Settlement Talks Between Johnny Hunt, SBC, Fail
Johnny Hunt is Head of a Family Empire That Feeds Off the Southern Baptist Convention
A Long Standing, Good-Ole-Boy Practice Brought to you by Southern Baptists
The Southern Baptist Convention bills itself as America's largest Protestant, Evangelical denomination. Over the past decade, it has shrunk from a peak membership of 16.2 million, down to 12.8 million, caused, from its own perspective by "we don't really know," from outside perspectives, by a long drought in evangelistic activity caused by too much engagement in secular politics, and too much infighting among the big dawgs in the house over who gets to be the chief, and who must remain the rest of the tribe.
The structure of the denomination itself rests on the principle of local church autonomy. This is the idea that a denominational organization is not a biblically sanctioned structure, and therefore does not have any ecclesiastical authority, but is a voluntary structure based on the cooperation of its member congregations together, each of which is independent and autonomous with regard to its doctrine and theology, and who it calls to serve as its pastor. The "convention" is actually an annual, two day meeting where elected delegates from the individual churches, called "messengers," meet to handle the business matters of the denomination. An executive director with a small staff actually conducts the business, mainly financial coordination, which supports two mission boards, a publishing house, six theological seminaries and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, all supported by a funding mechanism known as the "Cooperative Program." It is based in a small headquarters building on the corner of Ninth Avenue and Commerce Street in downtown Nashville.
It has a democratic convention structure to facilitate business, which is the cooperation of its 45,000 or so local churches contributing funds to operate its entities, including supporting missionaries both overseas and in North America. But it is really a fief of a small group of individuals, mostly mega-church pastors sprinkled with some high powered business people and those who have the time, inclination and ability to be "influencers," or the more old fashioned term, "king-makers," facilitating the climb of some well-connected friends or relatives into high dollar, big salary denominational executive positions. It's a large denomination, but the group that runs the business, the messengers who attend the meetings, is small. A convention meeting rarely gathers more than 10,000, most run about 8,000 and 75% of them are the same people who come every year.
What winds up happening is that someone who works at it and finds a way to have their voice heard in the cliquish Baptist media, a collection of news journals operated by state-level denominational groups, can put themselves in position to gather, and use, a lot of power, focused on advancing their own career within the denomination, and resulting in a well-enhanced checkbook.
In the denomination's most recent history, two men, Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler, managed to turn themselves into denominational royalty and pillaged the convention to use it for their own ends. Patterson, to elevate himself from the administrator position at broken down Criswell College to become president of both Southeastern and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminaries, two of the six operated by the convention. The late Paul Pressler, a former Texas appeals court judge and Republican mover and shaker, to bring the denomination straight into the world of right wing extremist politics. Both were successful in achieving their goal. Both have since been disgraced and put out to pasture, Patterson for not handling sexual abuse accusations at both seminaries in a professional and Christian manner, Pressler for accusations of having been a gay sexual predator.
Having the Right Friends and Being in the Right Place at the Right Time
Being pastor of a megachurch is always a good launching pad for being an "influencer," i.e. a "good-ole-boy" in the Southern Baptist Convention. For some reason, there's a small group of these big shots in this Christian denomination who seem to love getting themselves on denominational boards and committees, where they can network to further their advantage. They're on so many different boards and committees, they have little time to actually pastor their own church.
Johnny Hunt was pastor of one of the largest churches in a denomination intoxicated by numbers. First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia, grew into this mega congregation under his pastoral leadership. After thirty-three years as pastor, and multiple terms of service in various places in the SBC, including being elected as its President twice, Hunt got a denominational job as a Senior Vice President at the North American Mission Board, which was convenient since he already lived in the Atlanta area, where it was located. He had previously served as one of NAMB's trustees, which helped land him the job.
As a result of his extensive contacts in the SBC, and his service as a pastor, Hunt had several side businesses, all connected to his pastorate and denominational service, that made him some money. He created a "ministry" which packaged and sold his sermons, since he was a speaker in demand. As a result of his speaking enterprise, he authored several books. This is all part of his corporate ministry.
