We would have never dreamed many years ago when we responded in obedience to God’s call to missionary service that he would call us and entrust us with this level of leadership responsibility. As we look back on these 17 years, it is evident that God simply allowed us to be in this position when he chose to work in our world and among Southern Baptists in unprecedented ways.

“How grateful we are that we have been able to serve you and facilitate your involvement, your partnership and your obedience to our Great Commission task,” he said.

Other SBC action

In other business, Darrell Orman, chairman of the Executive Committee’s communications subcommittee and a pastor from Stuart, Fla., requested an extension of one year for a study of greater SBC involvement for ethnic churches and leaders in order to provide “a fuller, more meaningful report.”

“We desire to research and give as much thought to this report as we possibly can, believing that this could be a great part of us fulfilling the Great Commission, especially here in our own country,” Orman explained to Executive Committee members. The study will develop guide points to help the SBC “throw a blanket of love over this nation” and involve more ethnic people in the SBC’s ministries and leadership, he said.

In the past decade, the number of ethnic congregations have grown in the SBC by more than five percent—from 13.5 percent in 1998 to 18.7 percent in 2008—with the largest representations being African-Americans, with  3,277 congregations; Hispanics, with 3,182; and  Asians, with 1,652.

A resolution approved as recently as the 2008 SBC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis encouraged all SBC entities to strive to reflect a balanced representation of ethnic diversity on boards, committees and programs.

Convention messengers also:

• Changed their 2013 meeting site from Nashville, Tenn., to Houston.

• Approved holding their 2015 meeting in Columbus, Ohio.

• Revised the ministry statement of the Southern Baptist Foundation, broadening its scope to serving all Baptist bodies and entities.
M.E. Dodd award

The M.E. Dodd Cooperative Program Award was presented to First Baptist Church of Sparkman, Ark., a 103-member congregation that averages 60 to 75 in Sunday worship, but has contributed an average of 32.8 percent in CP giving over the past 30 years, with a high of 43.4 percent.

The award is presented annually to the person, congregation or organization which has demonstrated continuous long-term excellence in supporting the principles, practice and spirit of the Cooperative Program, Chapman noted. 

In 1936, the Sparkman congregation increased its CP giving to 10 percent of undesignated receipts, and by the 1960s had increased that amount to 30 percent, where it remains today.

“Since the start of the Cooperative Program, the church has given sacrificially because of a deep desire to tell the good news of Jesus Christ all over the world,” Chapman said. “Each time they give, they feel they are serving alongside their state missionaries, college ministers, North American Mission Board missionaries and International Mission Board missionaries.”

In accepting the award for the church, Pastor Eric Moffett said: “We give at Sparkman because we believe we can do more together as Southern Baptists than we can do apart. We believe that even though we are a small church from a tiny community, with every dollar that we give we are able to partner with missionaries, denominational servants, all over the world. To us, that’s a joy and an investment. Our church would have it no other way.”

New officers

During the Executive Committee meeting, Roger Spradlin, pastor of Valley Baptist Church in Bakersville, Calif., who served as vice chairman this past year, was elected chairman for 2010-2011. Spradlin received 40 votes of 71 cast, while Doug Melton of Oklahoma City, Okla., garnered 31.

Earnest Easley, pastor of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., was elected vice chairman on a second ballot after tying with Jack Shaw, a layman from Greenville, S.C., on the first; and Joe Wright, director of missions for Dyer Baptist Association in Tennessee, was chosen as secretary, defeating Carol Yarber of Athens, Texas.

ORLANDO, Fla.—In a surprise move, Southern Baptists said no to two well-known presidential candidates and elected a church planter from Marietta, Ga., to lead them in the coming year.

Bryant Wright, senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., beat Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., in a run-off ballot 4,225 to 3,371.

Bryant’s votes represented 55.11 percent of the 7,667 votes casts, while Traylor’s represented 43.97 percent. Seventy-one votes, or .93 percent, were disallowed.

