RAYTOWN, Mo. — On the same day it opened its 170th annual session, the Missouri Baptist Convention filed new legal action against five related agencies.
Attorneys for the convention filed a declaratory judgment action Oct. 25 against the Baptist Home, Missouri Baptist University, Windermere Baptist Conference Center, the Missouri Baptist Foundation and the Word & Way newsjournal in an effort to void new charters the institutions filed in 2000 and 2001. Charter changes allow the five entities to elect their own trustees rather than to allow the convention to continue to do so.
The convention first filed a declaratory judgment action against the five entities on Aug. 13, 2002, in 19th Judicial District Circuit Court in Cole County. The convention’s executive board and six convention-related churches were plaintiffs in that lawsuit.
In March, Judge Thomas Brown dismissed the action on the grounds that the executive board and the six churches did not have standing — the legal right — to file the action. Currently, the convention is appealing that ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri in Kansas City.
The new legal action, filed in the same circuit court, names the Missouri Baptist Convention and five individual messengers, rather than churches, as plaintiffs. The five individuals were included as plaintiffs because each has served as a messenger to annual meetings since 1999 and each has been or is a convention-elected trustee for one of the five institutions.
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