NOBTS releases list of reservations; SBC lawyers say they are unfounded

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) - New Orleans Seminary has released a document approved by the executive committee of the seminary board expressing its reservations about adopting sole membership. Southern Baptist Convention attorneys say the concerns are unfounded.

In an October meeting, the seminary's trustees approved sole membership language and voted to express their reservations about the corporate model in writing by December, and to relate them to SBC messengers at the annual meeting in June, which will take place in Nashville. The executive committee of the seminary board now has approved the list of reservations as its formal statement on the matter.

During last year's annual meeting messengers passed a motion asking the seminary to adopt sole membership. Messengers must vote on whether to approve the recommended changes.

Sole membership is a corporate model that seeks to clarify in legal language - within each entity's charter - that the convention owns all of its entities.

New Orleans Seminary officials say they are committed to the Southern Baptist Convention but want to seek other ways to clarify that the SBC owns the school.

The New Orleans paper lists three major concerns about adopting sole membership:

• Sole membership is incompatible with Louisiana law.
• Adopting sole membership would increase the liability of the Southern Baptist Convention.
• Sole membership would violate Baptist polity.

"It is not the size of the step, but rather the direction of the step that causes concern," the paper states. "The centralization of control and authority will ultimately lead to a diminished voice for the messengers of the convention. A diminished voice of the messengers leads to a diminished voice of the local church."