Elected on a theme of working to restore unity in the Southern Baptist Convention, its new president, Ed Litton, senior pastor of Redemption Church, a two-campus congregation in suburban Mobile, Alabama, has himself become the object of controversy in what appears to be a conflict with real potential to split the denomination made up of 45,000 churches and approximately 14 million members.
Litton edged out Georgia pastor Mike Stone, a former chairman of the SBC's executive committee, the group responsible for handling convention business between annual meetings, on a second ballot for president, winning by about four percentage points of votes cast by the convention's delegates, called "messengers," at the annual meeting in early June. The first ballot had also included Dr. Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Randy Adams, executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention, one of the state affiliates of the SBC.
The four way race is unusual in SBC presidential races, at least it has been since a group known as the "Conservative Resurgence" began a deliberate effort to gain control of the convention and push it back toward its "conservative roots" starting in 1979. Since gaining complete control of the boards and committees by 1989, the resurgence oligarchy of leaders has simply named the person they desired to see as president, and the convention voted accordingly.
But the long standing oligarchy of Conservative Resurgence leaders, facing a series of issues and crises caused in part by their de-facto holding on to power, in part by attempts to cover up problems and protect their friends and fellow oligarchs, some of whom were rewarded with leadership of agencies or institutions because of their "loyalty" to the resurgence leadership, has been ill-equipped to handle what is now crashing down around them.
Staggering Membership Losses, Drops in Church Attendance and Decline in Baptisms
Baptisms, which are a measurable representation of evangelistic activity within the denomination, have been declining in number virtually every year since the conservative resurgence took over the SBC leadership. But the decline has been particularly sharp over the past 20 years, with the past five years being the worst since reconstruction ended in the 1870's. The number is now well below less than half of what it was at its peak.
Total church membership, along with resident membership, weekly worship attendance, Sunday school enrollment and just about every other measure of growth in the SBC has been in a steepening decline since 2000. That's disconcerting for a group of conservative leaders who have claimed that their prior growth, while other denominations were declining, was affirmation of the correctness of their conservative direction. Since peaking at just above 16 million, total membership has declined by 2 million, to just above the 14 million mark, with more than a million of those having left in just the last five years, over 400,000 between 2020 and 2021.
Average weekly worship attendance, which averages less than half of the total membership, has slipped below the 5 million mark, which is a decline of about a million in a decade, and about half a million during the past five years.
The Houston Chronicle's Expose of Clergy Sexual Abuse in Southern Baptist Churches
Problems with clergy sexual abuse among the pastors and staff of SBC churches, and including employees of its mission boards and other entities, have been simmering for a long time. But it took an expose by the Houston Chronicle, in 2017, to get the denominational leadership to respond. While some leaders, like recent past-president J. D. Greear and ERLC Director Russell Moore, have pushed for policies that would exclude churches hiring known sex offenders and have advocated for churches to engage in ministering to victims, others, including executive committee leadership, have dragged their feet. There is evidence they have tried to protect prominent leaders who have mishandled abuse cases.
Controversy over Resolution #9 From 2019 Regarding Critical Race Theory/Intersectionality
A controversy was kicked off by conspiracy theorists and extremist right wingers within the denomination over Critical Race Theory/Intersectionality. Falsely claiming that the teaching of CRT/I and the Black Liberation Theology of James Cone was "creeping" into the seminaries, a resolution full of inaccurate assertions and accusations was proposed during the 2019 SBC in Birmingham. Now known as "Resolution 9," the resolutions committee, which included two experts on CRT/I, drafted one which left out the inaccurate assertions and false statements but which clearly states that CRT/I is not compatible with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, and is an inadequate and ineffective means of dealing with systemic racism. Angry that the resolution did not underline the false assertions some on the right believe, a group known as the "Conservative Baptist Network" was organized for the purpose of campaigning to elect a candidate supportive of their perspective.
