SBC Official Questions Wisdom of Public School 'Exit Strategy' Proposal
by Jim Brown
May 4, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The chairman of the Resolutions Committee for next month's Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is being careful not to throw his support behind the idea of developing a plan to remove Baptist children from public schools.
Members of the Resolutions Committee will begin meeting June 7, a week before the SBC meeting, to compile a list of proposed resolutions they deem relevant to this year's convention. One of the submitted proposals calls on the denomination to resolve to develop an "exit strategy" from the public schools, giving "particular attention to the needs of orphans, single parents, and the disadvantaged."
Resolutions Committee chairman T.C. French, the pastor of Jefferson Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, says he has yet to review the "exit strategy" resolution, but that the committee "dealt pretty carefully with" a similar issue last year and "presented a resolution that was passed by the Convention last year regarding that."
The measure French refers to is a resolution the SBC passed last year calling on churches to investigate whether their local school districts are involved in homosexual activism. For the upcoming meeting, he says the committee will look carefully at the new public schools-related proposal and "find out if it's a duplicate of what we did last year, or if it has any additional merit this year."
Personally, the SBC Resolutions Committee chair questions whether urging a church-wide exodus from all public schools across the U.S. is a wise idea. "I think that we have to look at each system," he says.
While some public school systems may have "gone totally secular and become anti-Christian," French observes, "I've seen some other systems that are sympathetic with the Christian faith. And as a result of that, I'm not sure that we can make a statement regarding all public school systems."
Although he is not sure the time has come to remove all Baptist children from U.S. public schools, French points out that he has so far received only a couple of resolutions. He feels the SBC dealt with the issues in the "exit strategy" proposal last year but says the Resolutions Committee will give each proposal submitted due consideration.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
