It appears that LifeWay Trustees may be realizing the damaging optics of this lawsuit they instigated against Thom Ranier, the well-respected former CEO of LifeWay.
I was given a statement distributed by Todd Fannin, Chairman of the Board, written to the Trustees, but released to the press.
The Trustee Executive Committee met today to discuss the most recent developments with Dr. Rainer.
While there have been numerous public misstatements and inaccuracies surrounding this matter, we have been and continue to be hopeful that we may resolve this issue with Dr. Rainer regarding his agreement with LifeWayand his partnership with a competitor. In lieu of moving forward with litigation, both parties are currently exploring the possibility of an agreed upon resolution of the differences. Our continued prayer is that this will be resolved quickly and amicably.
In order to give appropriate time for continued discussion with Dr. Rainer to take place, the executive committee passed a resolution postponing this afternoon’s trustee meeting. The executive committee is asking trustees and all Southern Baptists to join us in a season of prayer. This period will also allow us to provide full and accurate information to each board member.
Again, there will be no board meeting today, and you can expect additional information this week. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach to me or one of the other board officers.
Todd Fannin
Chairman of the Board
LifeWay Christian Resources
Perspectives
1. It appears that LifeWay’s Trustees have realized that this lawsuit was ill-advised and unnecessary.
2. This action is the right one. My only question is why it wasn’t done 24 to 28 hours earlier. This is what should have happened BEFORE Ben Mandrell led LifeWay to sue a well-respected Southern Baptist statesman.
3. I am a tad annoyed by the non-specific accusations of “public misstatements and inaccuracies.” As someone who has published two articles, I can tell you I’ve checked my information with people “in the know.”
4. The problem with so many of our trustee actions is that they spend more time trying to control information than they do seeking to make the truth plain. I have made every effort to publish accurate information. If they want to correct it, correct it. These passive-aggressive, non-specific gripings about “inaccuracies” are tired and worn-out.
5. The more information I have received, the more inclined I am to believe in full the statement provided by Dr. Rainer and posted in the Houston Chronicle (and my previous article). It appears that LifeWay leaped into a lawsuit without making an attempt to resolve this. If this information is inaccurate, LifeWay would do well to produce evidence to demonstrate this.
6. Todd Fannin promises information to LifeWay trustees. He (and Ben Mandrell) need to explain to all of Southern Baptists why they did this thing. Why did they enter into a lawsuit against a Southern Baptist statesman without seeking to resolve it first?
Please, this is not the time to go into executive session. You owe an explanation to ALL of us for this.
UPDATE: You will note a redacted email in the comments, from a LifeWay trustee., posted by Ben Cole. https://baptistblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/redacted-lw-trustee-letter-10.1.20.pdf
I too hope they explain it….
I also pray that this is resolved spedily and amicably.
If they hadn’t rushed into litigation, it probably could have been resolved already.
Perhaps. The board will be releasing a more full statement soon I am sure – as will Dr. Rainer.
Its all sad.
Both parties agreed to a non-complete. LifeWay believes it has been violated. They are petitioning the court to enforce its terms. If Dr. Rainer has a release he should present to the court for an easy dismissal. LifeWay is probably hesitating because of the nasty PR related to enforcing a NC. This is the life of executive CEO agreements in large corporations……many SBC entities use these practices…..just gets ugly when it goes public….NCs are largely unfair to a person who moves on and wants to work elsewhere….but they are a legal contract and requires careful consideration before signing.
An embarrassing circus. They are doing the right thing by postponing action and trying to work out an agreement with Dr. Rainer.
LifeWay thought they had when they paid Dr. Rainer for the NC contract. Only question to be determined is was the contract violated? LifeWay’s new CEO has a NC and severance package agreed upon in his employment contract. This is standard practice for highly compensated executives. All who are in this circle understand this.
Call me jaded, but using the phrase “public misstatements and inaccuracies” is attune to the popular political copout phrase “fake news”. I don’t like either phrase because they are usually used when someone is hiding something.
If I misstated something, or Rainer did, give the correct information. This smacks of, “we are going to put together a story we want everyone to buy.”
