RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Baptists have taken action that may end their 144-year-old tie to Averett University unless a conflict over homosexuality and biblical authority is resolved.
Messengers to the Nov. 13-14 annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV) in Richmond escrowed more than $350,000 that would have been contributed to the Danville, Va., university next year.
According to the Virginia Baptist records, the university received $449,804 from the association during the 2002-03 fiscal year, much of it used for scholarships for students from BGAV churches.
But the university attracted the ire of some Virginia Baptists last August when religion department chair John Laughlin wrote an article in a Danville newspaper endorsing the action of the Episcopal Church to ordain an openly homosexual bishop and criticizing a literal method of interpreting the Bible. In September, John Shelby Spong, a controversial retired Episcopal bishop, lectured on Averett’s campus, reportedly saying that the God who is revealed in a literal reading of Scripture is “immoral” and “unbelievable.”
In response, the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s executive committee on Sept. 9 expressed its “strong dismay and disagreement.”
In early November the budget committee recommended withholding Averett’s allocation in the 2004 proposed budget “until such time as the [BGAV] covenant committee … can reach an agreement with the university as to its future relationship” with the BGAV. If no agreement is reached, the budget committee would propose at the BGAV annual meeting in November 2004 a reallocation of the money.
While the escrow vote passed overwhelmingly, some dissent was voiced by messengers as they dealt with the Averett recommendation before considering the entire budget.
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