I TRULY HOPE I AM WRONG.
This is the end
Beautiful friend, the end
This is the end
My only friend, the end.
The Doors
Church autonomy is not a unifying principle
Our present predicament in the
Southern Baptist Convention (“SBC”) is no different than that of the United
States culture. We lack a pre-eminent
guiding principle. Until we find one,
life in the SBC, like life in the United States, will remain fragmented,
disillusioned, distracted, and unbalanced.
I intend to talk about the inevitable break up of the Southern Baptist
Convention if we don’t do something immediately. The 2023 convention will be a watershed
moment.
Interestingly,
I don’t hear many people talking about our problems this way. The word de jure to describe us is “tribal”
but I think our so-called tribalism is a symptom, not a disease. Southern Baptists have never been the
monolith portrayed by our detractors nor by those who would keep it together. We are a theologically polyglot bunch who are
generally coalesced around two main themes: missions and church autonomy. When I finished my education at Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary, I had several non-SBC people ask me when I would
be assigned a church. I had to then
explain the wild, wild west nature of SBC ecclesiology (a fancy word for how
churches are organized). I have to find
my own church or start one. Most
churches in the western world follow the general pattern of the Roman Catholic
Church, with a top down authority structure.
While the Anglicans, Episcopals, Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians
operate a little differently than the Roman Catholics, the basic premise
remains similar: people at the top of the hierarchy make decisions that impact
which church gets what pastor. This is insufficient as a meaningful principle to maintain unity and fellowship. With this
in mind, a very brief history of the SBC will help provide some context.
A very brief and
basic history of the SBC
The SBC has
always operated in a congregationalist manner: members of individual churches
decide how that individual church will operate, what that individual church
believes, who that individual church will employ as its leadership, how that
individual church will divide its offerings and so forth. The SBC itself operates only as a means of
distributing funds through the Cooperative Program (known as the CP by many
Southern Baptists), which, at least initially, was a means of funding
missionaries. The basic idea made sense
enough: one church might not be able to afford to send a missionary by itself,
but many churches, banded together in this effort, could send many. Initially this allowed an otherwise loosely
related group of Baptist churches in the south to operate with one accord.[1] These churches never agreed on one,
specific confession of faith. The
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (started just a few years before the
Civil War) did have an “Abstract of Principles” to which its professors had to
agree in order to teach. This did not
bind a single church. In other words
from 1845 until 1925 (we’ll get to that in a moment) the SBC mostly operated as
a missionary sending organization with only one seminary for most of that time[2]
and with no over-arching or programmatic requirements, or even suggestions for
that matter, for its cooperating churches.
Those churches remained fully autonomous, cooperating partners in the
missionary venture.
In 1925 the
SBC created the first Baptist Faith and Message (“BFM”), a limited doctrinal
statement which coalesced around the 1833 New Hampshire Confession, making
minor modifications and adding some matters.
The historical milieu here is important, as there was a significant
shift on the American evangelical scene known as the Social Gospel and the 1925
BFM was, in part, an effort to make clear what Southern Baptists generally
believed in the face of this growing movement away from traditional orthodoxy
towards anti-supernaturalism. It was
originally intended to help bring northern and southern Baptist churches back
together under a single, confessional umbrella.
That part failed miserably. By
the way, unsurprisingly, not all Southern Baptists thought the 1925 BFM was a
good idea. Overarching creeds were never
close to the heart of American Baptists, as they seemed way too Roman
Catholicly. After all, why have a
reformation if you intend to degrade back to what was reformed?
The BFM was changed again in 1963
(the moderations here moved the BFM closer to what most Southern Baptists
likely believed at that time, particularly a more robust accent on the free
will of people to choose salvation).
Thirty-seven years later, in 2000, after the Conservative Resurgence (or
takeover, depending on which side you were on) the BFM was again modified. The changes reflected an effort to clarify
the complete truthfulness of Scripture and added some elements regarding social
matters that did not require discussion in 1963, particularly as relates to the
roles of men and women and homosexuality.
