What the SBC Can Learn from Frank Herbert - Author of the Dune Books

“I mean to disturb you!” The Preacher shouted.  “it is my intention.  I come here to combat the fraud and illusion of your conventional, institutionalized religion.  As with all such religion, your institution moves toward cowardice, it moves toward mediocrity, inertia, and self-satisfaction.”  Quote from Frank Herbert’s The Children of Dune.

These words were written in 1976.  Perhaps Southern Baptists ought to take (have taken?) notice.

The convention is in trouble. 

The ERLC signed on to a brief before the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals written by the Thomas More Society that egregiously mangled the SBC’s polity.  Russell Moore, then ERLC president, shortly before the 2021 convention had two of his letters released (presumably at his request or at least with his sanction) having the intended effect of insuring Mike Stone would not be elected as SBC president.  In the meantime, Moore resigned from his post and never faced folks at the convention itself.  I don’t want to hear the word courage from Russell Moore’s pen or mouth ever again . . .

Ed Litton, our current president was caught in a plagiarism scandal of epic proportion.  It was so bad he or his church took down approximately 140 sermons that had been available for public consumption.  At least a couple of our seminary presidents actually condemned plagiarism but the ensuing and rather bizarre arguments from Litton supporters was, if not downright disturbing, certainly cause for concern.  Regardless of what kind of “guy” Ed Litton is, a secular head of any significant organization caught in this kind of scandal would have been pilloried by all concerned and forced to resign.  Instead, Ed Litton continues on, claiming he’s been forgiven.  As I’ve been taught repeatedly during my life: forgiven doesn’t mean no consequences.  The term tone-deaf  comes to mind when considering his unwillingness to resign.

The recent attorney client privilege waiver issue highlights another difficulty.  Although I think the motion to investigate the EC’s handling of sex abuse claims was poorly drafted and the concerns regarding waiver should have been more carefully vetted, that’s not the worst part of this matter.  The worst part is the smug, self-righteous, and sanctimonious demands from theologians who know nothing about legal matters with sloganeering like “what do you have to hide.”  The tenor of the comments from the holier-than-thou crowd sounded like a series of David French tweets.  One can actually be FOR helping sexual abuse victims while at the same time being FOR careful consideration of legal actions that could have unintended consequences.

This doesn’t even get into the many and myriad other matters facing the SBC.  There is, without question, a vein of wokeness infiltrating throughout.  Various leaders frequently take positions regarding race, poverty, and other social issues that sound more like garden-variety social justice talking points than biblical commands to be followed.  We’ve learned the Bible actually only “whispers” about sexual sin (despite passages like Romans 1:24 – 27).  We’re back to debating whether women can serve as pastors, despite the 2000 BFM and we’ve got high profile SBC personalities Beth Moore and Russell Moore (not related) making “noisy” exits from their SBC churches.  Even the estimable Dr. R. Albert Mohler is finding himself trying to navigate through perilous waters as his running for SBC president in 2021 compromised his ability (and willingness?) to discuss Ed Litton’s travails.  He did finally discuss this matter with words indicating he was quite troubled by it.  Add to this concerns about how NAMB is operating as it appears to allow church plants with women pastors, has encouraged at least one new plant to operate with SBC funding but without specifically identifying as SBC (I won’t name the church for reasons I may describe at another time), and it used funds to have Ed Litton essentially do campaign stops, as well as making sure NAMB personnel got to the Convention to attempt to get Litton elected as SBC president.  NAMB’s curious use of funding has been documented elsewhere, so I won’t say more now.

Here’s the fundamental problem.  Frank Herbert’s preacher is preaching to us.  Right now. Our institutions have become governed by money.  As a result, they’ve been corrupted.  Yes, I am aware things cost money and agree we should steward our resources wisely.  But we’ve lost our way.  Institutions have a way of becoming bureaucratic and bureaucracies have a way of creating turf and turf has to be protected and protection of turf often becomes paramount over any other virtue.

All around Southern Seminary’s campus are signs that say it’s about the truth.  I have to believe that means biblical truth first and foremost.  I’m aware of the mantra “all truth is God’s truth” but do we not hold that the Bible is primary truth?  In other words, to paraphrase Yoda from Star Wars fame, all truth flows from the Bible.  Yes, 1+1=2.  Yes, New Hampshire is closer to the North Pole than Florida.  But Genesis 1:1 says that God put all this together and John Chapter 1 and Colossians tell us that Jesus holds it together.  (I have a theory that Jesus IS gravity, but I’ll write another post sometime to talk about that one).

So, what now for the SBC?  Well we’ve become so thoroughly institutional in our handling of things that we’ve moved towards cowardice, mediocrity, inertia, and self-satisfaction.  We’ve become a corporate religion, filled with CEO’s who manage churches, and presidents and boards that manage our institutions. Don’t get me wrong, organizations require leadership. But 70+ people on the Executive Committee? Dozens on the boards of trustees for the seminaries?  When you have that many people you don’t get good decision making, you get inertia.  You avoid risk.  Group-think becomes the most likely result.  You become pragmatic and get dogmatic about being pragmatic.

Why did the EC attorney/client waiver caused such a dust up?  Because some on the EC had the actual nerve to push back and suggest this needed more of a look before rushing in.  Ironically, those who believe the need to investigate the EC handling of sex abuse is priority one in the SBC are actually those who have faith in the institutions.  Why do we trust some outside, secular organization to investigate a Christian group?  Because we have come to run the SBC the way the world runs things.  To venture outside of this programmatic methodology is to commit the sin of . . .  well the sin of not trusting . . . who?  The SBC President?  The EC president? Seminary presidents?  A theme starts recurring and it’s an extra-biblical one. 

The SBC is simply corporate America.  Oh, we’re not Facebook or Google but we care an awful lot about rules and about the watching world and about making sure the precious money train keeps a rollin’.  We care more about so-called “gospel issues” than we do about the gospel itself.  We pillory efforts like going door to door to talk with others as not practical or workable or meaningful.  What, as if NAMB spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on de facto parsonages is a meaningful means of spreading the gospel?  As the cartoon Pogo lamented many years ago: we have found the enemy and it is us.

The gospel appears to be something of a casualty in all this.  We have, I think, become a fully institutionalized religion.  It’s sad that Frank Herbert had a clearer understanding of reality than our SBC leaders.