81.3%     86.7%     81.65%   81.65%   74.08%   74.08%   74.08%    55.73%    40.5%

Note the repeated decreases in SBC funding from this the “standard” or “default” BGAV budget plan. Can anyone examining the BGAV’s own budget data draw any conclusion other than that the BGAV is departing from the Southern Baptist Convention as fast as it dares? And understand that the figure of 40.5% in the 1999 column does NOT mean that 40.5% of all Cooperative Program funds given under WM-2 go to the SBC. No, rather it is 40.5% of the 30% going out of state in WM-2. (.405 x .30 = .1215) From the 909 Virginia Baptist churches which participate in WM-2, only 12.15% of CP receipts goes to the SBC. Do your church members understand that?

At the November BGAV convention, pastor Stewart McCarter, Southside BC, Suffolk, asked messengers to bring to the floor for a vote a resolution he submitted affirming the Baptist Faith and Message statement and the family life amendment added by SBC messengers last June. His request failed by a wide margin, according to the report in The Religious Herald.

Also at the meeting messengers received a fairly good statement on homosexuality presented by the convention’s Christian Life Committee. Messengers “commended” the report to churches. But there was opposition to doing so. Wanda Burton-Crutchfield, pastor of Menokin BC, Warsaw, said, “I do not hold that homosexuality is morally wrong. I would urge that we stop hurting our Christian brothers and sisters who are gay that are among us.” [last 2 paragraphs, The Religious Herald, 19 November 1998]