Now, here’s
the hot mess that has occurred. Churches
which referred to themselves as moderate continued to operate under the 1963
BFM but still continued giving to the SBC.
More theologically conservative churches tended to adopt the 2000
BFM. (A quick side note on this matter –
it has been the author’s experience that SBC churches which adhere to a more
theologically conservative view are very detailed about their beliefs whereas
less theologically conservative churches tend to have a generalized statement
about how they love everyone or something similar with little reference to the
Bible). In other words, while there was
a generalized unity when the 1925 and 1963 BFM’s were adopted, this was not so
with the 2000 BFM.
One might
argue the fissure within the SBC began long before 2000 and this would be
absolutely true. Even in 1963 there were
already concerns among some in the SBC that its seminaries were beginning to
drift towards theological liberalism.[3] But as a famous politician once said, loosely
quoting Scripture, a house divided cannot stand. The Conservative Resurgence was an effort to
radically re-orient the SBC back towards its more orthodox roots; particularly
toward an affirmation of biblical authority over any man made authority.
I am
personally aware of people who claimed Paige Patterson, one of the chief architects
of the Resurgence, was demonic. They
hated him passionately. I distinctly
remember a church meeting at which a person affiliated with the Baptist General
Assembly of Virginia actually claimed the 2000 BFM was, and this is a direct
quote “taking Jesus out of the Bible.”
In any event, many of the “moderate” Baptists created something they
called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) in 1991, which, at least in the
beginning, was referred to as merely adjunct to the SBC and not an alternative
or new denomination.[4] It has long since abandoned any connection to
or with the SBC.
Interestingly,
one of the cornerstones of CBF belief is autonomy: the autonomy of the believer
to interpret and apply Scripture and the autonomy of the local church. Adherents to these views often referred to them
as Baptist “distinctives” and claimed the SBC was eschewing them when it
created the 2000 BFM. Oddly enough, I
agree with them in what Baptists call the priesthood of believers – the idea
that no hierarchical structure is required for anyone who is a genuine
Christian to understand Scripture and to commune directly with God. That said,
I also believe that the Bible teaches that elders (or if you prefer, pastors, I
don’t care what you call it – gumdrops will work if it suits you) are to both
lead and guide the local church. It’s an
odd thing to claim you allow for private, autonomous, interpretation but then claim that this interpretation itself is somehow a guiding principle. That doesn’t work (and hasn’t worked for the
CBF) and isn’t biblical. We operate within the church context in order to correct each other when error arises. Why should the SBC as a group somehow minimize this principle?
Why the SBC will
split
When I
arrived in Louisville in 2011 to start my Master of Divinity degree at Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), all seemed reasonably well. Perhaps I was naïve (despite my advanced age of
48 and my occupation as a lawyer). The
SBC was, as much as might be called normal, united. There was the ongoing bickering about
Calvinism, but the raw truth is that all Southern Baptists are at minimum two
point Calvinists (total depravity and perseverance of the saints) and many also
accept some form of irresistible grace, even if they don’t call it that (think
of all the times you’ve heard people praying for God to intervene in someone’s
life so that the person would “accept” Christ).
However, as Dr. R Albert Mohler, Jr., president of SBTS liked to
suggest, Calvinism was an intramural matter.
On the whole, things seemed relatively calm and stable.
Under the
veneer of unity lay a torrent of, apparently, unresolved problems.
It turns out that we never really squared away the question of women pastors,
despite the 2000 BFM. The ongoing debate
seems to center around a distinction some make between preaching and the
pastoral office. Some have suggested
Southern Baptists ought to take a “to each his own” view of this debate while
proclaiming it’s not a fundamental issue because it’s divisive. Balderdash.
If it were not meaningful, the 2000 BFM would not have needed to make
any statement about it. Were Martin
Luther, Zwingli and Calvin divisive? Was
Spurgeon? Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones? How about we all go back and read Luke 12 to
understand the divisive nature of the gospel message? There are matters on which we took a stand in
the 2000 BFM because Southern Baptists were trying to speak clearly and
decisively precisely so there would be unity.
