North Carolina Baptists on damage control

The Greensboro News & Record had an article Sunday on the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and their efforts to keep themselves from falling apart, literally.

According to the article:

Unlike meetings of the past, when cultural issues such as affirming gay Christians morphed into high-profile, heated debates, this year’s Baptist State Convention of North Carolina will focus on the future of the convention itself.

Several of its banner institutions, including colleges, retirement homes and even its women’s missions, are severing traditional ties with the 1.2 million-member convention, the largest religious group in the state.

“The fear of being controlled is what’s driving these institutions to take these unusual steps of changing their relationships,” said the Rev. David Hughes of First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, a moderate in the largely conservative group that will convene in Greensboro on Monday.

The delegates, called messengers, will be asked to consider proposals that would allow the groups to continue to have a relationship — and perhaps continue to share, on a reduced scale, money given to the convention by its member churches. Because these are longtime Baptist institutions, the debate is likely to be heated.

You know…. if the Convention had focused on these very real problems a long time ago, instead of focusing on “the gays,” then perhaps they would be a lot better off right now.

Too bad the right-wing nut jobs who run the Convention are always fixated on homo sex. Maybe future years will bring some better focus where it belongs: Sustaining the organization, instead of religious bigotry and exclusion.

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Posted in Anti-LGBT, Greensboro, North Carolina, Religion, United States |