North Carolina Baptists Maintain 'Multiple Choice' Giving Plan
North Carolina Baptists defeated a motion that called for the elimination of the current 'giving plan,' which allows churches to choose to give to either the conservative Southern Baptist Convention or the liberal Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
On Nov. 17, messengers to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) voted to keep their four-year financial plans intact, despite calls by conservatives to scrap the plan for one that would channel all funds solely to the Southern Baptist Convention only.
The current plan allows churches to choose from four giving plans:
-- Plan A: 68 percent of the offering goes to the BSCNC, 32 percent goes to the SBC.
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-- Plan B: 68 percent goes to the BSCNC, 10 percent goes to the SBC, 22% goes to other missions partnerships, theological education and other causes.
-- Plan C: 68 percent goes to the BSCNC, 10 percent goes to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), the rest goes to various missions partnerships, theological education institutes and other causes.
-- Plan D: 50 percent goes to the BSCNC, 32 percent to the SBC, and 18 percent to the conservative Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute, church-planting efforts and missions partnerships.
Conservatives at the convention called for a motion that would eliminate all choices from the list except for plan A, because of the other plans’ room to wiggle financial offerings to more moderate causes, such as the Baptist World Alliance, the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty, the Associated Baptist Press (ABP) and the Baptist Center for Ethics.
According to the ABP, a minister from Durham N.C. named Ted Stone initiated the motion to abolish the alternate plans and return back to the BSCNC’s traditional funding plan that gives only to the SBC.
“His motion called for the state convention to go back to a single plan, with money being divided between North Carolina and the Southern Baptist Convention, deleting money for… moderate causes,” the ABP stated.
Stone’s argument in essence compared the amount of funds the North Carolina convention would give to the SBC, to the funds offered by other state convention.
"It means we are not stepping up to the plate when it comes to supporting missionaries around the world," he was quoted as saying.
Opposite of Stone was LeRoy Burke, chairman of the convention’s budget committee. Burke, who said he “personally” agreed with the traditional funding plan, said the new multiple choice plan as many benefits.
"I rise today to ask the convention to vote against this at this time," he said.
According to the convention officials, messengers ultimately voted against Stone’s motion by a 2-to-1 margin.
Following the vote, the messengers considered yet another motion that would eliminate only option C from the giving plan; conservatives hold a particular angst over Plan C because of it’s channeling of funds to the CBF – a moderate denomination that branched off of the SBC over “theological differences” a decade ago.
J. D. Greear, pastor of Summit Church in Durham, who called the motion to eliminate Plan C, said North Carolinians cannot continue to two Baptist bodies that hold so many different theological interpretations.
"Whenever we have diversity in action, we are not united and we are not as strong as we could be," he said.
According to the ABP, Greear said “the CBF and the newer divinity schools formed in opposition to the Southern Baptist Convention because of differing stands on issues such as inerrancy, the exclusivity of the gospel, and the soundness of heterosexual marriage.”
"There just came a point when we could no longer work together," he said.
This motion was also overruled.
In other business, the messengers defeated a motion that called for a study of whether the BSCNC was “Southern Baptist.”
“If we are Southern Baptists, we need to believe as Southern Baptists. If our schools want money from Southern Baptists, they need to believe what Southern Baptists do," said McLean, pastor of Darlington Baptist Church in Littleton, who made the motion.
His motion would have called on the Convention’s board of directors to determine the identity of the BSCNC. If the BSCNC was not Southern Baptist, the board should decide “decide what we are and what our core values are and report back at next year's convention."
“We have tiptoed around it for a long time,” he said.
Rick Matthews, a layman from Winston-Salem, offered a rebuttal, saying laypeople are not divided as pastors are but are more interested in missions than politics.
"The Baptists outside of this room are not divided," he said "They want to win souls, not votes."
