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Southern Baptists in the early 20th century had a problem: Their various benevolent causes, including foreign and domestic missions, had uncoordinated fundraising campaigns that resulted in unpredictable revenue streams and hobbling debt. Although the SBC was denominational in many ways, its ministries also worked as a collection of independent “societies” whose growth was inconsistent and whose planning was uncorrelated. The desire of the churches was that the convention have a budget and a funding plan that would fairly provide for all the things they undertook. The result was the Cooperative Program. By this means churches contributed to a budget convention messengers approved for the support of missions, education, resource development, and other kingdom causes. The institutions our churches supported no longer operated like independent kingdoms that stood or fell based their relative success in fundraising.
To the degree that Baptists have taken a thorough, strategic view to address the Great Commission, CP has worked for the past 85 years. Yet the animated but dead idea of societal giving walks among us today. It has for years. Baptist groups that rejected cooperative giving decades ago now see the shortcomings of their own, more societal plan and admire ours. Some Southern Baptists have the opposite attitude?they see the shortcomings of cooperative giving and admire societal giving. It’s a common trait among people to admire what is foreign and despise what is familiar.
Our current focus on Cooperative Program as part of a larger Great Commission resurgence discussion has caused many to reexamine the what and how of our cooperative funding for missions. In fact, I’d say the discussion regarding the best way to support our common missionary causes is a primary point of contention among those who are committed to obeying our Lord’s Great Commission. Hear this please: the debate is not between those who are committed to reaching the world for Christ and those who are not; it is between those who favor one of two competing plans for funding that cause.
Retiring International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin has done us all a favor by candidly laying out the case for a renewed acceptance of societal missions funding in the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Rankin’s recent blog posts have spoken in favor of calling all designated giving to SBC causes “Cooperative Program,” and called concerns about a return to societal giving “paranoia.” OK, that’s one thing I’ve always respected about Jerry Rankin; he says what he means. Understanding that I see things from a different perspective, let’s consider the pros and cons of societal giving.
Pro: It’s the ultimate expression of local church decision-making. Churches can do as they wish, support only the closest seminary, support an orphanage overseas, form their own mission-sending strategy, give to causes that seem most effective and personal to them, give everything to a local association or network, whatever they like. That kind of local initiative is easy to get excited about. It’s a lot more work to stir up enthusiasm for ministry to people we can’t see or visit.
Con: As I said, it’s a lot more work to stir up enthusiasm for ministry to people we can’t see or visit. Difficult things are not necessarily bad. A virtue of cooperative missions is that we can support ministries beyond our own reach or imagination. If we dissipate our limited funds, manpower, and enthusiasm a nickel at a time for a seemingly endless number of good and worthy causes, we’ll tend to neglect important causes that may have less emotional appeal.
Pro: We’re already supporting many things societally. Dr. Rankin is right when he points out that many things we do, from renovations for the local Baptist camp to gift boxes for children at Christmas to Lottie Moon herself give a nod to societal giving. The fact that we do engage in some societal giving is a sure indicator of its appeal.
Con: I actually have no quarrel with this, except as noted earlier. We do it and it allows for church or community-specific ministries, causes that our denomination doesn’t and shouldn’t add to its wide span of ministries. It is up to church and denominational leadership if we are to let the fact that we raise money for orphans at Christmas grow into recommending that every church should design its own denominational budget.
Pro: Calling everything we give to SBC causes “Cooperative Program” would likely get more dollars on the mission field, at least the international mission field. Compare your church’s response to Lottie Moon with that to Annie Armstrong. Lottie has always been a more successful missions offering and that has accelerated in recent years. There is more of a tug toward exotic cultures and hundreds of millions who live in spiritual darkness. The IMB would be the undisputed winner if SBC agencies compete once again for missions dollars. That’s why you did not hear this idea championed by institutions or missionaries in new work areas. These brethren would be at a decided disadvantage if they had to compete for dollars in the region where dollars are plentiful and the perceived need for work in the West and North is so great.
Con: This is a short-term vision. It seems to assume that the decline of agencies that will not do as well in some kind of fundraising competition will not diminish our Great Commission work. Instead, I see a real possibility that the neglect of cooperative missions could result in today’s Bible Belt (the South) becoming more like yesterday’s Bible Belt (New England). Places already “reached” are the foundation of our work. And they tend to not stay reached without a lot of continued nurture. In the states where the first Baptist church, Christian universities, and fiery orthodox preachers were born, 90 percent or better of those populations do not attend church today. Even the places we consider adequately reached today were more reached 20 years ago. Places where Christianity was the most influential force in the community during the 18th century are now largely pagan.
I’ve not forgotten that funding God’s work is a matter of many parts, each with a will of its own. Individuals decide to what degree they will exercise biblical stewardship; most decide to do nothing. Churches decide if and how they will participate in funding a thorough mission strategy that goes beyond their own vision. State conventions get to choose what percentage of their undesignated gifts they’ll pass along for worldwide missions, and SBC agencies make a lot of decisions that reflect their own version of stewardship and focus. Autonomy gets more pronounced the closer one gets to the headwaters of missionary funding?churches and individuals are the ones who really decide how much money will be available and for what causes. But the decisions we make at that level eventually determine whether being a Southern Baptist church or person has any meaning. I can believe nearly all of what the Baptist Faith and Message says and be an Independent Baptist or a Bible Church member. Those good folks give to many of the same organizations that my church supports, but not the Cooperative Program.
“Designated Cooperative Program” is an oxymoron, historically and practically. By any name, attempting to fund our SBC work by a return to societal giving will give rise to a new set of problems more detrimental to our work than the flaws present in the current system. Regional and institutional loyalties would likely cause a heightened spirit of competition and resentment. Our convention is a national one now, different from the “southwide” SBC of the 1920s. A perceived disregard for new work areas of our country (and disregard wo