I have seen it far too often. Managing the narrative instead of just telling the truth to Baptists.
I do not publish inside information generally (anymore) but I can’t tell you how often the narrative and the facts diverge.
They’ll explain it in executive session, settle it with an NDA, and no information will go out to Southern Baptists except a well-crafted, lawyer-friendly, press release through the PR department.
Agreed ! (tongue in cheek, “just trust the trustees guys” and “LifeWay is it’s own entity”) I seem to remember this being said several times when LifeWay was questioned in the past. Either Rainer broke the contract or he didn’t, the law will figure it out based on the contract that all parties signed. However I lean into what Dave said about how we should biblically treat the idea of suing one another, but when you start signing nuanced contracts with lawyers working both ends this is where you can end up, in a law suit. If you start with… Read more »
We have no choice but to “trust the trustees.” They are in charge.
That doesn’t mean we cannot speak out when we see something that is wrong. Trust the trustees is a recognition that they run things. They do. If they decide to continue on this course, there’s not a lot we can do.
Great insight and Biblical response.
Thom Rainer is one of the good guys. He always has been. I regret this has happened. I pray if comes to a swift end.
What stuns me is that no one so far has even noticed that LifeWay has acted in direct violation of I Corinthians 6:1-8 (forbidding believers to sue one another). It is astonishing that, after our Conservative Resurgence, and the affirmation of Biblical Inerrancy in our Convention, that an agency would act in direct violation of God’s Word. Isn’t inerrancy all about believing what the Bible says? Even now that they have agreed to resolve it out of court, no one has cited Scripture as the reason for doing so–they are behaving as if God’s word did not exist, or that… Read more »
Fred,
Before I started reading SBCV a few years ago I thought that Biblical conflict resolution was for all believers. Now I know that the Scriptures do not apply to our entities and agencies. It was a tough pill to swallow. Most of the conflicts within the SBC could be resolved if we really believed the Scriptures. This is my observation.
Bless you,
Woody
LifeWay operates as a business….CEO compensated like a corporation…provisions of employment contracts reflect such….Dr. Rainer announces retirement…agrees to NC terms….going back to work with competition…..LifeWay takes exception…court will determine who violated contract terms unless settlement is reached….all involved understand why and how they got to this point….it’s the way the process is designed….and how NC disputes get resolved also referenced in signed and posted documents.
I pointed that out in my first piece, Fred. I don’t get it. It seems clear.
The SWBTS lawsuit is a corporation against another publicly held corporation. I can see the logic there. But this is brothers (and sisters) taking a brother to court when (evidently) NO attempt at reconciliation has been made.
I stated this very point in an earlier post Dr. Smith. We (the SBC) are giving ourselves a black eye and dismantling our witness!
I guess we can be GCB after all…
Great Conflicting Baptists
Ugh. But true
What a mess…Did you receive this too?
https://baptistblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/redacted-lw-trustee-letter-10.1.20.pdf
Rachael Denhollander’s take is well worth reading and considering.
https://twitter.com/R_Denhollander/status/1311485211029495809
If what RD contends exists, the judge will quickly deny the injunction and dismiss the case. There are apparent conflicting complications that prevent that…..look for quick dismissal if her contentions are correct….
Supposedly, they are working to come to a peaceful resolution.
Doesn’t it seem odd the the “well-respected Southern Baptist statesman” is going to work for a competitor of an SBC agency? With statesmen like that who needs ______?
Since you do not know the story behind that, your unkind snark is noted and ignored. It is an unfair swipe at a good man, in my opinion.
Dave, I agree with you that Thom Rainer is one of the good guys. Whether he did anything wrong or not, the partial board certainly did not handle a perceived problem correctly. But Ron’s question is fair and neither unkind nor snarky. Thom is definitely not retired because my inbox and Facebook feed receives a steady stream of products he is selling. And they are not from Lifeway.
I get emails from him daily
I guess I don’t get it. So what if he goes to work for another publisher?
doesn’t seem odd to me. If you fellows write a book, I dont think you’re disloyal to southern baptists if someone besides lifeway publishes it. When did that become a rule? The years of service he has given and is giving to the Lord in SBC churches and organizations is not enough? What have you done for me lately i guess.
