Alma Hunt changes churches

                                                                                                             Vol. XVI, No. 2, February 2003

[Introduction: Below is the entire text of a release from Associated Baptist Press, the liberal press agency set up to compete with the SBC’s Baptist Press. TCP]

When First Baptist Church of Roanoke voted to join the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, 93-year-old Alma Hunt voted to leave it. "I didn't leave my church; it left me," said the legendary Southern Baptist missions leader, who "was born into the cradle roll of First Baptist Church in 1909.”

The church voted Jan. 8 to leave the Baptist General Association of Virginia and join the SBCV. The SBCV split from the BGAV in 1996.

Hunt joined Rosalind Hills Baptist Church in Roanoke the following Sunday, Jan.12. Rosalind Hills church is affiliated with the BGAV and allows it members to choose a giving plan for their contributions that could include the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Southern Baptist Convention, or both.

"I do not believe that the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia reflect traditional Baptist heritage and principles," said Hunt, who served as executive secretary of the SBC Woman's Missionary Union, 1948-74, and returned to Roanoke and First Baptist Church in 1985.

"I feel sorry for the people of the First Baptist Church who don't realize the changes that have taken place in Southern Baptist life," she said. "It is no longer the church that nurtured me, and I had to find a place where I could be a full-fledged member and support causes dear to my heart."

Hunt said the vote to join the SBCV, not Pastor James Austin, caused her to make the change. Austin succeeded Charles Fuller, long-time pastor and chairman of the former SBC Peace Committee. [ABP]

[Comment: Note that First, Roanoke, has severed ties with the state association that in its preferred (default) budget plan sends less that 10% of undesignated receipts to the SBC, and has joined a state convention that sends 50% of all undesignated receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention. Miss Hunt certainly has every right to join any church she wishes, and every Baptist church has the full right to align with whatever groups it prefers. Also, Miss Hunt is correct in referring to “the changes that have taken place in Southern Baptist life.” But if one compares the doctrinal positions of today’s Baptist General Association of Virginia and the SBCV with the doctrine of the SBC and the BGAV in the 1800's (remember that the SBC was formed in 1845) it is inescapably clear that the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia stands squarely upon the biblical doctrine of the historic SBC and BGAV. TCP]