State Budget Report: Conservative Gains
by T. C. Pinckney Vol. VI, No. 4, May 1993
The state treasurer's report delivered at the 21 April meeting of the BGAV General Board was encouraging news for Virginia conservatives, but unfortunate results for the moderate control group. Comparing 1992 and 1993 receipts as of 31 March each year, shows:
$ Change % Change
State CP -$129,138 -4.57%
SBC CP +$70,702 +5.87%
Total receipts -$35,789 -0.74%
Another perspective is the number of churches giving under various budget plans:
1992 1993
# % # %
WM-1 173 10.7 233 15.1
WM-1 is the least liberal of the 3 state plans, 35% goes to SBC.
WM-2 1247 81.6 1063 68.8
WM-2 has all the designated items including BJC, ABP, BTSR, FMB, HMB.
WM-3 n/a n/a 81 5.2
WM-3 sends all out of state money to the CBF, not a penny to SBC.
In Virginia, churches have the right to design their own giving plans. The following figures show increasing numbers are doing so, and in conservative directions.
50/50 21 1.4 31 2.0 (50% to state, 50% to SBC.)
17/83 63 4.1 81 5.2 (17% to state, 83% to SBC.)
Others 34 2.2 56 3.7 (Various church-designed plans, all giving less than 50% to state.)
As time passes, I believe we will see more churches move to one or another of the more conservative plans. There are two reasons for this:
(1) Conservative churches are just that, conservative. Often they hang back from moving precipitately. Many times they wait to let the dust settle and the situation clarify before taking action. Especially where the church leadership has not been personally involved in the denominational controversy and, consequently, has not had occasion to educate itself regarding the fundamental theological issues involved and how the political symptoms (such as personnel and policy changes, and efforts to mobilize the maximum number of messengers at conventions) reflect and spring from theology, the church with understandable caution is apt to delay taking decisive action.
Hundreds of Virginia churches must have taken no action in 1990 and 1991 on the state budget. Consequently, their offerings were automatically assigned in Richmond to the liberal plan now called WM-2. That "default" assignment artificially inflated the WM-2 total even though the churches had not chosen WM-2.
Now, however, as these churches learn what has been going on, more and more of them will move to giving plans supporting the authority of the Bible and the Southern Baptist Convention.
(2) This brings us to the second reason: the Lord is informing His people. Some of the increased understanding undoubtedly results from the publication of The Baptist Banner which provides an alternative source of information and breaks the information monopoly previously enjoyed by the state's liberals. Since the first of this year, another helpful development has been organization of the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. The SBCV has engaged and encouraged conservatives all over the state. But perhaps most helpful of all has been the actions of the liberals themselves. Their attack on the SBC, their establishment of a new denomination (although it won't `fess up that it is a new denomination), their organization of the new liberal seminary in Richmond, and their unbelievable vote last November AGAINST acknowledging that active homosexuality is a biblical sin and therefore practicing homosexuals are not acceptable in leadership positions among Virginia Baptists ... all these have done much to open the eyes of many good, Bible-believing Virginians.
Hosea 4:6 says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..." The converse is that as God's people become in formed of the truth, "...the truth will make you free." John 8:32. Free in spirit and free to make Christ-honoring decisions both personally and corporately as a church.
One of the nice things about being a Virginia Baptist is that, unlike churches in most other state associations, each Virginia church is free to accept any of the three state designed giving plans or design its own plan. It is really very simple to implement your own giving plan. Remember, it does not affect your church budget because no dollar amounts need be changed. You do NOT have to wait until time to adopt a new annual budget. You can change giving plans at any time. What is required is simply (1) that the church approve it by vote and (2) that the church send a letter to the state treasurer instructing him how to apply the funds contributed by the church.
Here are some answers to possible questions:
The state WM-3 plan is the most liberal; under it not a penny goes to the SBC, all the money that goes out of state flows to the CBF. The WM-2 plan is not quite as bad, but is still extremely liberal and getting more so each year as designations to SBC causes are decreased and/or more liberal causes are added and/or amounts or percentages to go to the liberal line items are increased. The WM-1 plan is the least bad of these three but is far, far from conservative. Under WM-1 only 35% of the dollars a church sends in goes to the SBC Cooperative Program (CP). Another problem with WM-1 is that churches who participate in it are doing nothing to offset the damage to the SBC done by churches which give through WM-2 or WM-3.
Offset is the concept behind the 17/83 plan. Under WM-2 only approximately 17% (it varies a bit from year to year) of a church's contributions go to the SBC CP, 83% is either spent directly by the state association or is controlled by the BGAV through designations in its budget. Thus conservatives decided to reverse those percentages and send 17% to the state and 83% through the state to the SBC CP.
Since the 17/83 plan was originated in late 1990, WM-3 has been adopted as a third alternate budget sending nothing to the SBC. To help offset this complete removal of funds by some churches (81 as of 31 March), we need to modify the conservative preference just a bit. If conservative churches will now adopt a 15/85 division (15% for the state, 85% to the SBC CP), that should compensate the SBC for reduced receipts because of WM-3.
Remember, it is important that all your money flow through Richmond up to at least $12,500 per year in order to qualify your church for the maximum 15 messengers at the state convention.
The letter to the state treasurer conveying your church's decision may be very simple. Here's an example:
"Calvary Baptist Church, meeting in business session 23 April 1993, has voted that its contributions should be used as follows: 15% for budget sections A, B, & C; 85% to be sent to the SBC CP undesignated."
That's all there is to it. If your church desires to negatively designate against one or more line items in the state budget, that can be done with one more sentence, as follows:
"The 15% for Sections A, B, & C is to support all line items except:
The Religious Herald
University of Richmond
Averett College
Virginia Intermont College
School of Pastoral Care
Division of Campus Ministries."
The six examples included above are, of course, just that, examples. These six are items many conservative churches choose to omit. Your church may have more, less, others, or none.
One further question: What about all the liberal line items such as the Baptist Joint Committee, Associated Baptist Press, Americans United, the Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond, the "Cooperative" Baptist Fellowship, et cetera? If your church does not adopt either WM-2 or WM-3, none of your money will go to any of those organizations; you do NOT need to negatively designate any of them. It is only objectionable line items within budget Section B that need to be omitted as shown above.
If you have further questions about the budget, feel free to write or call T. C. Pinckney at 703-780-1566, 8601 Buckboard Drive, Alexandria 22308. If you believe your church may come to some such decision in the future, you should save this article to help at that time. Also, remember that the purpose of The Banner is to inform as widely as possible. You are completely free to copy and distribute Banner articles as often and as widely as you wish.