Bryant Wright, senior pastor of the 7,600 member Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., won the run-off election for president of the Southern Baptist Convention with 55 percent of the vote. More than 7,660 messengers voted during the June 15 election at the 153rd annual meeting of the SBC at the Orange Country Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. (SBC Photo by Bill Bangham)

Traylor and Jimmy Jackson, senior pastor, Whitesburg Baptist Church, Huntsville, Ala., entered the race as the frontrunners, particularly in what many labeled a pro/con Great Commission Resurgence report presidential race. Traylor served on the task force. Jackson was outspoken against the task force’s report that was approved by convention messengers just minutes before the presidential election results were announced.

Wright and Traylor garnered a combined 66.02 percent of the original vote against Jackson and Leo Endel, executive director, Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention.

In the original vote, Wright received 3,433 votes, or 36.84 percent of the vote, while Traylor received 2,719 votes, or 29.18 percent of the vote. Jackson received 2,482 votes, or 26.64 percent of the vote, and Endel received 589 votes, or 6.23 percent of the vote.

Of the registered 10,873 messengers at the time of the vote, 9,318 messengers cast ballots. Of those, 95 ballots, or 1.2 percent, were disallowed.

In the first vice president’s race, Ron Herrod, president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists, was elected 1,653 to 1,117 over Jim Drake, pastor of Brush Fork Baptist Church in Blue Field, W. Va.

ORLANDO, Fla.—The Southern Baptist Convention embraced a future uncertain but focused on the Great Commission when a solid majority of messengers adopted the report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force June 15.

“We are a Great Commission people,” Task Force Chairman Ronnie Floyd thundered when the final hand vote showed a 75 to 80 percent majority favoring the seven recommendations of the report, which messengers considered as a whole.

A year after SBC President Johnny Hunt appointed the task force to bring recommendations about how Southern Baptists could work together more efficiently, nearly 11,000 messengers ended months of debate with two and a quarter hours of discussion that remained cordial throughout.

Just as in the months of debate earlier, deliberation focused mostly over the recommendation that would change giving terminology to make the Cooperative Program the primary element of a new category of “Great Commission Giving,” rather than be the sole recognized avenue of general mission support.

In the only amendment of several to pass muster, messengers affirmed a motion by Jim Waters of First Baptist Church in Statesboro, Ga., to add language that says Southern Baptists will “continue to honor and affirm the Cooperative Program as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach. We affirm that designated giving to special causes is to be given as a supplement to the Cooperative Program and not as a substitute for Cooperative Program giving.”

Later task force member Al Mohler said the amended language was a welcome addition that expressed the task force’s heart.

Reaction to a preliminary report the task force released in February was so vociferous members made themselves available across the nation to speak to groups, answer questions and listen. Input from various groups of Baptist state convention employees, missionaries, associational leaders and pastors found its way into the final report.

Task force Chairman Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., and of The Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, said he was surprised by the diversity of task force members in their first meeting and wondered how it would be possible to unify the group.

“We needed to understand lostness,” he eventually concluded. “If lostness cannot bring us together, my soul, we are dead, dead, dead.”
Consequently, the overriding theme of the report became “Penetrating the Lostness,” and its final six recommendations sprang from the first—establish a missional vision “to present the gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all nations.”

The other recommendations approved by messengers include:

• Core values of Christ-likeness, truth, unity, relationships, trust, future, local church and kingdom;

• Great Commission Giving, which includes gifts to SBC-related entities to “count” along with Cooperative Program giving as support for Southern Baptist causes;

• “Reinvent” and “unleash” the North American Mission Board to implement a missional strategy to reach high population centers in the United States and Canada. This will involve ending the cooperative agreements that have governed NAMB’s work with states over the next seven years, and possibly decentralizing NAMB’s strategic personnel;

• Remove geographic limitations from International Mission Board personnel to enable missionaries to serve in the United States pockets of the people group they serve overseas;

• Give primary responsibility for Cooperative Program and stewardship promotion to the state conventions, and;

• Move 1 percent of the national Cooperative Program allocation from the SBC Executive Committee to the International Mission Board. This one percent represents about $2 million, one-third of the Executive Committee’s budget.