Resolution 9 is an excellent, accurate and fair representation of the SBC's position on Critical Race Theory. It makes it very clear that Southern Baptists see it as a flawed attempt at resolving an issue that falls short because it relies solely on human intellect and reason and excludes the transforming power of the gospel of Christ. It clarifies the limitations of its use. It should, since two of Southern Baptists foremost experts on CRT/I and Black Liberation Theology were on the committee.
But expertise, facts and truth are meaningless to white, Evangelical "Trumpies."
There's no doubt that the extreme right, or the "Trumpie right," is trying to turn CRT/I into a political issue in an attempt to dig out votes from white Evangelicals that they lost in 2020. And one of the ways they are doing this is to put out all kinds of misleading and inaccurate information about CRT/I, who supports it and what its means and ends are. If your information comes from a right wing source, particularly someone in the SBC who is sounding like an expert on it, you can count on it being completely distorted and inaccurate.
Still Stuck With the "Patterson Scandal"
The former President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Paige Patterson, who was considered one of the "architects" of the original "conservative resurgence" in the Southern Baptist Convention back in 1979, and who was dismissed from his position because of his mishandling of a sexual abuse issue on campus, left the seminary with some of its possessions, including official records from the president's office, items from the seminary-owned residence in which he lived, and a donor list which he has used to divert contributions from the school to his own foundation. Apparently he decided to make a "golden parachute" of his own since he didn't get one from the trustees when they were forced to dismiss him.
Will the SBC ever stop handing executive positions and their accompanying salaries and benefits as rewards for something else? Whatever good Patterson helped bring about by his leadership in the Conservative Resurgence was undone by his meddling in the SBC afterward, and by substandard, mediocre leadership at two seminaries. Being dismissed from a financially strapped, struggling, broken down Bible college is not qualification for moving into the presidency of one of the SBC's seminaries. The SBC and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary are paying a much bigger price for this mistake than it was worth.
A Victory For Conservatives, and a Loss For Conservatives
Yes, that's a correct heading.
Four candidates for the SBC presidency were nominated at the 2021 annual meeting. They included an unknown long-shot, Randy Adams, executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention, Alabama Pastor Ed Litton, Georgia Pastor Mike Stone who represented the "Conservative Baptist Network" and had served as the chair of the executive committee during the time it launched investigations of the ERLC and was covering up issues related to sexual abuse, and the "favorite" who had been in line for a while, Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mohler was one of the long-time, old-line oligarchs of the "Conservative Resurgence" who had missed a shot at the presidency previously because he had cancer.
After a first-ballot race in which Mohler finished third, Adams fourth, forced a run-off, Litton picked up about twice as many Mohler voters as Stone, and won the president's position. Litton is a theological conservative who didn't really represent a "constituency" except that many of those at the convention were concerned about letting an organized group pushing unfounded allegations and innuendo have control of the SBC presidency and thus, its trustee and board appointment process.
Even though Stone actually tallied the most votes on the first ballot, it should not be surprising that Litton edged him out. Virtually every issue that came to a ballot vote that was supported by the CBN was defeated, in some cases by large percentages, including the business plan that would have given the executive committee control over other boards of the other SBC entities. One of CBN's ongoing contentions is that "liberalism" is "creeping" back into the SBC, at the seminaries and into its entities. They tried to motivate messenger registration and attendance by claiming that current SBC leadership isn't hard enough on those who want to bring in "women preachers" or undo the denomination's complementarian perspective, which isn't true. They used CRT/I and twisted the clear perspective of messengers on Resolution 9 as more of their "proof." That may have actually gained them some traction, but not enough to elect their candidate. In the long run, the messengers at what was the largest convention annual meeting in over 20 years voted down the CBN agenda point by point. CBN came away with one powerless VP position. The convention even voted, from the floor, to replace CBN nominees on the executive committee eligible for second terms.
What's Really "Creeping Into" the Southern Baptist Convention
It's pretty clear actually. Secular politics. More precisely, secular, right wing, Trumpie politics. The tactics used by the more extremist group are a reflection of the lessons they have learned from their political inamorata. OK, maybe that's not a really accurate term, but I'll let it stand for now. You can see it in the tactics used to try to win a denominational presidency.
