What Might Have Been

Alabama and Missouri have very different state Baptist conventions. Yet both faced the same important issue — how to relate to entities sponsored by the state convention. The Alabama and Missouri Baptist conventions chose different courses of action, and the outcomes could not have been more different.

Alabama Baptists faced the issue first. Fifteen years ago, in 1994, Samford University’s board of trustees voted to elect its own trustees, effectively cutting out any role for the Alabama Baptist State Convention (ABSC). Then-President Thomas E. Corts said the action was necessary to keep from politicizing Samford’s governance process as Baptists in the state elbowed each other for influence about a variety of concerns.

For Missouri Baptists, the issue surfaced in 2001. A political group called the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association worked with members of the convention nominating committee to replace entity trustees eligible for re-election with people it considered more acceptable. All new trustees nominated for election also reflected the mind-set of the laymen’s association.

In response, trustees of four Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) institutions voted to become self-perpetuating boards. As in Alabama, entity leaders explained this was to protect their ministries from being politicized. They were Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis; Windermere Baptist Conference Center in Roach, Mo.; Missouri Baptist Foundation; and Word & Way, the state Baptist paper. A fifth entity, The Baptist Home, a senior citizens ministry, had taken similar action the prior year and reported it to the convention in its annual session.

Missouri Baptists were incensed by the actions of the five entities even though messengers had accepted the report about the bylaw change by The Baptist Home a year earlier. Before the 2001 annual meeting ended, messengers had empowered their executive board to “take all steps necessary” to recover the entities. The action most discussed was a lawsuit. In initial conversations following the annual meeting, convention representatives demanded the impasse be submitted to binding Christian arbitration. Entity trustees countered with an offer to participate in Christian mediation. Shortly after that conversation, the MBC, through its legal task force, filed lawsuits against each of the five entities.

When Alabama Baptists gathered in Mobile in 1994, the first annual meeting following Samford’s action, tensions were high. Many Alabama Baptists were angry about being cut out of the governance of their most prestigious university. Messengers said a lot during the meeting but ended up appointing a special committee to study entity relations.

Many Alabama Baptists will remember that messengers to the 1995 annual meeting rejected the report of the special committee. Ideas offered by messengers during debate included escrowing all Cooperative Program support for Samford and the University of Mobile, which, by that time, was being questioned for other reasons. Some counseled filing suit against Samford. But in the end, messengers replaced the original study committee with another special committee and charged it with finding a solution to the relationship crisis.

In 1996, two years after the issue surfaced, Alabama Baptists voted to accept the recommendations of the second committee. The recommendations included accepting a self-perpetuating board of trustees at Samford, along with pledges by the school to cooperate closely with the ABSC. Funding for the school continued uninterrupted. Maintaining relationships and working through problems were important values during the entire process.

Alabama Baptists watched as Samford officials worked to keep the promise to cooperate with the convention. On campus, religious activities and programs continued without missing a beat. Financial aid for Baptist students continued. Some said officials tried harder to stress the school’s Baptist identity than prior to the bylaw change. And Samford complied with every request of the convention and the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.

A nagging question for some concerned what would happen when Samford chose a new president. Would the commitment to Baptists stand a leadership change? When that change occurred, Alabama Baptists cheered the election of Andrew Westmoreland, the son of a Baptist minister, an active Baptist layman and a regular speaker in Baptist churches across the state.

Like Corts, Westmoreland works at maintaining Samford’s Baptist identity and cooperates fully with the state convention. In February, the university hosted the annual Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference. How Samford trustees are elected is a matter of concern for few Alabama Baptists today. What they know is Samford is still a Baptist school. It is still “their” school. Equally important, Samford knows it is a Baptist institution even though it elects its own trustees.

Missouri Baptists followed a different course. Baptist leadership declared that no convention meeting could be held at the state conference center. A new state Baptist paper was established. Funding for the entities was escrowed and later dropped entirely. A full-court press to punish the entities was put in place as the lawsuits began their slow trek through the legal system.

One attempt at mediation of the suit against Missouri Baptist University resulted in a recommendation of a special committee composed of representatives from both sides to appoint trustees for a set period of time, but there is no record of that offer ever being presented to the full executive board.

The lawsuits have proceeded one at a time. The suit against Windermere has gone through the courts, and the convention lost at every turn.

That is no promise of how other suits will be resolved since each case is unique, but nearly seven years of lawsuits have taken their toll.

One toll is the cost of litigation. At its April 14 meeting, the executive board voted to pledge $500,000 of its reserve to obtain a line of credit from a local bank “largely for the purpose of repaying a bridge loan of $346,000 incurred this past year in the legal battle,” according to an MBC release. The proposed 2010 state convention budget has a new line item of $468,957 for legal fees. Previously officials had urged special offerings to defray legal costs. The total cost of legal fees during the seven years has not been made public. Judging from the numbers released for 2008 and 2010, it must be enormous. Entities have suffered as well. Windermere had to sell land to pay bills. The convention also lost a lawsuit trying to stop the sale.

But the convention’s suffering goes beyond financial concerns. In 2002, a second state convention was formed. Later MBC bylaws were changed, the result of which excluded some churches from membership. Then, two years ago, after successfully working to fire the state executive director, the laymen’s association was defeated by a coalition of former supporters calling itself Save Our Convention. The showdown came over the election of convention officers and the fighting was vicious.

Today Alabama Baptists work together as a united body of Christ. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of Baptists in the Show Me State. On the day this column was written, we received a 47-page report from the laymen’s association charging creeping liberalism in the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as in its state convention.

Much of the difference between the two conventions can be traced back to the decision each made when faced with an issue about relationships. One prized relationships, the other victory. Now each can look at the other and see what might have been.