This is the second time in two months that SBC leaders have invited BGCT leaders to sit down and discuss the issues. The first invitation was to participate in a public forum, the second in a small group discussion. The three who were invited to join SBC leaders Jimmy Draper, Al Mohler, and Paige Patterson were Charles Wade, Jim Denison, and David Currie. The public forum would have given Southern Baptists in Texas an opportunity to hear first-hand the issues that frame our common convictions and define our differences. Not one of the BGCT leaders replied to the invitation until just before September 21, when Ken Hemphill received a call from Charles Wade indicating that none of them would be coming.
Reconciliation requires two parties working together.
It would seem BGCT leaders have decided they have the votes in Corpus Christi to do as they please. Perhaps they are right. The churches still have time to send messengers to speak and vote against the proposed Texas-preferred budget for 2001. If the convention majority remains the same as in the most recent years, the partnership that God has blessed so wonderfully will dissolve from the pages of Southern Baptist history. If the Texas-preferred budget is adopted, it will represent a complete and total destruction of the historic partnership that has existed between the two conventions since 1928.