BGAV to send 50% of Cooperative Program funds to Southern Baptist Convention!

by T. C. Pinckney                                                                                       Vol. XII, No. 6, June/July 1999

Unfortunately the above headline, while correct, is NOT current. The one hundred and seventh annual session of the BGAV met in Roanoke 18-20 November 1930 and passed the recommendation of the Virginia Board of Missions and Education, which read in part:

“The Board of Missions and Education makes the following recommendations for 1931:

“1. That the goal for the Co-Operative Program be $800,000.

“2. That the division be on the basis of 50% to Southwide causes and 50% to State causes, and that the Convention’s part be sent to Nashville for distribution by the Executive Committee according to the percentages in the ‘Proposed Budget for the Southern Baptist Convention’ appearing at the end of this report.”

The above is found on p. 51 of the 1930 BGAV Annual. Adoption of the Committee’s report is recorded on p. 128.

How far the BGAV has strayed from the above standard of loyalty to the Southern Baptist Convention is demonstrated by contrasting the above 1930 approval of 50% to the SBC with current BGAV budget practice.

Today the BGAV has three budget tracks. The “default” track (i.e., if a church does not vote and instruct the state treasurer to apply its donations otherwise, that church contributes through the default track) is WM-2. In WM-2 only 12.5% of donations go to the SBC ... just one-fourth of the percentage approved for the 1931 budget. In the WM-1 track 36% goes to the SBC. And in the WM-3 track nothing at all goes to the SBC; all the money that goes to other than state causes goes to the CBF, the very liberal competitor to the SBC.

My, how things have changed.