His transition to NAMB came with more ties to his family businesses. Although NAMB does have a conflict of interest policy, much of Hunt's family income occurred while he was Senior VP at NAMB, and directed NAMB business into several of the "ministry" businesses operated by himself and his family, this while also drawing a hefty salary and benefits from NAMB. If you read the second linked article, you can see all of the complicated ties between Hunt's businesses, his family's businesses, to which he directed NAMB business.
So Why Sue the SBC?
Hunt became one of the names included in the Guidepost investigation and report into sexual abuse by pastors and church staff in the Southern Baptist Convention, released in May of 2022. The investigation, ordered by the messengers of a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in 2019 as the result of an expose into multiple cases of sexual abuse by pastors and church staff members of Southern Baptist churches published by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express News.
Initially, Hunt denied the accusations against him, but eventually admitted to them, and expressed sorrow and repentance. He organized a restoration process for himself, with four pastors who were close friends, and though he had resigned from his position at NAMB, returned to his speaking ministry and family businesses. The church he had pastored for 33 years, and where he was serving at the time the alleged sexual incident occurred, was not included in his restoration process.
Hunt eventually sued the Southern Baptist Convention in 2023, a denomination largely responsible for the prosperity of his personal business enterprises and his family's businesses. He charged the convention with defamation, for revealing information included in the Guidepost investigation.
Lawsuits against the convention related to the Guidepost investigation have resulted in the executive committee's decision to sell their office building in Nashville. I guess there's still a few more dollars left to squeeze out of the SBC for Hunt, and for a few others who have done the same as a result of the investigation.
The Apostle Paul makes it quite clear, in his first epistle to the church in Corinth, that lawsuits among Christians are ill-advised, because they set a poor example for the church, and he closes out that part of his narrative by saying, "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?"
What Does This Lawsuit, and Sexual Abuse Scandal, Say About the Southern Baptist Convention?
I don't know whether Johnny Hunt is guilty of the sexual "abuse" he was accused of, or whether his version of events is more accurate than that of his accuser. Megan Basham did not do him any favors by weighing in and "outing" the pastor's wife who was the alleged victim. Basham's total lack of credibility, and her butting into something that's none of her business gives a lot of weight to the honesty and credibility of the victim's version.
Southern Baptists are, indeed, independent and autonomous. However, for one of their big shots accused of a specific incident of sexual misconduct, supported by the evidence produced by a credible investigator, the "restoration process," prescribed in the Bible would have been much better served, and much more credible itself, if he had allowed his former church, where he was still pastor when the alleged abuse occurred, to conduct the process. Going out and picking four of his good friend, pastors whom he had mentored in the ministry, and getting them to affirm his restoration doesn't quite follow that Biblical process, and unfortunately, in a denomination where such connections commonly bypass protocols and processes designed to be fair, it failed to achieve its desired result, at least as far as I am concerned.
Clearly, there are instructional parts of the New Testament that are being deliberately ignored. This is not a good look for someone in a denomination that claims belief in the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible is a major doctrine required for correct interpretation of scripture, and for fellowship with the denomination. When the literal reading and application insisted upon as an interpretive standard by Southern Baptists is applied, I Corinthians 6:1-9 clearly forbids church members to settle differences by the use of lawsuits in the secular courts. And it comes just after the Apostle Paul also addresses sexual immorality and how the church is to handle that.
There's some real inconsistency here in the messaging. The denomination has found multiple ways to force churches to closely follow their inerrancy and infallibility doctrine, and more recently, it has included specific, literal interpretations of that doctrine to enforce a ban on women serving in churches in pastoral ministry roles. But it seems powerless to stop a lawsuit brought by a prominent, prestigious pastor who ignored their rules and charted his own course to resolve a sexual abuse allegation and a restoration process.
The rules don't apply equally to all.
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