The Southern Baptist Convention, which is the nation's largest Protestant and Evangelical denomination, has been down some rocky roads in recent years. After a disastrous statistical report released last week, the membership in the denomination's churches has now shrunk by just under 3 million in about a decade, with the majority of that loss coming over the past five years. Attendance is down, expected as a result of COVID restrictions, in spite of some bravado by anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers and denialists among the membership. But the total membership is a figure not affected by COVID, and that is tanking faster than just about any other church group in the country. Even some of the more rapidly deteriorating mainline denominations aren't going down that fast.
The convention will hold its annual meeting in June in Anaheim, California, right across the street from Disneyland, which it once boycotted because of its "pro-LGBTQ stance" reflected in days it holds at the park. It's met in Orlando a couple of times, too. But this time, there is a candidate for the denomination's presidency, which has appointive power, who represents a shift in the position of the denomination from what has been called the "Conservative Resurgence," to a more hard-line, Calvinist-inspired fundamentalism.
A Huge Issue Awaits, The Sex Abuse Task Force Report
Just prior to the outbreak of COVID, Southern Baptists were hit with an expose in the Houston Chronicle bringing to light hundreds of cases of sexual abuse involving Southern Baptist pastors, church staff members and even denominational employees. This had been going on for years, but the denominational leadership put off doing anything about it, claiming that its polity, which recognizes the independence and autonomy of its local church affiliates, does not permit it to intervene in local church affairs.
What was happening was that abusers were able to leave a church where there was a question about their behavior and move on to another church to abuse, since there was little communication between churches and many search and personnel committees were reluctant to disclose anything about which they weren't absolutely certain. The denominational headquarters, and the state convention bodies, do not ordain ministers and do not assign ministers to open church positions, that's left up to each local church.
The Chronicle found information on hundreds of cases across the country, and reported everything it could verify. I believe their series is available online without a paywall, at Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express: Abuse of Faith . Now, the convention meeting in June will have to deal with a full report, conducted by a group called Guidestone, commissioned by the task force appointed by SBC President Ed Litton.
I expect the report will have a major effect on the outcome of the denomination's election process.
Litton won the presidency in a close race last year opposite Mike Stone, a candidate run by an opposition group called "Conservative Baptist Network," bent on gaining the power to appoint trustee boards and committees that control denominational entities like the six seminaries and two mission boards. They claim that CRT and "liberal theology" has infiltrated the SBC and they're upset over the fact that one of the denominational executives, Russell Moore at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, was an outspoken never-Trumper. CBN thinks the SBC should be more aligned with right wing politics, and when Litton won, some within their ranks viciously attacked him on social media, claiming he "plagiarized" sermons in an attempt to force him to step down. He didn't, so the SBC is now facing another contested race for the Presidency when it meets in a few weeks in Anaheim.
The SBC is Looking More Like a Political Action Committee, Less Like a Christian Denomination
Tom Ascol, who is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, and executive director of a group called "Founder's Ministries," which has been sharply critical of SBC conservatives and their leadership and theology for at least two decades, if not more, is the preferred candidate of a group known as the "Conservative Baptist Network," a group of disgruntled pastors and church ministry leaders who accuse the SBC's current leadership of "going woke," and drifting into "liberalism." Ascol's blog sounds a lot like a peddler of conspiracy theories, and he's often been sharply and viciously critical of non-Calvinists in the denomination. The common thread that has drawn him into the mix with CBN is their affinity for Trump support and Trump-style politics in the SBC.
I never really paid much attention to the Calvinist-Non Calvinist debate in the SBC when I was a member of one of its churches. Calvinists were a minority, the few people I knew who were aware of Ascol's presence and blog didn't say much, and what they did say was nice but not favorable. And as much as CBN insists they are still in line with the "conservative vs. liberal" theological debate, claiming that liberals are now in control of the SBC, their rhetoric is almost purely political. They seem to think that if they say that enough, people will believe it in spite of an almost complete lack of evidence.
