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Missouri Baptists expel 19 churches

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ The Missouri Baptist Convention has voted to oust 19 churches for donating money and having other ties to more moderate Baptist groups.

The unusual step is the largest expulsion of churches in the convention's history. It means those congregations will no longer be affiliated with the 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

"We do not enjoy this kind of thing," said the Rev. David Tolliver, of the Missouri Baptist Convention.

Most of the 19 churches had already distanced themselves from the Missouri Baptist Convention. But the expulsions were decided when delegates to an annual meeting of the convention voted Oct. 31 to bar any representatives of the 19 churches.

"I think in recent years the convention has attacked, defunded and excluded groups they can't control," said the Rev. Mike Shupert, pastor of the Cape Girardeau church. "They want to say, 'This is what you have to believe.' That's not the Baptist way."

Shupert said some of the roughly 150 congregants at his church had chosen to give money to what they deemed more moderate Baptist groups, the Atlanta-based Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Missouri.

The changes should not affect most congregants on a day-to-day basis at the 19 churches, but has meant the end to historic partnerships. Shupert said his church had a partnership with the Missouri Baptist Convention for more than 100 years.

http://www.mobaptist.org