JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Attorneys for the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) have voluntarily released the organization’s former official news journal from a long-running lawsuit against several agencies that removed themselves from convention control.
Word & Way, the historic Missouri Baptist news journal founded in 1896, has been dismissed from MBC litigation that has stretched over nearly eight years and had its roots in a successful attempt by conservatives to take control of the convention from moderates.
The convention, through its attorneys, filed a document in Cole County Circuit Court on April 23 voluntarily releasing the news journal from all claims against it.
The MBC filed legal action against five formerly affiliated institutions on Aug. 13, 2002, in an effort to force them to rescind changes in their charters. The Baptist Home retirement-home system, the Missouri Baptist Foundation, Word & Way, Windermere Baptist Conference Center and Missouri Baptist University each changed their corporate documents to self-elect trustees — the Home in 2000 and the others in 2001.
“The trustees and staff of Word & Way are elated to finally have this lawsuit behind us,” Editor Bill Webb noted. “We lament that the Missouri Baptist Convention took so long to take this action.”
Michael Whitehead, legal counsel for the MBC, said in a statement quoted by Baptist Press that convention leaders remain convinced the newspaper’s breakaway was wrong but concluded it is in the convention’s interest to halt legal efforts to recover it.
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