CBF Annual Assembly

by    T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                                                          Vol. VII, No. 5, June 1994

The yearly General Assembly of the "Cooperative Baptist Fellowship" (CBF) met in Greensboro, NC, Thursday-Saturday, 5-7 May. There were several interesting aspects to this meeting.

Attendance: 1994 numbers were down from last year. 1993 registrants were reported to be 5,100 and maximum present for any one meeting as 7,000. This year several weeks prior to the meeting CBF'ers were unofficially projecting they might see a turnout of 10,000. In part that optimism may have sprung from the location: The 1993 site was Birmingham, not a particularly strong CBF area, while North Carolina and Virginia are the two most supportive states. Nevertheless, registrants in Greensboro were only 4,337.

The maximum number in attendance at any one session was variously reported. A platform spokesman announced 6000, but when a reporter asked coliseum officials his estimate, he replied, "Close to 5000." One observer counted every seat in each section of the coliseum set aside for CBF use: exactly 6,196 seats. Giving an estimate leaning in favor of the CBF, that observer estimated the Thursday night plenary session crowd at 4650, 75% of the seats.

Whatever the exact numbers, clearly this was not a high point for CBF supporters.

Friction: The CBF Coordinating Council met in conjunction with the Assembly. Dr. Cecil Sherman, national executive director, announced to the Council that he had hired a coordinator for CBF states west of the Mississippi at a salary of $84,000. Sherman explained that churches west of the river were not joining CBF as quickly as those in the east. He also said total giving from the west is down. Sherman hired the coordinator on his own without Council approval, in violation of their bylaws, and asked for Council confirmation. Sociologist Nancy Ammerman was reportedly very upset by Sherman's unilateral action and by the large salary.

Prospects: Both conservatives and moderate/liberals will ponder the implications of lower-than-expected attendance, Council friction, slow western accessions, and Sherman's report that donations were down in March. It is possible that CBF has peaked, but it is by no means certain.

Question: A number of seminars were held on various topics including: "Leading Churches to Make Difficult Choices," "Women in the Ministry and Empowering the Laity," and "What's Ahead for the WMU." Also, on Wednesday, the 4th, CBF sponsored (at a cost of $100 each) three day-long seminars. One was titled "Homosexuality in the Church" and was taught by Paul Duke, a Kansas City pastor and adjunct professor at Midwestern Seminary. Although tapes were available for purchase of most of the seminars, this one by Duke was not. One wonders, why not?

Armed Guards! Remember the furor raised by liberals a few years ago when the SBC Executive Committee hired off-duty, civilian-attired Nashville policemen as guards during a sensitive session and it was learned that according to NPD policy – though unknown to SBC executive committee members – they were carrying their weapons? Guess what! The CBF hired uniformed, armed Greensboro policemen to guard entrances to the main hall. Delicious!

Elections: Every election went as expected with no challenge to any nomination. [Does that sound like free Baptists to you?]

Identity: Cecil Sherman has said on numerous occasions in describing the CBF, "We are a missions delivery system. We are not a theology standardization organization." That rather amorphous mandate results in definitional problems which were reflected in the Coordinating Council's extended discussion of a draft CBF mission statement, vision for the future, and set of core values. A "visioning task force" will make another presentation sometime within the next year. Task force chairman John Tyler of Missouri said it could be 1996 before the final documents are implemented. At present the core values include: (1) exist primarily to serve local Baptist churches, (2) be "people-inclusive" and not intervene in God's work by imposing "arbitrarily derived human standards of acceptability," (3) value diversity, (4) disperse governing power among the constituents so that "no person or group of persons shall possess nominative or appointive powers that could prove harmful to our form of governance or destroy trust," and (5) value innovation and creativity.

[Editorial Comment: It is interesting that though CBF was formed in 1990, it has still not agreed upon a missions statement or core values. Also, the five draft core values summarized above are so broad (with the possible exception of number one) as to allow virtually any interpretation one wishes to place upon them. The whole question reminds one, "How can two walk together less they be agreed?" TCP]

The Big Question: The question both loyal Southern Baptists and CBF'ers have been waiting to hear addressed was raised but ambiguously answered. According to Ed Briggs in the Richmond Times-Dispatch of 7 May, Dr. Sherman said that "if the current direction of the ruling fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention does not change, the moderate-rich [?] body inevitably will become a separate denomination." [Quotes are of the newspaper article, not of Sherman's words.]

On another subject Briggs says Sherman "added that, while 98 percent of the members of the Fellowship disapprove of homosexual practices, the body will accept mission money from gay rights activists." [Editorial Comment: This last item certainly sounds like Sherman is saying one of two things: either money is more important than morality, or that CBF is going to take the wide gate and the broad way no matter what God's Word says (Matthew 7:14-15). Or perhaps he is saying both.]