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report was approved despite significant opposition by SBC Executive Committee President Morris Chapman, who said only moments before debate began over the report began that, “Under God, I do not want to go in the wrong direction, on the wrong road in the wrong time in our history.”

The task force countered, without reference to Chapman, with a detailed presentation focused on “penetrating lostness” and “pushing back darkness.”
Task force member Ken Whitten of Lutz, Fla., pointed out that 10 years earlier, also in Orlando, messengers adopted the doctrinal statement of a revised Baptist Faith & Message. This vote was about “not what we believe, but how we behave,” he said.

Task force members continually emphasized only a change of heart will bring about the changes envisioned by their recommendations.
Before debate began on the recommendations Floyd reminded messengers the task force responsibility was to establish a vision, but, “It is the responsibility of various boards and trustees to implement these recommendations.”

Ultimately, the five substantive recommendations all are directed to the Executive Committee to consider. If considered positively, the recommendations will be passed to the boards of the affected entities to consider implementation.

In a press conference following the vote, Mohler said “It is the incumbent duty of the various boards” to respond to the Convention’s expressed will.

Messengers rejected a move by Bill Sutton of First Baptist Church in McAllen, Texas, to postpone the report indefinitely because it has been “divisive.”

They similarly turned back a motion by David Tolliver, executive director for the Missouri Baptist Convention, that messengers simply receive the report as information to give affected entities a chance to evaluate its potential impact. “It’s not a bad report, just premature,” Tolliver said.

“Jesus urged us to count the cost” before undertaking a journey, said Tolliver, who said Baptists don’t know the costs of implementing the GCR report.

After a show of hands vote, Floyd urged messengers to remember that every person in the room supports the Great Commission. He urged that the differences between those who support the task force report and those who do not “should not be exaggerated.”

“We are still brothers and sisters in Christ,” he said, who “differ on no article of faith,” and are guided by commitment to the gospel.

 “The Southern Baptist Convention is a convention of churches that is committed to a missional vision of presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world.

“We are a Great Commission people.”

ORLANDO, Fla.—The Southern Baptist Convention overwhelmingly reaffirmed its intention to spread the gospel throughout the nation and around the world, members of the SBC’s Great Commission Resurgence task force told reporters.

At least 75 percent to 80 percent of messengers to the SBC annual meeting ratified the task force’s seven-part set of recommendations, Chairman Ronnie Floyd told reporters moments after the vote.

 The committee drafted the recommendations to turn the convention’s focus toward “penetrating the lostness” of the world. They received stiff opposition from Morris Chapman, retiring president of the SBC Executive Committee, as well as leaders of some Baptist state conventions and others who fear the changes will erode financial support for the convention.

"We thank all Southern Baptist for believing in the Great Commission,” Christ’s mandate to spread the gospel across the globe, Floyd said, flanked by five other members of the task force.

“The convention vote was very clear,” stressed Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark.

“As a convention, we have made some basic statements,” added Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

One of those clear statements is the convention’s priority for telling people the world over about Jesus Christ, insisted Roger Spradlin, pastor of Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, Calif., and new chairman of the Executive Committee.

Spradlin noted the convention voted to move 1 percent of the Cooperative Program, the SBC’s unified budget, from the Executive Committee to the International Mission Board. One percent of the IMB budget translates into 46 missionaries, who will present the gospel to people all around the world who never have heard of Jesus, he said.

“That represents more than dollars on a spreadsheet,” he added. “It represents the heart” of Southern Baptists’ passion for the gospel.

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., has experienced that passion through two sons who have served as missionaries among Muslims.

“I saw the lostness of the world. I wanted us—brothers and sisters—to catch a vision for what matters to God,” he said of his motivation for the recommendations.

