Opponents attempting to discredit CBF, coordinator tells leadership group

by Bob Allen                                                                                                        Vol. XII, No. 5, May 1999

Opponents of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are spreading unfair and harmful criticism about the moderate group, its top executive told elected leaders Feb. 25. "There is in our midst a concerted, well-funded effort to undermine the integrity of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship," Coordinator Daniel Vestal told the group's Coordinating Council, meeting Feb 25-27 in Atlanta.

Adversaries of the moderate group falsely accuse it of not believing the Bible, Vestal said, and also of promoting a gay and lesbian agenda and supporting abortion. He said he is often asked what is the Fellowship's "real" agenda, and he responds by quoting its mission statement that the group exists to "network, empower and mobilize Baptist Christians."

"That is our real agenda," he said.

Vestal said the attacks create a dilemma. "How much do you respond to the accusation, and how much do you engage those making the accusations, and how much do you ignore it?”

The CBF leader said the 8-year-old Fellowship is continuing to grow, adding more than 100 new contributing churches last year. "The most dramatic growth that is taking place in CBF life is taking place at the state and regional levels," Vestal said.

Sixteen state and regional Fellowship groups now have paid coordinators, Vestal Said Fourteen have been hired within the last two years. Vestal said building infrastructure in state and regions is good for the organization in the long run, but it has contributed to a budget plateau that is putting a squeeze on the group's national and international ministries. “There is funding going to the state and regional levels that is no longer coming to the national level at least in undesignated [funds]," he said.

Finance chairman David Currie reported that over-all contributions to the national CBF are up 3.3 percent this fiscal year to date, totaling more than $7.8 million. The global mission offering is up 10 percent and a category of other gifts totaling $909,000 is up 15 percent said Currie. But undesignated gifts, the main portion of the Fellowship's spending plan, are down 1.6 percent from last year.

The Coordinating Council approved a proposed budget for 1999-2000 anticipating income 5 percent above this year's spending plan. The $15,575,712 budget proposal includes $669,530 in new dollars for priority needs identified in extensive discussions by Fellowship staff. Other identified needs will go unmet in 1999-2000 because of lack of funds, Vestal said. Funding all the priority needs would require an additional $2 million in undesignated receipts.

Its other business, the Coordinating Council voted to tap reserve funds to grant $50,000 next year to the independent newspaper Baptists Today. The 16-year-old paper, which nearly went under last year, has restructured its board, hired new staff, and been redesigned but still needs help with marketing, council members were told.

Approval of the grant passed by a clear majority on a voice vote, but several council members voted "No." "I am really struggling with this," Donna Forrestor, a council member from Greenville, S.C., said before the vote. "I have no reservations about the importance of Baptists Today in moderate life or in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in particular, but I do have concerns about taking one thing off the cutting-room floor and using precious reserve funds, when undesignated funds are down."

Currie said while the finance group supported the funding request, the Fellowship must stop dipping into reserves to fund projects. Last year the Coordinating Council used emergency funds to provide startup money for a new Christian lifestyle magazine, Faith-Works, published by Associated Baptist Press, another Fellowship "partner" organization. The Fellowship has about $1.3 million in emergency reserve funds, Currie said, far below the level it would need to operate in a financial crisis.

The 1999-2000 CBF budget will be recommended at the Fellowship's June 24-26 general assembly in Birmingham, AL. It projects expenditures of $9,823,572 for global missions; $2,065,226 for Baptist principles, which includes Fellowship-supported seminaries and divinity schools; and $1,602,000 for administration. Other main expenditures are $949,019 for communications, $585,648 for church resources, $367,987 for net-working, $117,199 for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Foundation, and $65,058 for reserves and CBF initiatives. [ABP. Bob Allen is associate editor of Associated Baptist Press.]