State's Baptist empire shrinks

Retirement homes, colleges opting out

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CORRECTIONS

A story that appeared on Page 1A Monday incorrectly said the Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's largest denomination. It is the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

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The limbs are falling off the Baptist family tree.

When North Carolina Baptists meet in Greensboro this week for their annual session, they will begin to slough off three of their most cherished institutions, a process that began a decade ago when leadership of the organization became increasingly dominated by biblical literalists.

During meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, members of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina are expected to disengage from the group's retirement homes, colleges and women's missions organization. The changes are part of a larger realignment of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest denomination, with 16 million members organized in state conventions such as North Carolina's.

For North Carolina Baptists, whose empire once included seven colleges and universities, a hospital, five retirement homes and a dozen children's homes, it will mean a smaller operation that concentrates more on sustaining its 4,063 churches and creating new ones. Baptist conventions in other states are facing similar challenges.

"The old denominational systems are disconnecting," said Bill Leonard, the dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem and a Baptist historian. "One of the amazing things is that it's taken so long."

Leonard attributes the fragmentation to several factors, including a decline in denominational loyalty and shrinking resources for big enterprises such as hospitals and universities. Another factor is the ongoing theological controversy, which resulted in the purging of Baptist seminary faculties alongside new tests of theological allegiance. In 2000, the national Southern Baptist Convention declared that only men can serve as pastors. Last year, the state convention banned gay-friendly churches.

Convention leaders insist they are not out to control the institutions' theological purity.

"I think some of these institutions have panicked out of fear," said the Rev. Allan Blume, the president of the convention's board of directors. "It's a fear that is unwarranted."

The most recent defection is the Woman's Missionary Union, which in August announced that it planned to leave the state convention's Cary headquarters and continue its work at another location. Directors responded by recommending that the group's nearly $1 million in support be cut from the 2008 collection but that the organization be allowed to raise money through a special offering taken up among churches.

"That recommendation is punitive," said Ruby Fulbright, the executive director and treasurer of the Woman's Missionary Union, an organization devoted to educating children and adults on the significance of missions. "They don't understand or like our decision to leave the building."

Debate over the fate of the missionary union is expected to be lively.

Delegates, who are called messengers, also will be asked to approve a series of measures to disengage with the Baptist Retirement Homes, which decided two years ago it wanted to go solo -- mainly because its creditors demanded an independent trustee board. There are five Baptist retirement homes across the state, none in the Triangle.

Finally, messengers will vote on severing ties with the convention's five remaining colleges and universities. Under the proposed plan, the five institutions would be allowed to start choosing their own trustees in 2009. Meanwhile, the state convention, which gives each school about $1.2 million a year, will begin phasing out its monetary contributions, eliminating them altogether by 2013. The plan must pass at two consecutive annual meetings.

The colleges are Campbell University in Buies Creek; Chowan University in Murfreesboro; Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs; Mars Hill College in Mars Hill; and Wingate University in Wingate. Wake Forest University and Meredith College split from the convention years ago.

The state convention's top executive put a positive spin on the colleges' departure.

"It's moving from a relationship of obligation to a relationship of cooperation," said Milton Hollifield, executive director-treasurer of the state convention.

The college presidents have asked that the convention earmark the money that had gone to the colleges and instead apply it toward scholarships, and Hollifield said he is open to that. The colleges also want to continue to promote their schools through the convention.

But scholars of Baptist life say the moves suggest the institutions want to distance themselves from increasing restrictions. As an example, they point to a recent decision by convention executives, who revoked an invitation to a Minneapolis pastor invited to speak at an October conference in a Burlington church. The reason cited: the pastor's views on inerrancy of Scripture and homosexuality did not conform to those of the convention.

"There's a continuing perception that the Baptist State Convention is falling more in line with the Southern Baptist Convention," said Tony Cartledge, the former editor of the convention's twice-monthly newspaper, The Biblical Recorder. "As a result, there's a continuing decrease in trust."