Church Breaks With Southern Baptists

A Baptist congregation has decided to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after years of unhappiness over the denomination’s increasingly conservative policies.

Members of Wake Forest Baptist Church voted in January to end its affiliation with the convention, but the congregation did not make the vote public until Tuesday because of recent publicity over its stand on same-sex ceremonies.

“We wanted the community to know where we stand,” said the Rev. Richard Groves, pastor of the congregation that meets on the Wake Forest University campus but is independent of the school.

Only one member voted against the split when about 100 members of the 325-member congregation voted, Groves said.

In a letter sent to the convention, the congregation leaders said they were unhappy over the church’s stand on women in ministry, targeting Jews and Mormons for evangelism, a literal interpretation of the Bible and isolation of congregations that reach out to gays and lesbians.

A resolution by the convention last summer calling in part for wives to “submit graciously” to their husbands sparked the formal break for Wake Forest Baptist.