The attacks against the candidates running against the CBN endorsement were muted when compared to secular politics, but attacks are still attacks, and innuendo, statements taken out of context, misleading interpretations and unprovable, false allegations are still not what you expect from those attempting to gain leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention. Or are they now OK?
First of all, there have been several "attack blogs" which blend a fundamentalist theological perspective with an extremist, conspiracy-theory, Trumpie political position that have been attacking the SBC for a while now. Their inflammatory rhetoric, misleading and misquoted statements taken completely out of context and outright lies have increased since J. D. Greear was elected president of the SBC and since the 2019 convention re-elected him and passed resolution 9. These blogs took up the cause of the CBN, which, when criticized as a result, simply claimed they weren't part of their group. But they didn't take any steps to tell them to stop.
They have made assertions based solely on perception, without providing any substantiation, that sound like recycled conservative resurgence rhetoric from the 80's. You hear the terms "creeping liberalism," that advocacy for "women preachers" is increasing in the SBC and that CRT/I and Black Liberation Theology is "being taught" in the seminaries. In fact, it is being taught, but it is not being advocated, promoted or encouraged. Somehow, that difference, which makes all the difference in perception, has been left out by those pushing the CBN agenda.
Creeping "Trumpie-ism" (my term and I like it and am sticking with it) is evident in what's happened after the election. What they've done to the duly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention is, frankly, as bad as anything I've seen in secular politics.
Sermon-Gate
There are those among the CBN crowd who thought that by throwing around the "conservative" label, making standard unfounded accusations and casting suspicion on anything they didn't like would be a guaranteed win at a Southern Baptist convention annual meeting. It always seemed to work before. Not only did they not come away with the SBC presidency this time, but the business plan they supported, which would have made the executive board supreme over other entities and boards, was soundly and emphatically smacked down and beaten to the ground. They did manage to get a VP position as a consolation prize, but the identified CBN supporter in line for a second term on the executive committee was not re-nominated, another smackdown from the floor.
Southern Baptists are decidedly conservative, some times to a fault and to their own peril, since conservatism doesn't always equate with correct theology and doctrine or with political positions consistent with Christian principles. But they appear more inclined to avoid the misinformation, outright lies and misleading perceptions that are the modus operandi for Trumpie politics. The SBC has its fair share of Machiavellians, and at some other time on this blog, I will be more than willing to go there. For the most part, the rank and file, grass roots who have started to return to convention meetings, aren't big on deception and lying to get their way. So the convention didn't quite go the way the conservative network anticipated.
Instead of graciously acknowledging that a majority of messengers preferred not to give the presidency to Mike Stone, the process of digging up dirt on Ed Litton started even before the convention meeting. His church website was scoured for evidence of liberalism, though all they could come up with was some wording in a statement about the trinity.
Then they found the "borrowed sermons." Pastor Litton had preached a series in the book of Romans, borrowing the outlines and sermon illustrations from J. D. Greear. He got permission in advance, so it wasn't plagiarism, though there wasn't a specific acknowledgement in the sermon material of their origin. Should there have been? Maybe, though that wasn't stipulated. Is this a scandal of epic proportions? No, it isn't. But it is being used as a means to attack Ed Litton.
And there's the first big hint that the SBC isn't going to achieve the unity it claims to be seeking.
Liberalism isn't creeping into the SBC, but something far worse is creeping in and if the denomination doesn't figure out how to get it out, it will cause a fracture that will be far worse than the one predicted when the conservative resurgence gained control of the denomination almost four decades ago. Admiration for and support for a politician like Trump, who's lack of morals and character are the two things on which he has built his reputation has lead to some Christians using his tactics to get the secular, political results they want. Here, in the 2021 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, is an example to prove this contention.