The idea of unity in diversity is a nice cheer, but it doesn’t
work. If we have significant differences
on doctrinal matters (even so-called “secondary” issues like women pastors) it
will inevitably create harmful division.
That’s why we have Presbyterians (many of whom plenty of Southern Baptists have meaningful
agreement with on core doctrines) and
Baptists worshiping at different churches.
In addition, despite the 1995 apology and ongoing and significant discussions, it turns out most Southern Baptists (or some large number) are allegedly racists in need of drastic correction. Enter in the now infamous Resolution 9 proclaiming critical race theory and intersectionality as mere analytical tools by which to examine Scripture and the Christian life. While I admit I’m not an expert on critical race theory and intersectionality, I know enough to recognize a Trojan Horse when I see one. Far from helping mend any fences that require mending, these ideas unleashed more and greater division than we’ve ever seen before.
Many white
Southern Baptists who, like me, were brought up by parents who insisted that
one look beyond skin color to the person’s underlying nature and character,
are, I believe, rightly offended when some of the leadership come out with
statements that suggest we’re all racists and need to repent. That’s like saying we’re all drug addicts, or
we’re all adulterers or we’re all . . . pick your sin. It simply is not true and it has caused an
equal and opposite reaction, as most such impudent pronouncements do.
The
currents within the SBC are like a mish-mash of undertow, maelstrom, and tide
all at once. The controversy concerning
sex abuse has taken on a life of its own; a recent president was caught up in a
scandalous plagiarism problem; Resolution 9 remains extant with no real
changes; and female pastors dot the landscape despite the 2000 BFM. Any one of these would be, as Jesus said,
sufficient for the day, but we’re dealing with them all at once. They’re all symptoms of the underlying
disease. We don't have a unifying principle.
Ed Litton’s
plagiarism problem represents a watershed moment. The SBC president clearly engaged in what
everyone now understands to have been ongoing plagiarism for a significant
period of time. That Dr. Litton didn’t
see the need or seem to have a desire to resign bespeaks of either a crushing
tone-deafness or stunning hubris.
Neither suits the office. To his
credit, I suppose, he bowed of serving the usual second term granted most
presidents. It points to the cowardice of many within the convention to treat this as somehow a minor matter or to fail to speak publicly about it. When we are insufficiently unified to agree (and some actually defended Litton's actions!) that plagiarism is a substantial moral and character issue, we've got a fundamental problem figuring out what exactly is supposed to be unifying us.
The dust up
regarding waiver of attorney client privilege among Executive Committee (EC for
short) members resulted in several EC members resigning, the EC president
resigning, and the long-time SBC law firm ending a roughly five decade long
relationship with the convention. This
didn’t go as planned and created its own firestorm when many who are typically
behind the pulpit suddenly decided they were legal eagles and took to social media
and other places to explain how attorney client privilege works, despite their
lack of a law degree or any meaningful understanding of such matters. As an attorney I could only shake my head - I tried to make suggestions to some but was typically disregarded because I'm a nobody within the SBC. Okay, but I wonder how many of these pulpit-based lawyers tell their dentist how to fix cavities or tell their surgeons how to operate on them? We can't be unified when people pretend (yes, pretend) they know things they don't. I don't follow someone as a leader because they know everything, I follow someone as a leader because they know what they know well and they find others to help them with what they don't know. I think that is often referred to as humility. We can't be unified when so many seem to think they can talk down even to people who actually, really, do know a bit more about something than they do. (I get this is a little personal for me and I don't want to act with hubris here. On the other hand, I am not a newby lawyer - been in practice since 1988 and I know a thing or two).
