Making Waves in Missouri…

November 2nd, 2006 | Posted in » Baptist Issues

Well, the Missouri Baptist Convention held its annual meeting earlier this week, and as you can see from the following news stories, we’re apparently making some waves:

  • MBC delegates voted to kick 19 churches out of the convention due to their violation of rules requiring “single-alignment” with the Southern Baptist Convention. There’s a summary of the “single-alignment” rules on the MBC website. In a nutshell, any church that budgets funds for any national convention other than the SBC (with a few small exceptions) or state convention can no longer be part of the MBC.
  • MBC delegates also voted to threaten Wal-Mart with a boycott due to recent news of their affiliation with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, apparently following the lead of the SBC’s Disney boycott from a few years back.
  • Perhaps the most interesting news, though, came as a result of statements made by MBC Executive Director David Clippard in regard to Islam. Apparently, he stated that “Islam has a strategic plan to defeat and occupy America”, and pointed to the large Muslim population in Detroit as a first step in a city-by-city takeover. See coverage of his statements here (from the St. Louis Post) and here (from the Associated Baptist Press).

Now I was not at the convention meeting, so I can’t attest to whether the news coverage of these events accurately portrays what occurred. It will be very interesting to see what our state Baptists papers have to say.

For now? I’m not quite sure what to think.

3 Responses to “Making Waves in Missouri…”

  1. By micah on Nov 2, 2006

    I don’t know much about the second two issues, although I deplore the boycott idea, but the single alingment issue is particuarly stressful to me. After speaking to someone what we are both familiar with who was both at the meeting this week, and has also been involved with MO convention life for many years now, he shared with me that single alingment has been apart of the MBC policy since 1961 when it was organized to deal with SBC/ABC affiliations. The policy, as I understand it, was redefined this past year to exclude additional churches.

    IMO, this policy stands in stark contrast to historic SBC policy that allows churches to affiliate with the organizations of their choice.

    BTW, this one strikes close to home since one of the churches is in our association.

  2. By Gary Snowden on Nov 15, 2006

    A clarification is in order on the issue of single alignment. You state that the MBC kicked out 19 churches because they violated the policy of single alignment with the SBC. The SBC has no single alignment policy. It is the MBC and the MBC alone that has enacted bi-laws in their constitution to exclude any group that includes a rival state convention in their budget or sends messengers to the annual meeting of a rival state convention (read that as the BGCM or CBF of Missouri). Our church was one of the 19 that was excluded, but we are still in good standing with the SBC. The MBC is leading the pack in the battle to exclude folks who don’t toe the line with their political machinery. It has little or nothing to do with theology, notwithstanding all of the false accusations of heresy and liberalism that have been leveled against the other state organizations.

  3. By John on Nov 15, 2006

    Gary,

    Thanks for the clarification… my apologies for the confusion resulting from my wording. I am aware the policy of single alignment originates with the MBC and did not intend to convey otherwise. I meant simply that the MBC requires that their churches be aligned with the SBC rather than the CBF (or other national organizations), and with no other state conventions (such as the BGCM).

    I can’t begin to say that I understand the reasoning… from a layman’s perspective, it does all seem rather politically motivated.

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