LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee is recommending that the denomination sever ties with a prominent Texas church over homosexuality. 

If messengers to the convention's annual meeting, set for June 23-24 in Louisville, Ky., agree to the recommendation on Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, it will be the first time the SBC has ejected a church simply because denominational officials perceive that the congregation is in violation of a policy prohibiting affiliation with pro-gay churches.

At last year's SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis, Bill Sanderson, pastor of Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell, N.C., made a motion to declare Broadway not "in friendly cooperation" with the convention -- the SBC's constitutional language describing affiliation.

A work group of the Executive Committee met with church leaders Feb. 17 and asked for more information to clarify whether the church complies with an article in the SBC constitution banning churches that "act to affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior."

In late 2007 and early 2008, Broadway was embroiled in a controversy over whether to include photos of gay couples who are church members alongside other family portraits in a new church directory. The congregation eventually reached a compromise, agreeing not to family-by-family photos, but rather group and candid shots of all church members.

The controversy -- and others involving the leadership of then-pastor Brett Younger -- were highly publicized by bloggers as well as local and national media outlets. Sanderson made his motion for Broadway's ouster several months after the compromise vote.

Meeting on the eve of this year's convention, the full Executive Committee voted unanimously and without discussion to report to messengers June 23 that the church failed to "establish its compliance" with the membership requirement.

The committee recommended "that the cooperative relationship between the Convention and church cease, and that the church's messengers not be seated, until such time as the church unambiguously demonstrates its friendly cooperation with the convention" under the constitution's article on membership.

August Boto, the Executive Committee's executive vice president and general counsel, sent an April 21 letter to Broadway officials. It said members of the committee had received information from people with firsthand knowledge of the church showing "rather pointedly that there is a clear divergence between the prevalent views of the Convention on the topic and those of your church."

Boto said the church needed to respond to a series of questions about the church's stance on homosexuality in order to "protect the reputation of the Convention."

Broadway's deacons responded in a May 21 letter saying specific questions in Boto's letter were "the same rumors that were circulated about Broadway during the last year" and that after February's meeting, "We should not now have to respond to innuendo and gossip."

Broadway did not send any representatives to the June 22 Executive Committee meeting and did not elect messengers to the convention meeting. Lyn Robbins, the church's attorney, said he regrets the Executive Committee recommendation and hoped messengers would reject it.

"We do not believe Broadway Baptist Church has taken any action which would justify its being deemed not in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention," Robbins said, in an e-mail to an Associated Baptist Press reporter shortly after the Executive Committee reached its decision. "We trust the messengers, representing the local churches at the Convention, will take appropriate action to preserve the 125-year affiliation of Broadway Baptist Church with the SBC."

Established in 1882, Broadway's main affiliation these days is with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate breakaway group that formed in 1991. But the congregation was long prominent in Southern Baptist life, and a few church members still teach at nearby Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Southwestern requires its professors to belong to Southern Baptist churches.

The SBC changed its constitution in 1993 to exclude churches that are welcoming and affirming of gays. Previously the amendment was interpreted to apply only to churches that take some formal action, like ordaining or licensing a gay minister or conducting a ceremony to bless a same-sex union, but in 2006 an SBC-affiliated state convention with a similar policy said a church could be expelled for simply being perceived as affirming homosexual behavior.

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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous related ABP stories:

SBC Executive Committee postpones vote on ouster of Broadway Baptist (2/17)

Fort Worth congregation subject of latest Internet-fueled struggle (2/21/2008)

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