Next week is Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s General Assembly, the annual gathering for those affiliated with moderate and progressive Baptist churches, the group that famously split with the SBC 25 years ago. 25 years ago CBF formed as the Baptist that supported women in ministry and upheld historic Baptist principles. Next week in the midst of the 25 year celebration, there will also be questions and conversation about the future of CBF.
Young Baptist are asking where there place is in an organization that is on the cusp of having its founders retire, but whose founders can’t quite retire because of lost income and retirement in the split. CBF is in a holding pattern waiting to land while the next generation of CBF looks up at the leadership circling overhead awaiting a chance to pilot CBF into their future. Part of that future has to include a conversation about whether CBF will remove its discriminatory hiring policy excluding members of the LGTBQ community from working at CBF. This conversation is even more important for supporters and allies of the LGTBQ community in light of the Orlando shooting.
In October of 2000, the Coordinating Council of the CBF adopted the following policy on homosexual behavior related to personnel and funding:
Because of this organizational value, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship does not allow for the expenditure of funds for organizations or causes that condone, advocate or affirm homosexual practice. Neither does this CBF organizational value allow for the purposeful hiring of a staff person or the sending of a missionary who is a practicing homosexual.
CBF’s stance barring openly gay people from working at CBF has caused some to boycott the CBF and others to question whether CBF will survive without changing this hiring policy. Those of us who have been told that they cannot work somewhere based on our gender or sexual orientation and not our qualifications, work experience, or education are anxiously waiting to see what CBF will decide.
Our hope is that we will not leave our annual meeting as our Methodist brothers and sisters did with the admonition to keep putting our lives and our very selves on hold.