c. 2000 Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM _ At least two Alabama Baptist churches are taking up a challenge from a fellow Baptist to help the state’s schools after churches played a key role in defeating an education lottery last year.

But not all in the denomination think that’s an appropriate idea.

Wayne Flynt, an Auburn University historian, issued the challenge earlier this summer in a column published on several Alabama newspaper editorial pages.

Flynt, a long-time critic of what he contends is a dysfunctional state government, said it’s time for Alabama’s evangelical Christians, who opposed Gov. Don Siegelman’s proposed lottery to support education, to “put their money where their mouths were.”

Flynt asked all 5,000 churches, synagogues and other religious institutions throughout Alabama to “voluntarily give up your tax exemption” to provide money for public schools.

Flynt’s own church, Auburn First Baptist, is leading the way. The church’s members have voted to give Auburn schools money equal to the church’s property tax assessment.

“Most of the anti-lottery leaders kept saying there was a better way to support public schools than the lottery,” Flynt said. “(But) in the ensuing six months since the lottery was defeated, I concluded that evangelicals were not going to do anything. I got tired of all the pious talking and no acting, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to call their bluff.

“Ours is a traditional, mainline Baptist church with money problems like most Baptist churches,” he added. “I figured, if we can do it, anybody can do it.”

Some other Alabama churches apparently are in agreement.

“Our church didn’t jump on the bandwagon to defeat the lottery,” said David Freeman, pastor at Weatherly Heights Baptist in Huntsville, Ala., “but a lot of Baptist churches did. Since that’s the case, we need to provide some alternative.”

The Auburn church’s action “shows that Baptists aren’t always against things,” Freeman said. “Sometimes we’re for things, and this is a way for us to say we’re pro-children, pro-education, and willing to do what is not required of us and voluntarily pay the education portion of our tax assessment.”

Freeman said the issue is already on the agenda for discussion in his church.

Dennis Wiles, pastor at Huntsville First Baptist, said his congregation is also giving a “positive” response to the plan.

“Both personally and as a Christian leader in Alabama, I opposed the lottery,” Wiles said, “but this gives us a chance to help the state of Alabama improve education. This is one opportunity for the church to invest itself in the lives of children.”

Flynt noted that “every tax assessor assesses religious property. They just don’t send the church a bill. You call your county tax assessor to find out the amount your church would pay to schools instead of taxes.”

In Auburn’s case, the total came to $4,662.

Flynt said getting the resolution passed in his church “took all the arguing and debating you find in most Baptist churches,” but in its final form the resolution passed, giving money to Auburn schools with “no strings attached.”

Flynt said response to the idea has been mixed.

“I’ve had a lot of letters and phone calls,” he said. “Some are denouncing our church. Others are supportive.”

Birmingham attorney Lenora Pate, one of the most vocal anti-lottery voices during Siegelman’s campaign to pass his lottery proposal last fall, said the plan is being discussed in her church.

She’s a member of Dawson Memorial Baptist in Birmingham, one of the largest congregations in the state. Pate has reserved praise for the idea.

“For a church to give up its tax exemption status is a wonderful thing,” Pate said, “but that’s just one piece. If a church doesn’t do that, it should not be an indictment of that church’s heart.”

Pate, who lost to Siegelman in the 1998 Democratic primary for governor, called the Auburn church’s contribution “a wonderful demonstration of the commitment of the men and women of faith in his (Flynt’s) church to education.”

But Dan Ireland, head of Alabama Citizens Action Program, a moral issues group based in Birmingham, warned against churches becoming involved in a state function.

Churches are to “deal with the spiritual and ethical condition of people,” Ireland said. “It is the function of government to come up with a fair and equitable and prudent tax structure to meet the needs. … Let the two roles remain separate.

“I don’t think churches will feel any obligation to do what some other church is doing,” he added.

Flynt said the religious community’s response will be “telling.”

“If only four or five respond positively,” he said, “it will send a real message of cynicism to people in Alabama that churches care more about their tax breaks than they do the education of 3- and 4-year-old children.”

DEA END LONG