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Baptist Churches are autonomous in nature --meaning that the individual church cannot be made to do anything by a heirarchal authority. Churches 'voluntarily' decide whether to join and or participate in local 'associations' which can adopt their own rules for membership and participation. Baptist churches that are 'in friendly cooperation' with the Baptist State Convention, which means they volutarily adopt and profess agreement with core beliefs and contribute money to the State Convention, may attend and vote at the annual Convention. Baptist State Conventions make their own rules for cooperation and membership with individual churches in their state, and are usually voluntarily aligned with the national body --The Southern Baptist Convention.
In each case, membership and cooperation by the local church with each of these groups is voluntary. The Southern Baptist Convention was created to foster local church cooperative funding of missionaries and their work abroad as well as at home, under a long standing program known as "The Cooperative Program." The idea was to pool the money to be more effective in reaching the most people.
Over 14 yrs ago a political group of conservatives decided to "take over" the Southern Baptist Convention and all its assets. They were successful in doing this by using 'hot button issues' and deception to encourage certain local church members to show up at the National Convention and vote in their candidates for office. Once in positions of power they began 'purging' members who were not part of their 'conservative' political group. This has been going on for an extended period of time, and about 6 yrs ago most churches that did not agree with the strict fundamentalist philosophy had 'pulled out' and disassociated themselves from the national Southern Baptist Convention.
As part of the 'take over' the conservatives in power began to enact a heirarchal top down control over its members, eventually down to the local churches. You either complied, or you were kicked out. Many churches left, but many churches remained affiliated and contributed their money just like they always had to the national convention, without fully understanding the issues.
Many moderate churches started their own State Conventions, and supported moderate groups who acted liked Baptists before the 'take over.' The national Southern Baptist Convention immediately refused to acknowledge them or allow them to participate, and in fact tried to kick out any church who contributed to them or supported them in any way. The largest group of moderates still operating inside the national convention is the Cooperative Baptist Foundation(CBF), which the conservatives are battling to kick out, but have yet to be successful in their efforts.
This is about money and power, pure and simple. The Southern Baptist Convention wants all contributions to go directly to them, and not be shared with any other group which they do not control(like the CBF). They have used the 'hot button issues' of inerrancy of the Bible, and now the issue of supporting or condoning 'homosexuality' in an attempt to prevent churches from contributing to groups they do not control, like the Baptist Alliance.
THe Baptist Alliance is a voluntary organization that is moderate in its views, is Baptist in its core beliefs, but supports outreach efforts to provide support and relief to people in need, and organizations on the ground who deliver the relief to the people in need. Some of the organizations that provide the relief on the ground have relationships with gay groups to more effectively reach the people in need of help.
The Southern Baptist Convention leaders are using the fact that the Baptist Alliance would 'do business with' groups that work with gay organizations to deliver relief as the wedge issue, to pry those churches' contributions away from the Baptist Alliance and back into their pockets exclusively, by threatening that churches which cooperate with the Baptist Alliance will be kicked out of the Southern National Convention.
What you are seeing with this story is one of the last straws in full take over of the State Baptist Convention of North Carolina by the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention. Soon you will not be able to be a member of the State Baptist Convention without also first being a member of the national Southern Baptist Convention, which by the way the State Baptist Convention was formed first and has never had that as a requirement of membership.
A lot of Baptist Churches have a moderate stance on gays, and welcome them into their churches like anyone else. However these churches stopped cooperating with the national Southern Baptist Convention long ago, and now they are being pried away from the State Baptist Convention.
The 'gay issue' is not a core belief of Baptists, and never has been. It has been turned into a wedge issue for purposes of maintaining and exploiting money and power.
Traditionally, Baptists believe that all have sinned and fallen short of God's plan for them, and that all sin is unacceptable before God. Therefore adultery, embezzlement, false witness, etc. are all sin which cannot be categorized in any heirarchal way. But you don't hear much about these other sins because they are not useful for exploitation by the political group in power receiving the benefits of all the money flowing into them.
Next time you hear a negative story about "Southern Baptists' just remember that for the most part Baptists give freely of their time and money to help others politics aside. They served more meals after 911 and Katrina than any other group, they are a first class disaster relief organization made up entirely of volunteers. They provide free services of dental and healthcare throughout the US and overseas. However, it is the local churches that do the funding and the work, and then these self-appointed conservative leaders go on TV and take the credit.
And many Baptists and their Churces do not deserve to be 'painted' all the same with the self-appointed leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention who do not represent them or their beliefs, and spit forth hate instead of love for their fellow man.
Top down organizations wielding authoritative power over Baptist local churches is totally foreign to the core Baptist beliefs. And remember they do not speak for 'all Southern Baptists.'
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