The Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Executive Committee (EC) unanimously passed a recommendation Sept. 23 giving preapproval for any SBC entity to transfer funds to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to assist in its ongoing recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Also during the meeting, the EC declined to reconsider membership in Baptist World Alliance (BWA).
New Orleans Seminary President Chuck Kelley told the EC’s Cooperative Program (CP) subcommittee earlier in the day that rising costs in insurance and utilities have made recovering from Katrina more costly than initially envisioned.
Kelley had requested the subcommittee recommend approval of a special allocation of $500,000 out of any CP overage funds, but the subcommittee declined and instead recommended any CP overages be distributed according to the regular distribution formula to the entities, who then can decide how much, if any, to give to the seminary.
The EC also declined at this time to freeze the seminary’s full-time equivalent enrollment numbers for an additional three years.
Related to Hurricane Katrina, the EC approved a request by the Louisiana Baptist Convention (LBC) to apply any remaining surplus funds for Hurricane Katrina relief to “other worthy disaster relief programs” of the LBC, including relief efforts for Hurricanes Rita and Ike. There is approximately $200,000 remaining.
The suggestion of the SBC reaffiliating with BWA came from a motion referred from the June 10–11 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis by Texas messenger Larry Walker, who asked the EC to “revisit, reevaluate and reconsider” the SBC’s affiliation with BWA. That relationship was severed in 2004 over concern about liberal theological drift in BWA.
The EC recommendation adopted Sept. 23 said it “declines to recommend reaffiliation, preferring instead to encourage the (SBC) to continue to relate to evangelicals and cooperate with them through the Global Evangelical Relations (GER) division of the Executive Committee, International Mission Board personnel and in other ways that promote strong cooperative evangelization, clear biblical convictions and close relationships with like-minded evangelicals around the world.”
The GER initiative was launched in 2005, a year after Southern Baptists voted to withdraw from BWA.
Addressing other motions referred from the annual meeting, the EC:
• Declined to seek ways to better implement the articles of the Baptist Faith and Message that address cooperation and the Christian and the social order.
• Declined to recommend amendment of the convention’s bylaws to prohibit executive officers of SBC entities from also serving as president of the SBC.
• Chose not to recommend that the SBC constitution be amended to disallow relating to churches with female senior pastors.
• Declined to recommend changing trustee term lengths.
• Declined to amend the SBC constitution to list elements of qualification for trustee service.
• Declined to recommend amending the convention’s bylaws “to prevent the rare and harmless possibility of a second run-off.” (BP)
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