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Texas Baptists Expel Austin Church

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<i> Associated Press</i>

The Baptist General Convention of Texas has expelled an Austin church that actively supports homosexuals and has a gay deacon.

The convention’s 180-member executive board, meeting in Dallas this week, supported a motion to disassociate itself from the University Baptist Church.

Last month, convention officials learned that the church’s World Wide Web site mentions its affiliation with the convention.

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“We cannot approve of churches endorsing homosexual practice as biblically legitimate,” said Fort Worth Pastor Charles Davenport, head of the committee that drafted the motion.

The church has had a tenuous relationship with the convention since it ordained an openly gay deacon, Hans Venable, in 1994. The church sponsors and invites homosexuals to participate in Open Circle, a ministry for gays and lesbians.

The Texas Baptist Convention, which is controlled by moderates, has had a simmering dispute with the more conservative Southern Baptist Convention. Russell Dilday, president of the Texas group, denied that the vote was designed to placate conservative members threatening to break away.

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Executive board members insisted that their vote was not a condemnation of the church’s acceptance of homosexuals into its ministry and congregation.

“We commend the church for their ministry, and we feel that churches should minister [to homosexuals],” Davenport said. “But ministering to is different than an affirmation of, and we interpret [the church’s activities] to be an affirmation of.”

University Baptist Pastor Larry Bethune said he doesn’t understand the distinction.

“I don’t feel very commended as a church for our ministry to gays and lesbians today,” Bethune said after the vote. “The convention has an odd way of showing it.”

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