[1]BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (BP)–Belmont University has subpoenaed 100 Tennessee Baptist Convention churches asking for information on gifts churches “made to the Cooperative Program between 1951 and 2005.”
Belmont trustee chairman Marty Dickens, in a letter apparently sent to all churches in the TBC, asked if “in making those gifts, the churches knew about or relied upon the 1951 document that is the focus of the Executive Board’s lawsuit against Belmont.”
The Baptist & Reflector, the convention’s newsjournal, obtained a list of subpoenaed churches and discovered that several of the churches on the list were not in existence in 1951 and at least one church reported no gifts through the Cooperative Program in 2005.
In his Jan. 3, Dickens wrote that Belmont is “not serving subpoenas on all of the affiliated churches of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Rather, we are serving them on the largest donors to the Cooperative Program because Cooperative Program funds are at the center of the Executive Board’s claims against us.”
Convention leaders responded to the Belmont leader in a three-page letter mailed to churches across the state Jan. 12.
The TBC response was signed by Executive Director James Porch and Clay Austin, pastor of First Baptist Church in Blountville and chairman of the convention’s Belmont Study Committee.
The letter by Porch and Austin noted, “During 2005 Belmont University acted to terminate its affiliated relationship with the Tennessee Baptist Convention through a charter change. The Executive Board and TBC did not want to have to initiate litigation against Belmont and, to that end, tried for many months to persuade Belmont to honor the promise it made to Tennessee Baptists in 1951.
“That promise, as many of you know, is memorialized in a written document, the Repayment Agreement, which was signed by a former president of Belmont,” the letter said.
Porch and Austin stated that the Repayment Agreement “contains a simple and clear promise from Belmont that it would repay all monies given to it by the Executive Board in the event that the TBC ever lost the right to elect the directors/trustees of Belmont.
“It does not take a lawyer to understand the promise made by Belmont in 1951 in the Repayment Agreement,” they wrote in the letter. “By steadfastly refusing to acknowledge, much less honor, its promise to us, Belmont, not the Executive Board or the Belmont Study Committee, forced this matter into the courthouse.”
In the Belmont letter, Dickens stated that the request for information was “necessitated by the lawsuit filed against Belmont by the Executive Board” and that “we do not wish this request to create a costly or burdensome task for the churches and do not believe that it will, but we have been informed by the Executive Board’s attorneys that they do not represent the churches. Unfortunately, this means that rather than seeking this information directly from the Executive Board, Belmont must request it from individual churches by sending them subpoenas.”
In response to that assertion, Porch and Austin noted that “the unfortunate reality is that the information sought by the subpoenas is irrelevant to the lawsuit. None of the churches are parties to the Repayment Agreement. Furthermore, the Executive Board is seeking repayment of Cooperative Program funds only, not funds contributed by churches directly to or for the benefit of Belmont.
“If a church decides to seek repayment from Belmont of any monies it contributed directly to or for the benefit of Belmont since 1951, then the information sought by Belmont pursuant to the subpoenas may become relevant for that cause of action.”
The letter from the TBC leaders also challenged an assertion that the request for information by Belmont from the subpoenaed churches will not be costly or “burdensome.”
“Mr. Dickens states that Belmont does ‘not wish’ for and does ‘not believe’ that its request will ‘create a costly or burdensome task for the churches.’
“If your church had few books and records since 1951, then responding to the subpoena should not be costly or burdensome. If, however, your church has extensive books and records for the period of time in question, then this could be a monumental task for your staff,” Porch and Austin wrote in the letter.
They noted that “at the very least, Belmont’s subpoena requires each church to conduct a review of its 55-plus years of books and records. The review task must be undertaken by each church staff even if no documents responsive to Belmont’s specific questions exist,” they wrote.
Porch and Austin also stated that it is “unfortunate” that Belmont made this “unreasonable demand” upon 100 TBC churches “even before receiving and reviewing the more than 30,000 pages from our books and records which the Executive Board will be providing to Belmont in response to discovery questions.
“In any event, we can say from experience that the review task alone will fully consume and exhaust the administrative staff of most, if not all, churches,” the TBC leaders wrote.
Belmont has requested that the churches receiving subpoenas mail their responses to the school’s attorneys by Feb. 15. TBC leaders informed churches in their letter that “since Belmont has chosen to utilize subpoenas, each of the 100 churches which received a subpoena is compelled by law to respond accordingly.”
In the Belmont letter, Dickens said university leaders “believed that a resolution of the disagreement between the Executive Board and the university could be reached within the Christian family without resorting to a secular court.”
“We regret the decision of the Executive Board to take this matter to court,” Dickens wrote. “We continue to desire to mediate this matter believing that this alternative is consistent with our faith.”
Porch and Austin noted in their response that “settlement of any disputed issue requires good faith by both parties. Even after the TBC rejected Belmont’s settlement offer during the special called meeting [of the convention] in May, Belmont did not return to the settlement table with a materially different proposal.
“In fact, the present value of Belmont’s ‘revised offer’ was less than the offer rejected by the convention. We did not view such as an act of good faith.”
Porch and Austin also observed that “Belmont, for whatever reason, has taken the position that unless the Executive Board agrees to Belmont’s settlement terms, then the Executive Board is the party which is being unreasonable and possibly even unbiblical.”
“In furtherance of this goal, Belmont wants everyone to view the legal proceedings as a desire on the part of the Executive Board for money. In reality, Belmont wants everyone to overlook the true purpose of the legal proceedings -— having Belmont honor its promise as set forth in the Repayment Agreement which was executed by the parties in 1951.”
Porch and Austin noted that aside from the burden Belmont has placed on the churches, “the most troubling element of Mr. Dickens’ letter” is the implication that the Executive Board “has acted in an un-Christian manner by resorting to a secular court” or that the Executive Board “has not been true to the faith.”
The TBC leaders described the Belmont Study Committee as comprised of 14 “dedicated, faithful, and committed Christian men, 10 of whom are pastors of vibrant, dynamic churches within our convention.”
They emphasized that the “ultimate decision to initiate legal proceedings was not made lightly or in contradiction to Scripture.”
The letter from the two TBC leaders said the legal action “is about integrity and honoring one’s word. For 55-plus years, Tennessee Baptists have been true to their word as set forth in the written Repayment Agreement signed in 1951.
“Belmont, unfortunately, cannot make such an assertion. In November 2005, Belmont chose to leave our Baptist family,” Porch and Austin wrote.
“Belmont was not kicked out, forced out, or put out of our family. Belmont chose to follow its own vision and to forsake the path paved by Tennessee Baptists for the last 55-plus years.
“Now, Belmont does not want to be true to its word as set forth in writing in the Repayment Agreement,” the letter said.
In the Belmont letter, Dickens concluded that the school looks “to the time when we can move forward together in a fraternal relationship that honors the Christian mission and character of Belmont and the Tennessee Baptist Convention.” He also pledged that Belmont will “continue to be a student-focused, Christian community of learning and service with a rich Baptist heritage that we will foster and nurture.”
Porch and Austin observed in their response that except for times when Belmont is communicating with Baptists, “references by Belmont to its Baptist roots, heritage, or anything else Baptist is conspicuously absent.”
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Lonnie Wilkey is editor of the Baptist & Reflector, newsjournal of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
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