WACO—A Waco church that recently announced it will permit same-sex marriages voluntarily ended its relationship with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
University Baptist Church in Waco announced in mid-May it will allow its building to be used for same-sex weddings and grant its ministerial staff freedom to choose whether to perform LGBTQ marriages.
At the November 2016 BGCT annual meeting in Waco, Texas Baptists approved a motion establishing affirmation of same-sex marriage as grounds for declaring a church outside the bounds of cooperation with the state convention.
The BGCT Executive Board subsequently carried out that policy by declaring three churches—Lake Shore Baptist in Waco, First Baptist in Austin and Wilshire Baptist in Dallas—“outside of harmonious cooperation” with the BGCT.W
University Baptist did not press the issue with the BGCT but chose instead to “end the formal relationship peacefully,” Pastor Josh Carney said.
“We have been grateful for our partnership with the BGCT, but decided that since UBC developed a position that differs from that of the convention, it was in both parties’ best interest to end the formal relationship peacefully,” Carney wrote in a May 30 email.
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[Editor’s Note: This article was written by Ken Camp and first published (in its entirety at Baptist Standard]
