Missouri Baptist Convention sues five organizations

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Baptist Convention has filed a lawsuit seeking to void the charters of five Baptist groups that are at odds with the convention.

The lawsuit filed in Cole County Circuit Court also asks a judge to declare that the five groups be accountable to the Missouri Baptist Convention and its executive board.

During its annual meeting in Cape Girardeau in October, the convention agreed to escrow funds for the five agencies named in the suit.

The 53-page lawsuit asks Judge Thomas Brown for injunctions blocking the groups from taking any actions or making any contracts without the convention's approval.

Case filed Tuesday

No hearing has been scheduled in the case, which was filed Tuesday.

Among the defendants in the lawsuit are Secretary of State Matt Blunt, the "Word and Way" newspaper; the Missouri Baptist Foundation; the Windermere Conference Center in Camden County; Missouri Baptist College in St. Louis County; and The Baptist Home in Ironton.

The groups named in the lawsuit filed charters with Blunt's office. The convention said it asked Blunt to strike amendments from the charters and Blunt declined.

In all five cases, the convention said, it had specific rights to operate and control the organizations, but those rights were broken by what it says were the organizations' illegal charter changes.

"I think there were some other ways that our disagreements might have been handled more productively," Bill Webb, editor of the "Word and Way," said Thursday.

Frank Shock, president of the Windermere Conference Center, said that officials were disappointed that the lawsuit was filed.

"Winderemere has always strived to serve all Missouri Baptists, and our mission remains unchanged," Shock said.

The lawsuit said the state convention's constitution requires it to elect or approve members of the governing board of each organization but that the five groups "tried to amend their charters in order to steal themselves away from convention governance.

"Their actions broke trust with Missouri Baptists who have given the money to build the institutions for all these years," the lawsuit says.

Conservative and moderate factions have struggled for control of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant Christian denomination, and those national battles have generated similar fights in many of the church's state conventions.

Conservatives generally have won the elections in national and many state organizations, including in Missouri for the last several years.

Elements of the debate include how literally the Bible is interpreted, the independence of individual congregations in the state and national structures and the role that women should have in church life.