Virginia’s Averett University given partial funds

RICHMOND, Va. — The Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV) will release to Averett University a portion of funds withheld last year in a dispute with the school concerning biblical authority and homosexuality.

But the remainder of the funds allocated in the current fiscal year to the BGAV-affiliated school in Danville will remain escrowed until this fall, when details of a proposed bivocational pastor training program to be overseen by Averett will be released.

During their April 20–21 meeting in Richmond, members of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board agreed to release only $180,000 — out of more than $350,000 escrowed by the BGAV last fall — to fulfill scholarship obligations to Baptist students at Averett.

Averett drew the ire of many Virginia Baptists last August when the chair of its religion department 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 Episcopal bishop, lectured on Averett’s campus.

In response, the BGAV mission board’s executive committee in September expressed its “strong dismay and disagreement.” In November, messengers at the BGAV’s annual meeting adopted a recommendation of their budget committee and escrowed the allocation they would have given to Averett in the state association’s 2003–04 budget “until such time as the [BGAV] covenant committee … can reach an agreement with the university as to its future relationship” with the BGAV.