If you caught my first write-up about the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) you'll be relieved to know that my return flight was uneventful and quite boring compared to my flight to the Convention. The Convention itself, on the other hand, was not boring at all.
First, let me just state what I love about the Southern Baptist Convention: I love the fact that it is like a giant family reunion where I get the chance to reconnect with people I haven't seen in many years.
While I was in Nashville, I had the chance to meet with two missionary "uncles" from my childhood in Ecuador, a few of my pastor friends from Georgia, and, randomly, I ran across two young men who used to be in my Children's Ministry when I was on staff at First Baptist Bentonville, AR. One of them is now a new pastor and the other has been on the mission field for several years. I love seeing and hearing how God is at work in the ministries and lives of people with whom my life has intersected over the years.
In regard to the Convention itself, in my article written before the Convention I anticipated 4 major areas of discussion and potential controversy. Those were:
1. The sexual abuse crisis
2. Critical Race Theory
3. Gender roles in the church
4. Transparency and accountability
I'll address these in the order in which I think they were most clearly and most definitively spoken to in Nashville. In doing so, this article will be longer than the first.
Messengers want more transparency and accountability from denominational leadership.
The messengers sent a loud and repeated message to the Executive Committee that business cannot go on as usual. For those who don't know what the Executive Committee is, let me try to explain.
The Executive Committee is an 86-member body that runs denominational affairs in between Annual Meetings of the SBC. The Executive Committee does not control or direct the activities of SBC agencies, rather it receives and distributes the monies Southern Baptists give in support of denominational ministries, acts as the recipient and trust agency for all Convention properties, and provides public relations and news services. To carry out these duties, the Committee employs an executive and support staff in its Nashville offices.
The Executive Committee has been under scrutiny lately for financial changes it was proposing and for its handling of the sexual abuse crisis. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the Executive Committee was taken out to the woodshed in Nashville. Not only was its proposed revision to the SBC’s Business and Financial Plan (which included the Committee's attempt to exercise more control over other SBC entities' money) overwhelming voted down, likewise its much touted "Vision 2025" five-point plan for the SBC's future was altered and added to by the messengers to better reflect what Southern Baptists want to see as the Convention's priorities. This included adding a sixth point calling for the SBC to strive to root out any instances of sexual abuse and racial discrimination in our churches.
And it was regarding the controversies surrounding the sexual abuse scandal that the Executive Committed received it harshest smack-down. After allegations were made and concerning audio surfaced insinuating that the Executive Committee had stalled and not taken seriously sexual abuse claims, the committee voted to hire an outside group to investigate, but the parameters, results, and reporting of that investigation would have been under the Executive Committee's exclusive control. The messengers, demonstrating their distrust in the Executive Committee's ability to police itself, overwhelmingly rejected that proposal and instead voted for a third-party investigation to be overseen by a task force to be chosen by the newly-elected president.
Overall, and not just in these aforementioned areas, the Executive Committee was given a strong admonition from the messengers that they want more accountability and transparency.
Messengers expressed unequivocal support for sexual abuse survivors and zero tolerance for any form of sexual abuse.
You can already see how the four major areas I outlined earlier intersect and so in addressing concerns about the Executive Committee the Convention also made strong statements about supporting sexual abuse survivors and rooting out sexual abusers from leadership in our churches.
To this point, the Convention passed a resolution calling for the permanent disqualification from the pastorate of those who have committed sexual abuse. This did receive some gentle and thoughtful pushback on the floor as some felt it left no room for grace, especially in the lives of those who may have committed some sexual sin prior to conversion. But like many of the resolutions and motions, the limited amount debate (more on that in a minute) meant that those concerns were easily swept aside and the resolution passed overwhelmingly.
So, the Convention's will on the two issues of sexual abuse and Executive Committee accountability, was definitively communicated and saw very little resistance. But the other two issues I mentioned outlined, Critical Race Theory and gender roles in the church, were not dealt with nearly as clearly or comprehensively.
Messengers chose not to talk about complementarianism.
Perhaps to some people's relief and others' dismay, gender roles in the church weren't even really a part of the conversation at this Convention.