Do you think it is a coincidence that half a million people have left the Southern Baptist churches they once belonged to during the past four years? You can't serve two masters. And if one of them has no respect for marriage, no commitment, cannot open his mouth without uttering a lie, and believes the ends justifies the means, then you'd better be serving the other one. It is that kind of attitude, and that way of thinking that motivated digging up dirt on Litton and trying to turn something that virtually every Southern Baptist pastor has done more than once into a wedge to try and force his resignation, or to provide themselves with justification for their own bad behavior. Is there more to come? Is this how the SBC wants to conduct its business?
Had Ed Litton not been elected president of the SBC, no one would have bothered with the fact that he borrowed a sermon series from someone else. They never would have looked. Their motives were not pure and what has resulted has only served to create further division among Southern Baptists. The fact of the matter is that there is not a pastor in the SBC who has not "borrowed" sermons or sermon material from someone else. And I mean none. And not all of them got permission to do it, either. We could have a long discussion here about whether a sermon is the work product of the preacher, or because the material is provided from scripture and the inspiration from God, is actually something much different and that human standards, like a copyright for example, don't really apply, but the fact of the matter is that Ed Litton did not plagiarize J. D. Greear's sermon series. He got permission to use it. End of story.
Unifying the SBC
The attacks on Ed Litton from the direction of the CBN are not pointing to any unity in the SBC any time soon. There are blogs and journals, tweets and other social media posts that indicate exactly the opposite is happening. There are indications that churches are no longer contributing to the Cooperative Program and that some are leaving or preparing to leave, giving ultimatums of what they think must happen, or they're threatening to go. And there are indications that CBN itself may become more than just a "network," at least, that can be discerned from the rhetoric that is floating around.
Clearly, they aren't going to unite under Litton's leadership, not that it was ever a possibility anyway, but when you look at some of the self-appointed leaders of this group, you don't find a lot of gracious submission, willing acknowledgement of mistakes and asking for forgiveness. The only reconciliation most of them would accept is on their terms. And it always comes with a price tag attached, mainly in handing out executive leadership positions with salaries and benefits to the key leaders of the movement.
For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
The presence of right-wing Trumpism will continue to be an obstacle to unity in the SBC. CRT/I is an outstanding example of this. The original resolution proposed at the convention in Birmingham in 2019 was full of inaccurate, untrue assertions and statements. The convention drafted a clean and accurate resolution that clearly disavows CRT/I based on accurate supporting information. The problem is the ignorance of those who insist that the resolution needs to contain the inaccuracies and false statements. Resolution 9 was acceptable to the vast majority of African American pastors and churches in the SBC. Adding in the right wing extremism is not acceptable and shouldn't be to anyone who actually knows about CRT/I and wants to be truthful. But the nature of Trumpie extremism is to subvert truth and replace it with oft-repeated lies.
Unity will be possible in the SBC when Trumpism is gone.
As a denomination that is made up of independent, autonomous churches, the SBC has to recognize local church autonomy and avoid the temptation to interpret doctrine and dictate theology beyond the essentials. There are some points deliberately left out of the BFM for that specific reason. In determining its' theology, the local church is not subject to ecclesiastical authority anywhere in scripture. While some people may not be happy with what another church believes, it's not any of their business to correct them. Are there some essentials? Of course. Christology and soteriology, no question about it. But I can tell you, from close observation, a lot of SBC congregations see the selective enforcement of the BFM as intrusive.
Will the SBC Split?
That's something that has been predicted in the past. The SBC has, in fact split and fragmented at various points over certain issues. The Landmark controversy of the mid-19th century produced a notable departure from the SBC which was a small denomination at the time. The "Conservative Resurgence" didn't exactly produce a genuine "split" as was predicted, but over time, as many as 5,000 of its congregations have distanced themselves by reducing or cutting their Cooperative Program giving, with over 3,000 of its churches joining with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which began as a group similar in scope to the CBN, except more moderate than the convention itself.
The likelihood of a split depends on the conservative network. If they're convinced of "creeping liberalism" or get enough people in their churches to believe it because they're saying it, it might result in churches withholding CP giving, or attempting to redirect it elsewhere. There are several levels of cooperation within the SBC and it is possible for churches to leave one and stay in another.
