Why Doesn't CBF Declare?

by   James C. Hefley                                                                                                                                         Vol. VI, No. 3, April 1993

SBC Executive Committee president Morris Chapman has called on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to display integrity by declaring itself an independent denomination.

Reverend Herschel Hobbs, former SBC president and chairman of the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message committee, who says he has been on neither side in the denominational controversy, addresses the CBF more bluntly: "Get in or get out."

So why doesn't the CBF declare itself a convention or denomination?

1. As members of a new denomination, they could no longer raise program funds as Southern Baptists.

2. Many would lose trustee positions and some might lose jobs in state and national convention agencies and institutions.

3. Relationships of CBF church and denominational professionals with the Annuity Board would be in question. The Annuity Board, according to its report in the 1992 SBC Annual, "is the custodian and trustee for various retirement and benefit plans of the Southern Baptist Convention."

4. In voting on affiliation with the new denomination, some churches would split. Declaration of a new denomination will prove painful. It isn't hard to understand why the CBF wants to continue as The Fellowship. Many Southern Baptists would prefer that they take a third option and return home.

[The above is reprinted by permission from the Indiana Baptist 19 January 1993. James Hefley is author of the five volumes titled The Truth in Crisis and of The Conservative Resurgence.]