The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is clearly a complementarian document, but the narrowness or expansiveness of that complementarianism is still up for debate.
It's clear the Convention doesn't seem to have the stomach for such a debate at this time. The only hint of controversy that emerged on this issue was the fact that the new president of the SBC, Ed Litton, apparently did a sermon series a while back on Song of Solomon in which his wife taught and preached alongside him from the stage. Links to the videos of the sermon series bounced around on social media, but it was not brought up during the Convention nor, apparently, did Ed Litton feel the need address it.
Ed did commit to a complementarian position in a pre-convention interview with Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, but the video leaves many feeling uneasy or confused. I personally believe that, in the years to come, complementarianism will be a continually resurfacing issue that will increasingly create tensions in the SBC. But most people believe that the biggest threat for future problems rests with Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Messengers don't know what to do with Critical Race Theory.
The convention passed a strongly-worded resolution (Resolution 2) that pushed for racial reconciliation while rejecting worldly systems and philosophies in pursuit of goal, but it did not specifically mention CRT. Resolution 2, by anyone's account, is a better resolution than the infamous Resolution 9 passed in 2019 but its failure to clearly reject CRT upset some.
There was a short debate on the floor about amending the resolution to include language about CRT, but the debate was cut short when a messenger "called for the question," meaning he moving to stop debate and have the messengers vote on the question to amend. His motion received the two-thirds vote necessary and so debate was shut down and a majority of the messengers then voted in the affirmative for the unamended Resolution 2.
What this showed me was that the messengers did not have the will to have a debate about CRT and instead were happy to attempt to address CRT via Resolution 2 without actually mentioning it. Some saw this as a wise and peacemaking approach, but others felt that this was shortsighted and fainthearted. Time will tell if this was Solomon's call to cut the baby in half or not.
I'm afraid that despite good intentions, we have not seen the last of CRT. As one African-American brother said to me, "it seems like the Convention chose to punt the ball." Yes, they did. But I'm afraid it wasn't a 60-yard punt. It was more like a 10-yard shank off the side of the foot. I don't think the concerns over CRT are settled. Southern Baptist seem to be very clear that they want racial reconciliation, but heated debates about CRT and the extent of its danger and/or its usefulness in our churches will inevitably resurface.
The case for optimistic concern.
Overall, I left the Convention optimistic because there was as strong focus on evangelism, missions, and the gospel. I was also joyfully reminded of the big tent family that is Southern Baptist as we aim to agree on the essentials while agreeing to disagree on the non-essentials.
I'm also very glad that strong statements were made regarding sexual abuse, regarding accountability and transparency, and regarding racial reconciliation.
Another area of encouragement was the fact that I heard of the importance of associations to the future of the Convention mentioned over and over and in different settings. I sincerely believe that local networks of churches are going to be more important than large national entities in the decades ahead.
But I am also concerned about a few things:
I'm concerned that complementarianism has not been clearly defined in our denomination, leaving openings for confusion and friction.
I'm even more concerned that no real conversation is being had regarding CRT. It seems everyone in the Convention agrees that it must be subservient to the Scriptures, but those who see it as an existential threat and those who see it as a redeemable tool are not actually talking to each other. Instead they are "destroying" and "owning" straw men on social media while the average church goer watches with a mixture of confusion and disgust.
And that brings me to my final concern specific to the way this year's Convention was run. Namely, that on too many issues at the Convention there was no real and robust debate. On several motions and resolutions many people standing in line to express their thoughts were left frustrated as pre-set time limits expired or the question was called. Yet at least one entity president, who's allotted time for his entity's report had clearly passed, babbled on interminably to the great frustration of the weary messengers. It would have benefited everyone to hear a little less from the top and little more from the average messenger. The fact is that this year's schedule for the Convention had been truncated by design and in my opinion that was to our detriment.
If there is anything Southern Baptist need to be doing right now it is talking to each other and debating these important issues, but doing so in orderly fashion with charity and Christ-likeness. Intentionally or unintentionally shutting down Convention debate condemns these conversations to the purgatory of Twitter where the venom of asps is under everyone's lips.
To see all the resolutions passed at the SBC'21 click here.
To watch video from SBC'21 click here