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Letter to the N. C. Baptist Convention An Open Letter to the Officers of the North Carolina Baptist State Convention: Since our founding in 1943, Myers Park Baptist Church has been a member of the North Carolina Baptist Convention. We have happily contributed both our members and our financial resources to the purposes of the Convention. While we have not always been in agreement with you (nor you with us), our differences were guided by a mutual respect and a spirit of fellowship. Last November, you amended the Convention’s Articles of Incorporation to provide for the exclusion of churches which are welcoming to gay and lesbian persons. We are most likely one of the churches you had in mind as no longer in “friendly cooperation” with the Convention. Exercising our freedom and responsibility to interpret scripture for our own faith and practice, we have said in our church covenant that as a “community of God’s new creation” we are “open to all and closed to none.” This includes a welcome to gay and lesbian persons who wish to follow Christ with us here, participate fully in our faith community, and serve as leaders in our church. According to your procedures, you will investigate us after you receive two complaints about us. The purpose of this letter is to inform you there is no need to wait upon the secret reports of others. We, with our 1,850 members serving as witnesses, hereby turn ourselves in. We believe strongly in the gospel’s power of transformation through experience. And so, before you take any action against us, we invite you to come visit us and get to know us this spring of 2007. Please come join us in all facets of our church life, including our worship, Christian education, mission outreach and all of the other activities of our congregation. We welcome the opportunity for dialogue with you. We fully acknowledge that it is within your authority as an autonomous Baptist body to determine whether we can be a part of your organization. At the same time, we recall that, according to the Convention’s Articles of Incorporation, the Convention is not set up to govern or exercise any authority over other Baptist bodies, but to assist churches in promoting missions, evangelism, education and social services (Articles IV and V). The effect of the amendment is to govern interpretation of the Bible by majority vote. We hope that a Baptist Convention operating in the spirit of the Baptist principles of soul competence, soul freedom and local church autonomy would provide for a wider range of scriptural interpretation than your decision indicates. We are also concerned about what other differences of scriptural interpretation the Convention might use in the future to exclude North Carolina churches. We, as you, are seeking to be faithful to God, as revealed to us in Christ. We have a long and important relationship with North Carolina Baptists. While we are not eager to see ties broken, we reaffirm Christ’s welcome to all persons and our commitment to being a healing witness in a world of divisions and a part of God’s dream to make all things one. So, we write this letter of personal invitation in the hope that you will wish to become better acquainted with us before we are extracted from the fellowship. “Come, let us reason together,” as the prophet said, and seek the Spirit of Christ in these matters. In Christ, The Board of Deacons .............................................................................................................. Letter to the N. C. Baptist Convention To the officers and messengers of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina: At last year’s Convention, the messengers adopted a resolution providing that any member church found to be welcoming and affirming to gay and lesbian members would be subject to removal from the Convention. Following that action, we, the board of deacons of Myers Park Baptist Church, wrote an open letter to the Convention affirming our status as a Baptist church that is “open to all and closed to none,” specifying that we welcome all people, including gay and lesbian people, to participate in our church as members, leaders and staff without restriction. We invited members of the Convention and its member churches to come visit Myers Park Baptist, to worship with us, and to get to know us and our members before any action is taken against us. We have not heard from any members or officers of the Convention in response to our declaration or our invitation. We feel the Convention’s failure to respond puts both our church and the Convention in an awkward situation: We clearly are in violation of the Convention’s recently adopted motion, and yet we are, for the time being, still a member of the Convention. As an active member church, we sent over $5000 this year to support the Baptist Children’s Home. As this year’s Convention approaches, we plan to send messengers to the Convention. At that time we would like to address these issues with the appropriate committee. Please advise us as to the most productive course. In the meantime, we would like to reaffirm our invitation to all the officers and members of the Convention to come visit us, worship with us and share in our community. We continue to believe strongly in the gospel’s power of transformation through experience, and welcome the opportunity for dialogue with you. Please let us know at your earliest convenience how the officers of the Convention would like to proceed in this matter. In Christ,
Nov. 12, 2007 letter delivered by Dr. Shoemaker » ...................................................................................................................... Church Forum and Update: On Sunday, November 18, church leadership invited the congregation to discuss and comment on the recent interaction with the N.C. Baptist Convention. Leaders and members read their letters to the convention, and several forum attendees addressed the group. The forum was recorded and is available here:
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