Those who long wanted some kind of
investigation of how the EC dealt with sex abuse claims among autonomous SBC
churches became a strange and semi-Quixotic charging at windmills which ended
in the Guidepost report. That document, it turns out, was a multi-million
dollar piece of nonsense that ended up resulting in at least two lawsuits against various
convention entities and entity employees. What exactly was the otherwise powerless EC
supposed to do about specific minsters or lay persons who committed sexual abuse
at autonomous SBC churches? Merely
“investigating” the EC, in itself, sends a mixed message about how the SBC
operates, as it, at least at some level, implies the truly powerless EC could
have done something other than disfellowship churches. It would be an odd thing to disfellowship a
church which fires a pastor or worker who has engaged in sexual abuse.[5] As we all know, the SBC and the EC simply
cannot fire a pastor. That’s just not
how this operation works. But we have NAMB and the ERLC signing on to a brief in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that could be used to claim the EC has precisely such authority. We can't be unified when institutions within the SBC are re-defining how the SBC operates.
Even if the EC sex abuse “scandal”
only slightly cracks the door open for plaintiff’s attorneys, that, along with
one judge who lets a case go beyond summary judgment, could end up having a
devastating impact on SBC finances.
However, I have been told by my betters within the SBC this kind of
thinking is harlotry at its worse – considering finances when lives are at
stake – how unspiritual. Yet, if the SBC
finds itself stunned by multi-million dollar judgments over and over and it
undermines the entire venture, what then?
What about all the missionaries who will become unemployed? What about
the mission fields no longer being plowed, planted, sewed, and watered? Do those lives not matter? Apparently not.
Women
pastors are beginning to be normalized in SBC churches. Almost universally
women pastors prove to be less orthodox and more theologically liberal than
their male counterparts. I don’t say this as an indictment but as an
observation. The oft quoted Galatians
3:28 as source material for women serving as pastors bends the verse from its
context into a pretextual pretzel. It’s
also puzzling that the same Paul who wrote those words is disparaged for his
words in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 by the same folks lauding him for Galatians
3:28. Even more puzzling is how
Colossians 3:11 never seems to come up in these discussions, even though it
makes the same argument as Galatians 3:28 just without the “neither male nor
female” part. Now we have one prominent pastor suggesting the Great Commission
somehow speaks to who can pastor churches, despite there being zero mention of
church order in that passage. For crying
out loud, even lawyers recognize the fundamental textual interpretive principle
that specific words govern general statements!! Moreover, there is a rather
bizarre distinction offered between “senior” pastor and pastor, yet the Bible
just refers to elders generically. In
other words, either you qualify as an elder or you don’t. Whether one elder serves as the superior or
not is unrelated to the question of qualification in the first place.
This is the end,
my friends
If you have
four horses all pulling in different directions, you can’t plow the field. In fact, you can’t accomplish anything. That’s where the SBC is right now. We have too many people pulling in different
directions for reasons that rarely overlap.
They’re focused on single “issues” as if the others either don’t matter
or carry so little weight as to be virtually meaningless. What then unfolds are variegated responses,
none of which satisfy.
For
instance, we have so-called discernment bloggers, who are sometimes quite
accurate in their observations, veering towards a sneering kind of analysis
they claim is biblical despite clear statements sprinkled throughout Scripture
about harnessing one’s tongue, or in this case, keyboard. Others defend the status quo with a
fierceness that borders on mere fandom rather than true Christian understanding
or thought. Still others try so hard to
placate all comers that they begin to descend into a Cream of Wheat kind of
theology – bland, modestly nourishing, but never offensive and certainly insufficient
for robust church vitality. Having been in SBC churches regularly since 1978 and
having served in a variety of positions, the most difficult problem is the
utter apathy of so many church members – they think theology and doctrine are
things the pastor does and, frankly, just don’t care. By the way, NO, I am not naming names because
it’s not important for my purposes here.
None of
these responses is biblical or helpful.
