The Southern Baptist Convention is Missing a Historic Opportunity to Shed Their White Supremacist Image

 SBC Executive Committee Misses Historic Opportunity to Heal Racial Division

The executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention is the entity which runs the denomination's business between its annual meetings.  Composed of 86 individuals from all of the various state convention bodies of the denomination, it is a powerful and influential group.  It takes a lot of back slapping and glad handing, or what my mother would call "schmoozing," to even get nominated to serve on the committee.  Once there, the opportunity to control the direction of what is the "largest Protestant denomination in the United States," is almost unlimited.  

It took a while, but the convention slowly tried to shed its racist image.  Resolutions were passed condemning slavery, repenting from past actions which endorsed the practice, partnering with a predominantly African American denomination in theological education and helping to support one of their theological schools, and eventually welcoming African American churches into the convention as full members.  Some African Americans were appointed to trustee boards of convention seminaries and mission boards, and a few were placed on the powerful Executive Committee.  

But to date, in the appointment of missionary personnel, faculty members at seminaries or employees at the denomination's publishing house in Nashville, Lifeway, the number of African Americans is lower than the percentage of their membership in the convention.  And no SBC entity, which includes six theological seminaries, two mission boards, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and Lifeway Christian Publishers, has ever hired a minority for a major leadership position.  

One Glass Ceiling Broken in 2012

Fred Luter, Pastor of the Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, was elected as President of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2012, and became the first African American to hold that office.  To his credit, during his term, he made sure that other African Americans who had been ignored or passed by when it came to trustee boards and committees in the denomination, were considered on their merits and appointed when they were qualified.  Being "qualified" for board and committee roles in the SBC isn't complicated.  Most of those who serve are pastors of churches, so it is for their perspective, not some high level of expertise, that they are selected.  So the excuse that had been used for years, that minorities would be chosen if they were equally qualified, wasn't the case.  

Looking at the educational background, professional history and expertise of 99% of the trustee board and committee positions in the SBC makes it clear that any ordinary church member is qualified for just about any position.  There are plenty of people who put themselves in a position to get their name considered.  It's usually done in exchange for favors or because some prominent pastor wants to "help out" a friend or a school chum.  

In spite of Luter's influence, as executive positions opened up in half a dozen Southern Baptist entities over half a decade, no minority candidates were selected, even though there were a few who did express an interest and asked for consideration from a search committee.  There were voices from within various parts of the denomination pointing this out, and noting that the old claim of considering minority candidates if they are equally qualified was a dodge, since a shroud of secrecy surrounded the selection process and search committees. 

These jobs do have some qualifications in terms of the profession, though most of them are administrative positions in which the staff does the technical work and the executive is their manager.  Most of those chosen over the past thirty years have been prominent, mega-church pastors who have connections to the inner circle of leadership of the gang that organized and carried out the "conservative resurgence."  The appointments Luter made during his two-year tenure were not enough to get a minority candidate in a position to be offered an executive job, in spite of the fact that the African American and Latino churches in the SBC are where the growth is occurring, as most white congregations die slow deaths.

A Historic Opportunity Arises

Tennessee pastor Willie McLaurin, an African American who was a member of the powerful Executive Committee, became the interim CEO of the committee when Ronnie Floyd, a long time convention insider and well connected Arkansas pastor who had been a leader in the long-term "conservative resurgence" was forced to resign because of tactics and actions he took, resisting the will of the convention body demanding accountability for a sexual abuse scandal that has plagued the SBC for a long time and about which they have only recently taken steps to handle. 

McLaurin has led the committee for eighteen months, through considerable controversy over the investigation into the abuse scandal, and multiple issues related to it.  He has proven, beyond any doubt, that he is as qualified as any Southern Baptist anywhere, for handling the responsibility and leadership of this position.  

