New Orleans' sole membership status moves toward vote at SBC in June

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) - Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in June will be asked to approve the corporate model known as sole membership for New Orleans Seminary. If approved, then messengers also will be asked to approve sole membership for the SBC Executive Committee.

The SBC Executive Committee, during its Feb. 22 meeting, passed separate recommendations asking messengers at this year's SBC annual meeting to approve amended charters for both the seminary and the Executive Committee. Executive Committee members passed both recommendations unanimously in voice votes.

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.

The seminary's trustees, in a meeting last October, approved sole membership but voted to express their reservations about the corporate model to SBC messengers. New Orleans Seminary officials say they are committed to the Southern Baptist Convention but have concerns about sole membership and want to seek other ways to clarify that the SBC owns the school.