The past year, every member of the Great Commission task force has been changed by his or her experience, reported Ken Whitten, pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Fla.

“We have taken a look, through the Lord’s eyes, to the lostness of the world,” he said. “Lostness has broken our hearts.”

That brokenness and concern extends to the great cities of America, Spradlin said, pointing out his state, California, is home to 30 million people who do not follow Christ. “You can’t think about lostness without it impacting your heart,” he noted.

Passage of the Great Commission Resurgence report was “another step in the right direction” toward energizing the younger generation of Southern Baptists, Akin said.

“I think today will go down as a very decisive moment in the Southern Baptist Convention’s history,” Mohler added, acknowledging the SBC’s history is sprinkled with numerous decisive moments. “This morning, … I prayed the denomination would head toward hope, and I believe that’s what happened today.”

Even though the recommendations encountered spirited opposition, Floyd predicted Southern Baptists would rally behind their decision and move forward together.

“When Baptists have spoken, Baptists get their hearts in line,” he said. “We are optimistic the convention has spoken.”

ORLANDO, Fla.—Adopting the report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force could have negative repercussions, Morris Chapman warned Southern Baptist Convention messengers during their annual meeting June 15.

In his final report as president and chief executive officer of the SBC Executive Committee, Chapman extolled the virtues of the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ unified giving plan.

Morris Chapman

While acknowledging the Cooperative Program has never given every entity all it wanted or needed, he insisted it has given every entity some funds to do the work God called them to do.

“The Cooperative Program has survived many years of tough times. It has brought us through every time,” said Chapman, who will retire from his position Sept. 30. If the report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is approved, he warned, the Cooperative Program will not retain the unique place it has held. “It will be one of several offerings, not one of a kind.”

Chapman, who served as president of the convention two years before being elected president of the Executive Committee in 1992, recalled the “conservative resurgence” of the 1970s and 1980s as a “return to Southern Baptists’ roots theologically.”

Chapman said that he fears that the Great Commission Resurgence task force report, if approved, would lead Southern Baptists’ from its funding methodology.

“If we abandon our methodology of cooperation, we will become independent Baptists, not autonomous, cooperating Baptists,” he warned. “If you want to be independent tomorrow, you can declare it so. … You can walk away as an independent Baptist body of people.”

“Failure to fulfill the Great Commission is not a structural problem and that it cannot be accomplished with a structural solution,” he stressed. Failure to fulfill the Great Commission is a “heart problem, a spiritual problem, a stewardship problem,” Chapman said.

He also told messengers: “We can’t manufacture a resurgence of God’s power because someone declares it to be so.”

In referencing the task force report, Chapman spoke specifically against the last five recommendations of the report:

• Request the Executive Committee of the SBC to consider recommending to the SBC the adoption of the language and structure of Great Commission Giving as described in this report in order to enhance and celebrate the Cooperative Program and the generous support of Southern Baptists channeled through their churches …

• Request the Executive Committee to consider any revision to the ministry of the North American Mission Board that may be necessary in order to accomplish the redirection of NAMB as outlined in this report …

• Request that the Executive Committee and the International Mission Board of the SBC consider a revised ministry assignment for the IMB that would remove any geographical  limitation on its mission to reach unreached and underserved people groups wherever they are found.

• Request the Executive Committee to consider working with the leadership of state conventions in developing a comprehensive program of Cooperative Program promotion and stewardship education in alignment with this report.

• Request the Executive Committee to consider recommending an SBC Cooperative Program Allocation Budget that will increase the percentage allocated to the IMB to 51 percent by decreasing the Executive Committee’s percentage of the SBC Allocation Budget by 1 percent.

“The last five recommendations will never bring resurgence to the Southern Baptist Convention,” Chapman told messengers. Instead, he continued, those recommendations “will bring more confusion and chaos” to the convention. They need more thought, study and prayer, he asserted.

