Southern Baptists are in a struggle for the heart and soul of our convention. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was founded to advance the mission of God, but the last decade has seen massive decline in baptisms, new church starts, Cooperative Program missions, and church attendance. It was the worst decade in our 175-year history. This dismal decade was caused in large measure by the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) adopted in 2010 and applied unwisely by NAMB in the following years. NAMB’s failing application of the GCR severely damaged cooperation and partnership. All records of the GCR deliberations have been sealed for all these years, preventing transparency and accountability for those who cooked up this plan which plunged the SBC into a dismal decade of decline. And more than decline, it created a toxic brew of destroyed partnership, damaged trust, and mission failure.
In addition to massive decline, the SBC suffers from scandals of abuse and corruption with no accountability for those responsible. Rest assured that accountability doesn’t just happen. It requires specific actions. Consider this sampling of questionable behavior:
1. Lifeway’s Trustee Board Chairman gave the outgoing President $1,000,000 without informing any other Trustee. Rather than conduct an independent investigation, Lifeway conducted an internal investigation in which they failed to hold anyone accountable for this action.
2. NAMB funds new churches and works closely with sponsoring churches that are in violation of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Credible stories have been reported, proven, and even admitted by NAMB. More stories will likely be forthcoming. How is this happening, and where is the accountability for Cooperative Program mission dollars being used to fund churches that violate the BF&M? EVERY church should know EXACTLY how EVERY mission dollar is spent. NAMB Trustees must hold leaders accountable for this. That is the job of a trustee.
3. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) filed an amicus brief in U.S. Federal Court in support of NAMB. In this important legal brief, they present an argument in direct violation of the SBC governing documents. Both the ERLC and NAMB are responsible for arguing that Southern Baptists are hierarchical, with all churches, associations and state conventions falling under the umbrella of the national SBC. This puts every church in the SBC at great risk as it can be used to argue for ascending and descending liability for all SBC affiliated churches and organizations. To this date, no individual has been held accountable for this most egregious and dangerous deception of U.S. Federal Courts, and the Presidents of NAMB and the ERLC have not publicly addressed this dangerous deception.
4. Since 2010 the NAMB church planting budget has grown from $23 million to $75 million, while new church starts have plummeted from about 1,300 annually to 552 in 2019. The lowest five years in church plants in our lifetimes are the last five years, with more than $300 million dollars spent by NAMB in five years to start less than 3,000 churches (hundreds of these churches receive no NAMB funding). NAMB provides no details as to how it spends its church planting budget, but we have learned that some churches receive six-figure grants. Some of these new churches have left the SBC and kept the money. The bottom line is there is no transparency or accountability for historically poor performance.
5. SBC entities frequently use Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) with departing staff in exchange for bonuses and benefits, preventing former staff from providing “disparaging” information. NDAs can be used to protect entities from accountability and this practice must end. What does it say about the SBC that many of our leaders use mission dollars to silence former staff, fearing they will expose damaging information about the entity or its leaders? Integrity does not fear transparency and accountability. Integrity demands these things.
6. The SBC Executive Committee (EC) receives funds from NAMB to pay for additional staff. The current President of the EC was the Chairman of the GCR Task Force which recommended cutting the EC budget. Now, ten years later, and wanting to expand the EC, NAMB is providing hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding. This is especially interesting when you know that NAMB eliminated joint funding for personnel in state conventions. Because the EC is charged with enforcing the SBC bylaws to which NAMB is subject, it is an important matter of transparency and accountability to know about this potential conflict-of-interest.
7. Sexual abuse scandals have brought shame on several Christian ministries in recent years. In some measure they have brought shame upon many of us through our apathy and delayed response to scandal. High profile leaders such as Ravi Zacharias, Jerry Falwell Jr, Bill Hybels and Carl Lentz are a few of the most recent examples. Southern Baptists have had our own problems as the Houston Chronicle reported in 2018. Just last month SBC President J.D. Greear announced that the church he serves as pastor, Summit Church, is hiring a third party to investigate Executive Pastor Bryan Loritts’ handling of sex abuse at a previous church. This follows an effort by Summit Church to conduct its own investigation, which it now admits was flawed. It is time for the SBC to cooperate with other ministries and denominations in establishing a database of sexual abusers. Moreover, investigations of sexual abuse should never be handled internally by a church or ministry. Accountability requires an outside investigation which includes legal authorities when the allegations involve possible violations of law. Moreover, in each of the cases mentioned above, the failure involved the trustees and governing boards of these ministries. The trustees failed to hold the leader accountable. This should be a warning to SBC Trustee Boards, and all Trustee Boards that serve Southern Baptists. It’s also important to remember that abuse comes in forms other than sexual abuse. Bullying and spiritual abuse require accountability as well.
Accountability doesn’t just happen. When SBC Trustee Boards act to protect leaders rather than hold leaders accountable the result is predictable and dangerous. The Annual Meeting in Nashville provides an opportunity to rescue the SBC from this spiraling path of decline and diminished trust while restoring the vibrancy of our cooperative mission’s system. This requires accountability.
Some believe the SBC President has little opportunity to create change because it takes ten years of appointments to change the trustee boards. While it’s true that it takes ten years to completely change the boards, the President sits on those boards and he sits on the Executive Committee. I will be an active President, requiring accountability from every SBC entity.
• Accountability happens when abuse and corruption are called out when it occurs.
• Accountability happens when forensic audits pierce the dark shroud that prevents budget details from being seen by the churches that provide the funds.
• Accountability happens through transparent processes that reveal EXACTLY how mission dollars are spent.
• Accountability happens when leaders will not stand for anything less.
The SBC President must represent the interests of the churches and the membership, not the interests of the SBC establishment. I have agreed to allow my name to be placed in nomination to serve as president of the SBC because I am determined to be an influence for change in the SBC. This is where I stand. The time to reform the system is now. We must move with urgency or the decade ahead may be darker still. The headwinds we face are real. But so is the opportunity to take a stand, to face the obstacles with feet forward and faith strong. What we see before us is not pretty, but we are called to live by faith not by sight. It is with faith in God that we must seize the opportunity for renewal and reform. For this work we must have courage, fearing nothing but God alone. If we do this, if we embrace transparency and accountability, and empower our churches through expanded participation, the next chapter in the story of the SBC can be as fruitful as any written in the 175 years of our history.
If you are in agreement with my call for transparency, accountability, and empowering every church through expanded participation in the SBC, please support my candidacy. Together we can bring change to the SBC.