SBC 2022 Annual Meeting Preview
Next week, the Southern Baptist Convention will hold our Annual Meeting. On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of Southern Baptists will gather in Anaheim, California, to make decisions concerning the direction of the denomination. To the outside observer, the Annual Meeting of the SBC is often misunderstood. The SBC is unlike other denominations that are governed through hierarchical authority. The SBC is comprised of over 47,000 autonomous churches that have cooperated to advance global and North American missions, theological education, and other related ministries. We voluntarily associate and are bound together by our cooperative support of missions and our adherence to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which is our doctrinal statement.
Each cooperating church can send messengers (similar to a delegate) to the Annual Meeting. The ultimate authority and control of the convention rest with the messengers. There are many advantages to this governance structure, not the least of which is that the messengers can act contrary to the denominational leadership when corrective action is needed. However, the messenger model also means that our disagreements, deliberations, and discussions are all done publicly. In a world where many get their news from social media, these open debates often overshadow the actual decision of the messengers.
The SBC is facing some very challenging issues. The recommendations of the Sexual Abuse Task Force are particularly pressing. One of the frustrations I often hear about the Annual Meeting is that the convention did not do enough or moved too slowly. These are often accurate observations but unfair accusations. The SBC changes slowly, but this is the nature of a messenger-controlled denomination. The Southern Baptist Convention is the only denomination that has reversed its theological direction after a long period of drifting toward theological liberalism. This was able to be accomplished only because of our unique governance, where ultimate authority rests with the messengers. While this is to be celebrated, it also should be recognized that the change took nearly two decades to accomplish. The encouraging word here is that historically, the messengers to the SBC have gotten it right eventually. And even more encouraging is that the arguments that historically have swayed the opinion of the messengers are the ones that most closely align with biblical authority.
I have no doubt that at this year's meeting, the messengers will make decisions that will significantly change the SBC. However, I also know that not everything that needs to be accomplished will be accomplished this year. The work of the SBC is ongoing, and the debate about how best to carry out that work is also ongoing.
No one can predict what will transpire at an Annual Meeting. Any messenger can make a motion. Recommendations and decisions by convention leadership and committees can be rejected, overturned, and even removed from the committee's control and decided on the floor by the messengers. Likewise, nominations for the elected positions can be made by any messenger and need not be preannounced. Recognizing this reality, here are three issues that I think will be of significance this year.
1. Sexual Abuse Task Force Recommendations
At last year's Annual Meeting, the messengers rejected the Executive committee's proposal to proceed with an investigation, under their control, of how they have handled sexual abuse claims and created an independent task force to lead an independent investigation. The messengers at the 2021 Annual Meeting clearly saw a need for corrective action against the EC. Here is what I wrote about it after last year's meeting:
“I have struggled with what word is best to describe the mood of the messengers towards the executive committee. The first word I used was "rebuke," but I think that is too strong. So, I have settled on curtailment. There was a sense of uneasiness, or even distrust, with the executive committee. This was reflected in surprising rejections of some of their recommendations and decisions. The two issues that reflected this most dramatically were the rejection of a proposed business and financial plan that would have significantly increased the authority and power of the EC over other SBC entities and the creation of a task force to investigate the EC regarding their handling of sexual abuse claims. This second matter, according to standing convention rules, was going to be referred to and handled by the EC. However, messengers voted to consider the matter themselves and, by their action, removed the investigation from under the authority of the EC and created an independent task force to oversee the investigation."
The task force publicly released the report produced by the firm Guidepost that did the investigation on May 22, 2022. The report chronicled how members of the Executive Committee and EC staff mishandled and mistreated survivors, elevated avoiding potential liability above protecting the abused, intimidated and dismissed victims and their advocates, and used Baptist Press, the communications arm of the EC, to mischaracterize allegations of abuse and portray survivors as willing participants in their abuse. It was a heart-breaking report to read.
The task force was tasked with bringing recommendations in response to the report's findings to this year's Annual Meeting. They have made suggestions and requests concerning needed reforms to cooperating state conventions, SBC entities, and other related Baptist bodies. Because these entities and related conventions are controlled by their own trustees or messenger bodies, the Taskforce can only make requests for needed changes to these bodies. The task force also published two recommendations that will be considered by the messengers of the 2022 Annual Meeting. The first is to create an Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force that would continue the work of studying the recommendations from Guidepost and help implement reforms. The second is for the creation of a "Ministry Check" website that would be "a record of pastors, denominational workers, ministry employees, and volunteers who have at any time been credibly accused of sexual abuse and who have been or are associated with a cooperating Southern Baptist church or entity."
There will undoubtedly be debate over how to fund these recommendations and the details of creating and managing the "ministry check" list. Concerning putting names on the "ministry check" list, many have expressed significant concern about how "credibly accused" will be defined. These are legitimate concerns and will surely be a matter of debate concerning these recommendations. The difficulty I see is that the motivation of some who will resist these recommendations and general reforms related to sexual abuse are questioned. Many of the most vocal critics are also the ones who most vigorously opposed the independent investigation and participated in the systematic dismissal of abuse survivors' accusations. The difficulty and danger lie in that their motivation may be suspect, but their arguments may still have merit. I liken it to the curmudgeon church leader who does not want to do children or youth ministry. When new children and youth ministry proposals are made, they know better than to say they do not want to minister to these demographics, so they find other obstacles to present. They might say that insurance will not cover the liability, or the cost will be more than the church can absorb. It is easy to reject such objections outright because you know their real objection is the good and right ministry. But even when the motivation is malevolent, the raised concern still may have real merit and should be considered.
