Baptists meet amid conflicts

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. --Delegates at the Missouri Baptist Convention's annual meeting cut off funding to five rebellious agencies on Tuesday while moving toward a tighter alignment with the Southern Baptist Convention.

No churches have been ousted from the state organization at this meeting, as happened at last year's annual gathering when a 1,000-member congregation was forced out because it had withdrawn from the national Southern Baptist Convention.

But signs of the moderate-conservative divide that have roiled the state convention were evident as more than 2,200 people gathered for the first full day of the meeting.

On Tuesday, the delegates decided against funding next year the five agencies that defied the state convention by installing their own boards without getting the convention's approval of nominees.

Money budgeted last year for the agencies -- up to $2 million -- has been held in escrow as the state convention sought to reassert control.

The agencies are the Baptist Home, which has retirement homes in Ironton, Chillicothe and Ozark; the Missouri Baptist Foundation; the Windermere retreat center at Lake of the Ozarks; Word and Way, until this week the official newspaper of the convention; and Missouri Baptist University, located near St. Louis.