Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 16, 1994                   TAG: 9411160136
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FEUDING FORCES BUDGET CUT FOR VA. SOUTHERN BAPTISTS

As a concrete expression of their disaffection with the Baptist General Association of Virginia, a number of conservative congregations "have severely cut their giving" to state causes, according to the state treasurer.

As a result, next year's budget - approved at the associational meeting at the Salem Civic Center - will be an even $15 million, down a half-million dollars from this year.

For the past few years, Treasurer Nathaniel Kellum reminded the delegates or "messengers," the state association has passed a budget slightly higher than the previous year's revenues with a challenge to congregations to fund the spending plan. Denominational offices, however, were required to operate at 10 to 15 percent below budget to ensure they wouldn't exceed revenue.

This year, Kellum said, it was time to adopt "a goal that is more realistic for planning."

Realism had another price as well.

The new budget provides an indirect penalty for those congregations - about two-thirds of which fall in the conservative camp - that don't make donations to world missions according to a formula.

A new "seminary scholarship fund" will get up to about $86,000, calculated according to this year's giving. That money will be available only to those students whose home churches give to a world missions plan that merges Southern Baptist and Virginia Baptist priorities. Based on this year's giving patterns, about 40 percent of the state's 1,551 congregations would be ineligible for the scholarships.

Several speakers complained that the conditions could unfairly penalize some seminarians who belong to churches that have been loyal supporters of Virginia Baptist causes. Nevertheless, efforts to eliminate the scholarship restrictions failed to get majority support from the 2,767 registered messengers.

Other scholarship money is available to seminarians regardless of their home churches` giving plans, officials said.

In his presidential address, the Rev. Ron Crawford of Richmond suggested that the current struggles inside state and national Southern Baptist bodies have "not been theological" but a movement "returning power to the local church."

Crawford said the transformation from an industrial to an information society with an "emphasis on power-sharing and decentralization" has affected religious institutions as it has affected politics and the economy.

He contended that no matter which side is nominally in control of state or national institutions, current structures dictate that those out of power will be "functionally ignored."

"We can no longer assume that Baptists are homogenous with regard to values, politics or social issues," Crawford said, and "we must make peace with diversity."

A new cooperative system "that recognizes our differences and respects theological diversity" must be created to "minister into the 21st century," he said.