The Cooperative Program and the Road to Serfdom

A Call for Southern Baptist Stewardship

The Cooperative Program has served to fund Southern Baptist operations since 1925. Unfortunately, the Cooperative Program is outmoded. To make matters worse, Cooperative Program monies are being used to fund initiatives, at a national level, that many Southern Baptist laypeople would find objectionable if they only knew about them. Cooperative Program giving arguably supports what has become a top-heavy, bureaucratic, politically-motivated, money-centered religiopolitical empire that is operated by a class of clerical elites who do not represent Southern Baptist interests at a grass roots label. A number of factors, the chief of which may be ignorance, allow the situation to persist. The existence of this problem situation calls for a review of the history of the Cooperative Program, a survey of Southern Baptist entities, an analysis of the economic effectiveness and efficiency of the Cooperative Program, a biblical reflection on Southern Baptist Stewardship and ecclesiology, and, most importantly, a solution and call to action. That is exactly what this book provides.