Here are a few reasons why:
We’ll elect a new SBC President in sultry Orlando in June. It was announced back in November that Al Mohler will be nominated for SBC prez. The early timing of the announcement was an eyebrow raiser. Mohler quickly responded that he would accept the nomination. Hey, I’m just glad he didn’t say that he would accept the presidency. Ordinary SBCers get to vote. He’d get my vote if I decided to attend the meeting and swelter it out in what used to be a perfectly good swamp. Surely, someone else will also be nominated.
There’s an announced candidate for 2nd Vice President. 2VP is that position that isn’t worth a pail of tepid expectoration, totally decorative and perhaps a resume enhancer. I can’t think of one good thing a 2VP has ever done. I’m sure Stephen Feinstein is a great guy and wonderful pastor but according to reports the church doesn’t give a penny to the Cooperative Program ( his church has made gifts to IMB, NAMB, and the California SBC Mission Offering). That’s an absolute disqualifier for one of the convention’s three elected leaders in my view.
There’s an announced candidate for Pastor’s Conference president. That’s for the 2021 PC. Yawn. Since Dave Miller ran that show, I haven’t been much interested. But maybe Matt Henslee will regrow his beard and have that Old Testament look.
The Credentials Committee reports to the Executive Committee next month. Inquiring minds will wish to know how many reports have been made, what happened to these reports, and what churches are not to be found in “friendly cooperation” because of them. Tough task. I predict loud, negative responses from some corners.
We’re getting sued left and right. That’s the general SBC “we” of course. Any lawyer can sue anyone or anything for any reason. They can and usually do get loud and provide great sound bites out of court. We’ve got numerous churches and entities named in these. There’s a high profile case with Paige Patterson named as defendant. The lawsuit against Kevin Ezell and NAMB is still ongoing. Predictions from the network of sex abuse victims and advocates are that “the SBC” will be sued often. I agree. We will see if there is any success in connecting abuse by clergy who was ordained by one church, hired, supervised, and maybe fired by others all without the involvement of any SBC entity or institution…which leads to…
Local church autonomy takes center stage. We’ve already had two topics here on LCA in 2020. The doctrine and practice of LCA is seen as the cause of abuse in churches. I agree in some respects to that but not for reasons usually noted by the network of abuse survivors and advocates. Lawyers are on it, of course.
The Cooperative Program, always on the back burner. Maybe it shouldn’t be. Things are up a bit so far this fiscal year.
Then there’s secular politics…if there is such a thing anymore. A man from Mars might arrive and get the impression that there is no secular politics. It’s all religious. Election this year between the incumbent and…maybe a socialist, maybe a gay guy, maybe a lady not good a math, maybe a guy who, if elected, will be in his tenth decade before he leaves office. And which SBC megapastor will sidle up to the prosperity gospel lady preacher and have the position of honor in support of our current president?
Then there’s the stuff we don’t know yet…
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Your humble hacker and plodder blogger will do his best to catch that 10+ pound largemouth this year…maybe take all that tax money I’m saving with the housing allowance and do a cruise. And my vision 2020 is worse than it was in 2019.
I would rather know, which one wouldn’t take it?
Regarding autonomy:
Do you think there will be a push soon for a revised Faith and Message?
I believe the process might start in 2020.
Some are seeking tighter restraints on who is considered a cooperating church and some want to loosen those restraints. I would think a discussion on the BF&M would soon follow any discussion on church autonomy. Just a thought.
If church autonomy is a key issue I would think the document that sets the boundaries for autonomy would become the focus point.
Don’t see it. Autonomy means autonomy. Boundaries are already set.
But weren’t those boundaries set in 1925 and 1963 and 2000? Did they not change as new challenges came up? The Baptist confession has been ever changing.
I believe we’ll see a new BF&M within the next few years.
New BFM would be like a constitutional convention – everone has an agenda. I’m satisfied to keep what we’ve got.
What would you change?
What do you see in the BFM 2000 that needs to be changed?
I’ve surrendered autonomy over my beard to Bart Barber. 😉 https://matthenslee.com/post/190141639152/httpssbcvoicescomalready-2020-and-it-looks-lik
I know Stephen Feinstein. Good guy. Jewish believer in Jesus. Contact him and ask him about his CP giving.
Hi Will, I appreciate your perspective and your work in keeping Southern Baptists informed. I definitely plan to rectify the CP giving issue. When we planted in 2010, we were not SBC, but nondenominational. After we were already strong and afloat on our own, we learned more about the SBC and decided to affiliate. When we first affiliated, one of my co-pastors was the one that oversaw our giving to SBC entities. Truly, we were all ignorant, we didn’t know how it worked, and we didn’t understand who exactly we were supposed to give to. When I became our first full-time pastor in 2017, I took over that responsibility, I really wanted to teach my church the importance of the Great Commission. Prior to my coming on full-time, less than 1% of our budget went to GC purposes. In my first year, we got it up to 7%. In these drastic changes, our people wanted to see all that money go straight to the mission field rather than administrative costs. Again we were new to the SBC, and not many people in the church understood the benefits from the cooperative program. Over the last few years, I’ve become increasingly more impressed with our convention, the denomination, and everything that is achieved through the cooperation of 47,000 churches. So definitely I’m a believer in the cooperative program, but I couldn’t find an easy way to give. The other SBC entities make it really easy to give on their webpages. It was less than two weeks ago somebody finally showed me a link I could go to donate to the CP. Previously, since I couldn’t find such a link, I just decided to give to one of the other denominational entities or our local association. Praise God that this will be rectified and as soon as our budget gets set in January, I’m going to immediately donate our budgeted amount to the cooperative program. It may be late in the game, and in your mind it may still be a disqualifier. Either way, it’s the right thing to do whether I get elected to this ceremonial position or not. But again I truly thank you for this article and your perspective. I just wanted to provide a little more clarity as to why we have yet to give to the CP.
Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate candor. I’m glad you are part of the work that we do together and I wish you much success in it.
I would say that this is a really good example of why it is time for Southern Baptists to stop assuming that everyone within their ranks knows everything they need to know about the Cooperative Program. This is one of the consequences of replacing Church Training with para-church or non-denominational programs. This is not the first time I’ve heard a pastor who is leading his church to cooperate with the SBC not realize what that means or how it works.
When my wife and I joined a church of another denomination, one with an international missions effort almost as extensive as the IMB, one of the requirements for membership was a four week class on the denomination’s history, organization, how its churches relate to each other and how it collects money for its international missions support. It is quite different than the Cooperative Program and if we had assumed that a percentage of the general budget offering supported international missions, we’d have missed out. Likewise, I think anyone who joins a Southern Baptist church, especially whole congregations, should be involved in something like that before they make a commitment.
Since Dr. Mohler is Southern Seminary’s President, will he recuse himself from appointing trustees to Southern Seminary if elected? If not, this appears to be a major conflict of interest and I would call into question the ethics of his presidency.
Rest easy. I have it on the very highest authority that Mohler will absolutely not be appointing trustees to Southern Seminary.
Thank you for the clarification.
You are aware that no SBC president appoints any trustees?