A dispute between the Southern Baptist Convention and a global Baptist group may result in a split this week.
At issue is the Southern Baptist Convention's continuing membership in the Baptist World Alliance, an umbrella organization for the faith that it sees as too liberal. The convention's financial support of the world group is also at stake.
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is based in Nashville and has 16 million members, are holding their annual meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in Indianapolis. They have said the Baptist World Alliance espouses a "liberal theology" that threatens to infect the church in the United States.
The convention's leadership has been dominated since 1979 by conservatives who maintain, among other things, that the Bible as written is without error.
Another issue that may surface this week involves a call for Baptists to boycott United States public schools. A resolution circulated before the meeting says children in public schools are taught that "God is irrelevant" and that a homosexual lifestyle is acceptable. It suggests that home schooling or private religious schools are proper alternatives.
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention say the Baptist World Alliance has taken an increasingly anti-American tone. They have criticized it for supporting gay rights and the ordination of women, and for consorting with "socialist" figures, including President Fidel Castro of Cuba and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
The convention's executive committee approved the move to split from the alliance at a meeting in February, leaving a final decision to delegates at this week's meeting.
The committee's report said the alliance "no longer efficiently communicates to the unsaved a crystal clear gospel message that our Lord Jesus Christ is solely sufficient for salvation."
Billy Jang Kim, pastor of the 15,000-member Central Baptist Church in Suwon, South Korea, and president of the global alliance, is still trying to persuade the Southern Baptist Convention's leadership to abandon the proposal, the alliance's general secretary, Denton Lotz, said.
If there is a split, the alliance would lose $300,000 in yearly financing from the convention. But Mr. Lotz said in an interview: "We'll go on gloriously. We are not worried financially."
He said individual churches and groups of churches would make up for the lost money.
"The question for us is schism and division," Mr. Lotz said. "Our concern is about Baptists around the world."
He said that there were now 200,000 Baptists in Cuba, compared with 20,000 a few years ago, and that the Baptist World Alliance believed the future of the church was in such countries as Nigeria, the Congo, India and Brazil.
A committee will decide if the public school issue will be introduced for consideration at the annual meeting, although it could be brought up for discussion from the floor.