However, he did not dismiss the entire report. There is great truth in the “urgency” pointed out by the task force, Chapman said. “We must be urgent in penetrating the darkness.”

Chapman also called for the adoption of the challenges listed at the end of the task force report.

“The challenges will inspire us to a higher calling, a greater vision,” he said. “These two sections can form the foundation of where God wants us to go together.”

ORLANDO, Fla.—Supporters of the Great Commission Resurgence task force took a final opportunity to garner votes for their report when they encouraged 1,300 primarily younger pastors attending the B21 conference Tuesday to leave the luncheon and become fixtures in the meeting hall.

“Please get into that hall, sit in a chair and do not leave until somebody prays and we go eat,” said Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler.

Mohler was one of eight panelists who answered questions presented them by Jon Akin and Jed Coppenger, two leaders of B21, a movement intended to help participants discern what it is to be Baptist in the 21st century.

The Great Commission Resurgence task force report was the primary topic of conversation, along with frank discussions about reasons to continue being involved with the Southern Baptist Convention or to support its Cooperative Program missions channel.

Because changes suggested in the task force report would require painful adjustments in some entities’ budgets where priorities would change, David Platt was asked to explain how he made such changes in his church, Brook Hills Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.

Platt’s church determined to shift $1.5 million from its budget that was spent on comfort and convenience for members “to go to urgent spiritual and physical needs.”

“In the end, it’s not really a sacrifice,” Platt said. “We still have much more than our brothers and sisters around the world. … The reality of what we do as a convention is a product of what we do in our churches. When we do that as churches, it informs what we need to do as a convention of churches.”

Mohler called the decades of the 1950s through the 1980s “fat” years in Southern Baptist life when they could put money into good ideas.
Today, “everything’s got to be provisional” and open for reconsideration in the light of gospel scrutiny, Mohler said, because “I don’t think we’re ever going to be there again.”

SBC President Johnny Hunt said the urgency voiced by young pastors has inspired him and his wife to examine how they will commit more of their personal resources to missions. To all preachers, Hunt said, “There’s got to be more emulation to go with our exhortation.”

He is encouraged that no matter the result of the task force vote, “The greatest change that will probably happen has already come and that is that God will change our heart.”

Jimmy Scoggins, pastor of First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Fla., said he resents that “to be considered a good soldier” in Baptist ranks, he has to “cooperate in too many things I don’t believe in” and support departments in his state convention he sees no reason to have, “money spent on good things by good people that should be given to the inner city.”

“Our convention agencies are going to have to compete for mission dollars,” Scroggins said. People seeking missions funds come to his office weekly.

“It is a competitive environment,” he said and he is going to lead his church to give to “networks that are doing the best job.” He said the task force report gives him hope that such a network “will be the Cooperative Program.”

Matt Chandler, who affiliates with the SBC and serves on the Acts 29 network board, said the SBC will not be fixed overnight, but the key to his continued support is to discern that it is “headed in a direction.”

By the same token, Chandler said of Acts 29, “Anybody who thinks that’s a pretty house just hasn’t been inside the house.”

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay research said, “Southern Baptists are not now evidencing a serious commitment to planting churches.”

Southern Baptists plant a lot of churches only because they have a lot of churches already, he said. But per capita, Southern Baptists are low.

Mohler called the Cooperative Program a “great economizer” and “great exercise in stewardship,” when it was created in 1925.

But it is “toxic for a denomination” to “focus on the vehicle rather than on the trip.”

He said Baptists have made the Cooperative Program “worse than a golden calf”—not because they worship the unified budget, but “we simply think we have to defend it.”

"Who wants to sell a product you can only sell if there’s no other option?” he said.

“The CP is worthy of support, but only as a means to get somewhere we need to go,” he said.

Mohler reminded the audience: “We are not in that room as people who love the Great Commission and people who don’t love the Great Commission. … Let’s pray this becomes a model for how Southern Baptists can reason together, and do the right thing and go home and lead our churches to reason together.”