From the rhetoric of some of those connected with CBN, character assassination and false accusations are at the top of their list of tactics to attempt to win control of the SBC presidency and its appointive powers. They've learned well from one of their favorite politicians, the failed former President 45. At the heart of their accusations of "liberalism" and "wokeness" in the SBC is the fact that the former executive director of the Southern Baptists' public policy commission, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, was an outspoken never-Trumper. So the accusations of "wokeness" have been flying, nothing provable but truthfulness and integrity no longer seem to be Baptist values, at least among this segment of the SBC.
They've also become enraged over a resolution, a non-binding statement, passed by the SBC in 2019 on Critical Race Theory, which declares it incompatible with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, the denomination's doctrinal statement. The problem with the resolution is that the committee took out the inflammatory language and the false assumptions that the conservatives wanted in it before presenting it for passage.
The CBN faction nominated a candidate last year, a Georgia pastor named Mike Stone, who had been the interim president of the SBC's executive committee and who had launched two investigations of the ERLC and Moore. Stone lost on a second ballot after a third candidate was eliminated. After that, the social media network of Baptist conservatives engaged in character assassination of Ed Litton, the Alabama pastor who won the SBC presidency. They were determined to make a big enough stink to cause Litton to resign, so that Lee Brand, who was elected first vice president and was "their guy" would have those appointive powers. Litton stood his ground.
The Southern Baptists whom I know, and who I discuss this with on occasion, aren't quite sure exactly why CBN is gravitating toward Ascol, who is a polarizing figure because of his attitude and his narrow theological beliefs. A few pastors, of whom Ascol had been highly critical in the past, have signed on because of the politics, but there are others who seem to be strongly committed not to go down that road. With the convention being in Anaheim, a long way out west from the hotbeds of theological debate in the SBC, it's hard to tell whether there will be 15,000 messengers who show up, as they did in Nashville, or whether that will thin the ranks a bit.
On social media, twitter and a few other places where Southern Baptists get together and fight publicly with each other, Ascol has apparently already made some controversial tweets and comments that don't seem to be sitting well with a lot of his fellow Baptists. It's ridiculous, when you look at the facts and examine the rhetoric, to insist that the SBC is "going woke," or is "liberal." It's nothing of the sort, but CBN's leadership seems to think that those are catchwords that will resonate with messengers at the convention who are not smart enough to think for themselves.
CBN supporters are claiming that change is needed. But what's interesting about that is that on their webpage, they feature the names and photos of their steering council. Fully half of those listed there currently hold committee seats or board seats in SBC entities and some of them have a long list of both SBC and state convention leadership posts they've held. Their supporters are already in positions of power and influence and if that's the case, how is it that they are not held accountable for the liberalism and wokeness that they claim exists in the SBC?
It took a full decade for the "conservative resurgence," which began in 1979, to gain complete control of every committee and board in the SBC, so one or two years of someone like Ascol won't change much up front. The case CBN is making isn't nearly as strong, and it has little to do with either the authority of scripture or its interpretation, it's mostly connections to right wing secular politics that they seem to be pushing and the consensus of the blogs I read is that even if the CBN manages to win a spot here and there, they can't sustain it with the lack of substance they are pushing.
Southern Baptists Have an Image Problem and an Integrity Problem
The most recent data from the denomination's churches, released just a week or so ago, show the effects of COVID on attendance, down by a million from pre-covid levels. But a more disturbing figure, one which goes beyond COVID as a cause, is that the total membership of the I3 million member denomination, declined by 400,000 in just one year, bringing the losses over the past decade to just under 3 million from a peak of I6 million. More than half of that has occurred since 20I6.
The impact of the SATF report, due to be released May 22, will be significant. There are those within the denomination who expect that the information will confirm that things were far worse than imagined, and that this scandal will be equally as bad, and will be identified as having gone on as long, as the Catholic church's child abuse scandal. Denominational leaders in the SBC, where getting into a prominent position with some power and a nice salary package requires using influence, pulling strings and knowing who the kingmakers are, are about to face their biggest crisis.
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