Missouri Baptist Convention cuts funding for William Jewell College

Leaders of the Missouri Baptist Convention voted July 15 to eliminate funding for William Jewell College because of the school’s handling of homosexuality and other moral issues.

The convention’s executive board deleted the school from next year’s budget after investigating the college’s practices and policies. If approved by messengers to the fall Missouri Baptist Convention, the move would effectively end the convention’s 154-year relationship with the Baptist school.

David Sallee, William Jewell’s president, said the board’s decision reflected a desire to control the college.

But Charles Burnett, chair of a committee investigating the school, said funding should be denied because the college failed to “fall in line with what we believe are God’s teachings.”

William Jewell receives about $1.1 million a year from the convention, which accounts for 3 percent of the school’s budget.

Among the committee’s concerns:

The college allowed student senators to consider a change in the Student Bill of Rights to add sexual orientation to the list of characteristics protected from discrimination. Students defeated the proposal Jan. 28.

A theater student was allowed to produce proportions of the play “The Vagina Monologues” as the student’s senior recital.

The committee asked the college for information about trustees and faculty, including their church membership and affiliations with organizations other than those related to the school.

The committee wanted college officials to outline the official teaching position on the Genesis account of creation.

The convention also sought the right to elect William Jewell’s trustees for the first time in history.

After the vote, Sallee, the college president, described the motion to defund as “an expression of the philosophy of the executive board that it will not fund anything it does not control.”

The $1.1 million in convention funds are used primarily to provide scholarships to Missouri Baptist students who attend William Jewell, Sallee said. He added the college will seek other revenue sources to continue providing those scholarships.

(ABP)