But in the backward, quirky way that Southern Baptists do things, the first candidate for the job that the search committee produced was one of its own.  Jared Wellman, a pastor from Texas, who was the chairman of the Executive Committee and an ex-officio member of the search committee, suddenly resigned and shortly thereafter was announced as the search committee's recommendation for the job. For those not familiar with Southern Baptists, that might look like back door dealing and maneuvering and the work of a faction aiming to get "their guy" in the job because of his position on certain aspects of denominational politics.  For those familiar with the SBC, that's the way they do business.  Yes, I know it runs counter to ethical standards and Christian principles but in the SBC, when powerful people want something, none of that matters.  Jesus gets thrown under the bus, or out the window. 

But this time, whatever maneuvering or string pulling might have occurred to get Wellman in front of the Executive Committee for a vote, failed miserably.  Not only was the recommendation from the search committee voted down, it was overwhelmingly repudiated.  Only 31 of the 86 committee members voted in favor of hiring Wellman.  And in the aftermath of that vote on social media, one of the themes that emerged is disappointment that the search committee bypassed the interim CEO, Willie McLaurin, missing yet another opportunity to clear the record on the extent to which minorities are welcome in the denomination.  

This is not, in any way, considering a minority candidate because it's time to choose someone who is a minority.  There's no question McLaurin is qualified, since he has, for all intents and purposes, done the job as an interim for a year and a half, through some trying times.  I don't buy the argument that intentionally reversing discriminatory practices is either unbiblical, or is still discrimination.  Racism and discrimination are sins, and intentionally doing something to undo the results of sin is the right thing to do, something Jesus would do himself.  Those who resist this will bring out the name calling, the popular thing to label any effort to bring about racial equality now among this brand of far righters is that it's "Marxist."  Everything in the world they don't like is "Marxist."  

Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.  James 4:17

So it is possible that McLaurin will get another shot at the job.  After the failed recommendation, the search committee is disbanded, a new committee is selected and the process starts over again.  Whether a new committee would choose McLaurin or not, there's another chance for that to happen.  Of course, there are those from whom the screeches and screams are coming out, wailing about the fact that considering someone because they are a minority, and to "achieve diversity" is unbiblical, and wrong, and racist.  Being "unbiblical" is a regular excuse that comes from some Southern Baptists, though they can't support that claim by finding an actual scripture that teaches their claim.  

Because McLaurin is qualified, with at least 15 years of experience in a mission board executive position in a large state convention, along with the obligatory pastorate of a big church, the old argument that minorities would be equally considered if they were equally qualified, no longer justifies passing him by.  He would not be the first better qualified African American for a job that a less qualified white person got among SBC executive positions.  And that fact alone wrecks any claim made to the fact that making this deliberate choice is discriminatory or unbiblical.  Think whatever you want.  It's not that.

But...And It's a Big One

There is an element in the denomination that will resist any African American candidate for this position in any way they can.  Even the few minorities who have been assimilated into the white culture, and don't belong to predominantly African American churches will be resisted and the claim will be made that they aren't equally qualified.  But here's the reality.  Those who have served in this position in the past have not had any specific special qualifications or technical skills.  They came from the pastorates of churches.  McLaurin, in addition to pastoral experience, has some years of denominational service working on the staff of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, which made him more qualified for an executive position than Wellman, a pastor.  

But if the Southern Baptist Convention wants its resolutions and words to take on genuine meaning, it has the opportunity to demonstrate that by abandoning its provincial backwardness and making this happen.  It would be the right thing to do, in the face of what has been either deliberate or subtle racism since it became a denomination in 1945, and that can be supported Biblically.  In context.  Otherwise, for a denomination that has lost three million members in less than a decade, and is increasingly becoming irrelevant, will likely see the exit of another 10% of its churches, which are predominantly African American.  And failure to make this change will also send a message to the large group of Hispanics, who are also members, and who are underrepresented on committees and boards.

The Southern Baptist Convention was formed in 1845 when Baptist churches in several southern states separated from the Triennial Convention, which did not allow slave owners to serve as missionaries.  Disagreeing with that decision, and anticipating the eventual separation of southern states to form the Confederacy, delegates from churches met in Augusta, Georgia and formed their own denominational body.  Long after the Civil War, churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention discriminated against African Americans by restricting them from church membership.