2. Officer elections
President
Robin Hadaway, Bart Barber, and Tom Ascol (Credit: Baptist Press)
The president of the SBC is elected to a one-year term and may serve two consecutive terms. The general practice is that incumbent presidents are unopposed for their second-year election. Ed Litton was elected as president last year but has chosen not to be nominated again, so again this year, we will have a presidential election. To date, there have been three candidates whose nominations have been announced. A candidate is not actually nominated until the nomination is made at the convention, and any messenger may nominate another messenger, so this number could expand or contract when the time for nominations comes. The three announced candidates are:
Tom Ascol, pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida, and President of the Founders Ministry
Bart Barber, Pastor of First Baptist Church Farmersville, Texas, and current chairman of the SBC Resolutions committee
Robin Hadaway, former International Mission Board missionary and professor of missions at Midwestern Baptist Seminary
Ascol, who is the candidate of the Conservative Baptist Network, explained his reason for being willing to be nominated by saying, "I love the SBC, and I think we've got so many good things going, but I think we've got some serious problems and those problems are largely subterranean. So, it's easy to not look at them or notice them, but if we don't deal with them, my fear is that five, 10 years from now, we're going to be looking back saying, "Man, I wish we'd have thought about some of these things."
Barber will be nominated by the Southern Baptist Convention Pastor's Conference president Matt Henslee. Barber said he was motivated to allow his nomination to go forward because of his concern for the SBC. He said, "I'm deeply concerned about what I think are some very unhealthy ways of talking with one another and about one another that are damaging our family of churches. There are ways that the broader culture is pushing into the way we're behaving as believers. And you know, I've been trying to make a difference in that without holding any kind of elected office. I've believed that you might have more of an impact without holding an elected office than you would have holding it, but circumstances being as they are this year, after saying no for a long time, prayerfully, I came to the point that I said, OK."
Hadaway will be nominated by former IMB missionary Wade Akins. When asked why he was willing to be nominated said, "I just felt that we needed to focus on the mission. Not that we haven't been focusing on the mission, but I just wanted to call out the called because I never thought about being a missionary when I was a student at Dallas Seminary and then at Southwestern."
Other contested elections are:
1st Vice President
Victor Chayasirisobhon is expected to be nominated by California pastor Abel Galvan. Chayasirisobhon is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Anaheim and is president of the California Southern Baptist Convention.
Brad Eubanks is expected to be nominated by Mississippi pastor Adam Wyatt. Eubanks is the pastor of Petal First Baptist Church of Mississippi and is a sexual abuse survivor.
Recording Secretary
Javier Chavez is the pastor of Amistad Cristiana Church in Gainesville, Georgia.
Nathan Finn is expected to be nominated by Texas pastor Bart Barber. Finn is the provost of North Greenville University and a native of Waycross and whose home church is Central Baptist Church.
David Roach is expected to be nominated by the director of missions leadership for the Cincinnati Area Baptist Association, Mark Snowden. Roach is the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.
3. Credentials Committee report
At the 2021 Annual Meeting, Saddleback Church, which well-known pastor Rick Warren pastors, was reported to the Credentials Committee, which is charged with deciding whether or not a church is in “friendly cooperation” with the convention. The issue of concern is the ordination of women who serve in staff positions at the church and use the title pastor. The committee is expected to report to the messengers their findings and could recommend that the church be removed from fellowship.
Final thoughts
I continue to be concerned and dismayed by the hostility that some Southern Baptists are given to in their public discourse. We Southern Baptists have always debated theological, doctoral, and polity issues with vigor and passion. Unfortunately, sometimes this passion has given way to vitriol and hostility. In last year's Annual Meeting preview blog post, I wrote that the SBC was experiencing real challenges to our cooperation. In that post, I wrote:
“The two things that Southern Baptists must agree on are cooperation in mission support and affirmation of the BFM 2000. Beyond these two things, we may differ greatly in style and form, but we can still have fellowship together. There are some in the SBC today who are pulling at the edges. Rather than lovingly cooperating in ministry with others who are in theological agreement but culturally or methodologically different, they choose instead to elevate cultural and political differences to issues of fellowship.”
These challenges remain. I have repeatedly been disappointed in some Southern Baptists who are quick to throw accusations at others but cry loudly that critical words about them are unfair, misrepresentative, and inaccurate.
I continue to believe that the cooperative missions effort of the SBC is unparalleled and would be near impossible to replicate. I continue to believe that the messenger-empowered governance of our denomination, even with all its shortcomings, remains the most effective. And I continue to believe that the SBC messengers will get it right - eventually.
Helpful links for messengers and observers of the annual meeting
Acts2 will be carrying the live stream of the Annual Meeting