Looking at the size of the messenger turnout supporting CBN causes at the convention, it appears that their effort, which cost a considerable amount of money to fly Mike Stone around to speaking engagements, produce and maintain a website and social media presence, gather enough "Baptist big name" celebrities to endorse and put their picture on the site and rally churches to elect their messenger complements and get them to Nashville, a conservative split could conceivably represent as many as 5-7% of the churches in the convention. It looks like they got about 5,000 out of the 15,000 messengers to attend the convention from their effort, representative of no more than 2,500 churches, more than likely fewer than that. It's doubtful that there would be very many churches that didn't send messengers to the convention which would disengage themselves from the SBC over something like this So if there is a "split," it won't be a large one.
There are no "liberals" to split away from. The convention has been under solidly conservative leadership since 1979. There is no "liberalism" creeping in. I believe most church members and pastors wouldn't make a decision to leave the denomination without solid evidence that CRT/I is infiltrating seminaries and churches and that the leadership is theologically liberal and pushing for women pastors. There is no solid evidence of any of that.
On the other hand, there are some Southern Baptists who believe conspiracy theories, read "discernment blogs" and filter everything through their right wing political lens. Some will leave. I would venture to say that the SBC will be better off without them. They will only cause dissension and confusion if they stay. Truth and integrity should be the marks of a Christian denomination, not rumor and innuendo.
Author's Note: It has been more than a decade now since we (my wife and I) have been members of a church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. We were both raised in Southern Baptist churches, were involved in their missions programs, Sunday school, youth groups and we both graduated from state-convention related universities. Beyond that one of my graduate degrees is from one of the seminaries and the other is from another state-convention related university. We have been messengers to associational meetings, state conventions and to the SBC on behalf of our local church.
Our departure had more to do with what was happening at the local church level than in the denomination, though the political oligarchy that settled into the SBC following the consolidation of the power of the conservative resurgence was the wrong direction to go. The influence wielded by people who had either ingratiated themselves with the "architects" of the resurgence, or the "architects" themselves all seemed to be more interested in cashing in and enhancing their own resume than doing quality work in the jobs they grabbed for themselves based on their resurgence pedigree.
Ultimately, when we relocated to a different city, the automatic visit to the first SBC church we found didn't take place. We visited a congregation at the invitation of a neighbor and found a spiritual vitality and energy that we never experienced in a Southern Baptist congregation. It wasn't Pentecostal or Charismatic, but the worship was focused on having a spiritual encounter with God, inviting his presence into the middle of the worship so that every worship experience was transforming. There were a few doctrinal differences, particularly in regard to the working of the Holy Spirit, along with the expectation that each person in the church was called to ministry based on their spiritual giftedness. Decisions involving the business aspect of the congregation were made by consensus, not by majority rule or the will of a few dominant members.
The church was virtually free of conflict. It had no formal membership, people simply served as they were called. Other than their commitment to prayer, and the sensitivity around the spirit's movement, it is difficult to explain why it was such a different atmosphere. It was part of a theological and doctrinal tradition within the broader Christian tradition, but was not affiliated with a denomination. It had no paid staff, it had five pastors who were responsible for various aspects of the church's ministry, two of whom shared the preaching responsibility and they had anywhere from ten to fifteen deacons and deaconesses at any given time. The tone of the ministry is servanthood.
To explain what is different from our days in Southern Baptist churches isn't really as easy as it may seem. The focus on the Holy Spirit is a major difference. Discernment is the main guiding force of the church. In the Baptist churches where we've been members, it was missing. In every Baptist church we belonged to, there were always people to whom decisions had to be deferred and who seemed to have control of the church and who, in most cases, were obstacles to the church fulfilling its mission and purpose. It would be hard to go back to that, I think.
The Southern Baptist Convention just repeats that model on a denominational scale. Frankly, we haven't missed it.
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