He got paid not to compete.
At least you don’t let the facts get in the way of your narrative.
Authors go to publishers that will publish them. One could easily turn your concern around: “Why would Lifeway stop publishing Rainer’s materials?” If we see Lifeway rejecting long-time Southern Baptists, whom they have published and admittedly sold lots of materials by, I think we should ask more questions of Lifeway than we do of the authors. If Beth Moore or Priscilla Shirer or Ed Stetzer or the CSB start having to go Baker or somewhere else to get published, knowing just how many books they have sold for Lifeway (and the publisher gets more than the author, moreso when the… Read more »
What’s wrong with all this is LifeWay has been astray for sometime in my opinion there just looking for a way to make a quick buck to make up for all the churches that canceled standing orders they had run away with for years. Due to COVID we restructured and said good by to their publishing house I’m sure others did to. Keep a fire going it’s money and publicity just the SBC being the SBC
I know neither Mr. Mandrell or Mr. Rainer, but it does seem that Mr. Rainer bequeathed a very troubled and bloated organization to Mr. Mandrell. I’m sure Mr. Rainer may be a likeable person and his intentions may be good, but total inflation adjusted sales at Lifeway remained stagnant as the number of employees, the number of stores, and the fixed assets of Lifeway increased dramatically. People list their jobs and pension expenses became unsustainable. It seems that many lost some or all of the pension at the same time Mr. Rainer seemed to be earning money from side gigs.… Read more »
I’m no expert at book publishing or selling. But I will say that lifeway’s problems probably have more to do with a fellow named Bezos than a guy named Rainer especially if Rainer has been such a big selling author for them
Two things afflict Lifeway: that Bezos fellow (and the overall shifts that he represents); long-term legacy issues: some of the blame that folks want to put on Rainer for Lifeway’s financial and even product woes are like blaming the pastor for everything at the church, even though the WMU has always done what’s it doing and the social committee keeps overpaying for kitchen supplies. You can’t hand someone a pile of “keep all this going” and a stack of “prepare this for the future” and expect it to resolve without conflict. It doesn’t, but Southern Baptists have expected Lifeway to… Read more »
You make some good and relevant points regarding issues beyond the control of the anyone at the helm of Lifeway. It seems to me that Lifeway needs to decide at some Convention level whether it wants to primarily be a business or a ministry. Having said that, Mr. Rainer significantly increased the number of employees and the number of brick and mortar locations (expenses). Maybe he had little control over revenue, but he should have been able to manage expenses and investments much better to preserve value for the convention and security for pensioners. He may be a nice guy,… Read more »
I’m not sure how much revenue Lifeway generated from the sale of his books, but the financial statements show that Lifeway lost at least $200 million under his management, yet I’m assuming that he got paid for both his books and his management. I understand that Amazon may have made it difficult for Lifeway to generate increased revenue in the past few years, but Amazon isn’t responsible for the failure to manage the staff levels and capital investments of Lifeway’s business/ministry.
Doug Hibbard and Scott have both hit on the larger underlying issues facing Lifeway – Is it to be a for profit retail outlet selling numerous Christian books and other merchandise or is it to be a ministry arm of the SBC? The 1955 version of Southern Baptist Bookstores were like a large church literature closet selling Sunday School and other Bible Study materials as well as supplies for the WMU and other SBC agencies. The focus was supporting the local SBC churches. Other than Billy Graham, there weren’t a lot of famous Christian authors around during the 1960’s and… Read more »
100% agreed!
“The SBC needs to decide what it wants Lifeway to be – a for profit retail business or a venue to support the SBC Churches.”
And clearly the answer to that question determines whether or not they even remain an entity at all.
I think whoever leaked that email has done a grave disservice to hope of amicability in the whole process. If it was the person who wrote the email who leaked it then that shows that they are really not trying to find answers by going directly and as privately as possible, to the source(s) first but are seeking to exert pressure, before seeking appropriate resolution directly. If it was another boardmember then they have demonstrated that they, while not willing to attach their own identity to complaints to exert pressure, are using someone else to do so… Neither, imo, Is… Read more »