Belmont v. Tennessee Baptist Convention

The ongoing saga over the relationship between Belmont University and the Tennessee Baptist Convention continues. Belmont is one of three colleges supported financially by the Tennessee Baptist Convention. The other two are Union University and Carson-Newman. The disagreement between Belmont and the TBC is that Belmont wants to appoint its own board of Trustees rather than allowing the convention to elect them so that Belmont can appoint non-Baptist to its board. The action triggered a repayment clause with the TBC that requires Belmont to repay the TBC all monies it has received from the TBC since 1951. You can get a condensed history in this article.

Belmont has in fact elected new board members who are not members of a church affiliated with the TBC. The acromony has risen to where both Belmont and the TBC have written letters to member churches regarding their respective positions. Also, Belmont has issued subpoenas to the 100 largest churches in the convention seeking information related to donations made by those churches to the Southern Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program.

This has turned into a very unfortunate event where sister baptist institutions are in litigation against each other. I hope that it is resolved soon because it gives Southern Baptists a black eye.

Jerome