CARY, N.C. — The head of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina is denying accusations that recent staff layoffs were politically motivated. Instead, the downsizing — which cut 20 percent of the convention’s budgeted positions — was a financial necessity, guided by a desire to preserve the most “mission-critical” services to churches, said Jim Royston, executive director-treasurer.
Many observers have noted that most of the 15 employees that lost jobs were considered theological moderates. “This thing is not just money,” R.G. Puckett, former editor of the Baptist state newspaper, told the Winston-Salem Journal. “I think some of the [moderate] people targeted were ones people wanted to remove anyway.” In the same article, longtime conservative leader Mark Corts said he believed the cuts were not a “moderate purge” but a “financial purge.” He said, “If 70 percent of your staff are moderates and you have to let 15 percent go, guess who’s going to feel it the most?”
Corts called Royston “a good, balanced conservative” and said the cutbacks portend change. “They’ll have to have new leadership, and they’ll change,” he said. Corts also suggested that some of those released may not have been cooperating with the administration. “And a lot of them didn’t agree with him (Royston) and they didn’t agree with the movement the convention was taking, a slightly more conservative movement.” Royston declined to respond to the allegations but said in a statement, “The secular media is reporting this was a political decision. Nothing can be further from the truth. Finances, rather than any political considerations, drove us to the point of having to reduce our staff by 20 percent.” Jobs were eliminated “on principle, and not on persons,” Royston said.
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