Arguing that sexual abuse or race relations or women pastors or LGBTQ
issues (which I haven’t even discussed) are THE issue all miss the point,
right? The point is that we are the
church – the body of Christ in its human representation. We are supposed to show others how to live
through our love for each other. This
does not mean we have universal agreement on every theological issue; it does
mean that we must have some baseline agreement on theological matters. We can’t remain in neutral and simply resort
to “church autonomy” as a basis for engagement with churches that operate on
very different theological planes. This
is a recipe for the very kind of disaster we’re seeing knocking down SBC’s
front door right now. Love doesn’t mean
I agree with you 100% of the time. I
love my wife dearly, but we don’t see eye to eye on everything. Yet, on the fundamentals, she and I agree on
everything. This has to be the same
within the SBC. The 2000 BFM was
supposed to do this very thing. It has
failed, apparently. We don’t even argue
in love. We veer towards condescension
of one sort or another or we try to bulldoze the other side or we wimp out with
weaselly nonsense about others being divisive when they point out
problems. Love doesn’t require we never
disagree or never misunderstand each other or even that we never sin against each
other. Rather, love demands clarity,
honesty, sufferance, forgiveness.
Unfortunately, It's the Money, Stupid
I suspect
much of the reason every faction desires to “stick it out” has much to do with
the money. Recall the 1992 presidential
campaign run by Bill Clinton: it’s the economy, stupid. Yes, the coarse lucre that drives the SBC bus
is really what much of the so-called theological puffery is about. Oh, sure, there are souls who really are
dedicated to their theological beliefs about race and women pastors and other
tangential but allegedly “gospel” matters.
But the folks in power within the SBC are concerned about what happens
to all that money, especially if things fall apart. Who will get what and why?
From Frank Herbert’s The Children of Dune: “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.” The SBC is
there – we are cowards with mediocre thinking, inert institutions, and
self-satisfied leaders who care more about turf than about the gospel. If we were otherwise, Ed Litton would have resigned
immediately, we would not be kowtowing to worldly ideas like critical race
theory and intersectionality, and we’d be standing firm on matters like women
in the pastorate and LGBTQ matters.[6]
Yes, I know there are some out there who are calling out
that we must return to biblical fidelity and must rid ourselves of these
travesties. I badly want to believe they
will find ways to keep the SBC from taking the path of least resistance
followed by the various main line denominations. Many of them now don’t even
care to offer biblical arguments justifying the sub-Christian garbage they dump
on their congregants. Yet, what I
frequently see from my SBC “betters” is genuflection to societal demands and
setting the rigging to sail with the cultural winds rather than a
serious-minded, soul inspiring, heart infusing stand for the gospel message
even when the Greeks think we’re foolish.
Worse, some of my SBC “betters” appear to me as nothing more than
grifters who like the power and money they control with little Christ-likeness
to be found.
Here is the final word I will offer: barring a supernatural intervention the SBC
will fracture within the next five to ten years and there will be massive and
devastating effects on many ordinary and decent people who work at seminaries
and other SBC institutions. We have no unifying principle to avoid this result
and without leaders who have the courage and the fortitude to demand it of us
we simply cannot persevere. I fear the
end of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” will be our final refrain (paraphrased
here):
This is how the SBC ends
This is how the SBC ends
This is how the SBC ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
[1] I am well aware the SBC started because of the split between Southern and Northern Baptists regarding whether Southern slave owners should be allowed to be missionaries and the impact that has had on the SBC. This reality, while it ought not be overlooked, has little to do with the current issues the SBC is facing.
[2]
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary were added to the SBC umbrella in 1908 and 1917 respectively. The Sunday School Board was started in 1891
to publish Sunday school literature. None of these entities told churches what to believe.
[3] This is not to be confused with political liberalism, although there are some points of commonality.
[4] At least this was my understanding – I could be mistaken. I suspect the CBF creators thought their views were much more prevalent than they turned out to be. It is an enormously smaller group than the SBC.
[5] I don’t know of a single person who supports the idea of continuing fellowship with a church that continues to keep a pastor or layperson who has admitted to or been convicted of sexual abuse. I suppose there might be some, but they’re certainly on the fringes.
[6] I know there are those within the SBC who think women can serve as pastors and cry “autonomy” when discussing it. The 2000 BFM language is plain. If the BFM language doesn’t matter, then why have it?
