We clergy love our minister’s housing allowance and want to keep it. It’s our very own Sacred Clergy Tax Break and the most important item in the tax code that recognizes clergy and gives us favorable treatment under the tax law. Unsurprisingly, some want to clean up the tax code and eliminate the tax break […]
Good Ides of March news: Housing Allowance upheld
Our Sacred Clergy Tax Break safe for now. Ruling of the federal appeals court is in. Scintillating commentary to follow when I feel sufficiently scintillated. Court protects ministers from $1B tax lawsuit Here is another report, from a source not many among us read: Appeals Court: Tax-Free Housing for Faith Leaders (But Not Atheists) is […]
Inquiries, investigations, and registries: It’s complicated
“The subject of a database is complicated and will take time to evaluate” That was J. D. Greear’s statement to the Executive Committee not quite three weeks ago. Seems like ages have past since he named churches and spoke to the group about sex abuse in the SBC. That all Southern Baptists at every level […]
Lost in the noise: positive things about the SBC and abuse
Good intentions may go awry and it’s tough to label the past week as much other than a debacle in spite of good men doing what they thought was prudent and appropriate. (Yes, part of the problem is likely the heavily male-dominated makeup of the Executive Committee but more on that later). But it may […]
Autonomy is still the reality and rule in Southern Baptist life
Nothing in the past two weeks has changed these facts of SBC life and polity: The SBC (and I use “SBC” in the broad sense of the entire universe of churches, entities, committees, boards, organizations, and institutions) ordains no clergy. Only churches who voluntarily cooperate with Southern Baptist organizations ordain ministers. Neither does […]
J. D. Greear calls out specific churches on sexual abuse handling
The Executive Committee meeting of last evening was remarkable and unprecedented in a number of ways. For the SBC President to call on an official SBC committee to review the standing of a list of churches for their handling of sex abuse is quite astonishing. The Biblical Recorder put it this way: He called the […]
Can autonomy be “leveraged” in the SBC to guard against abuse?
The proposal by professors Whitfield and Yarnell, of Southeastern and Southwestern seminaries respectively, is serious, comprehensive, and deserves due consideration. In my reading of their 2500 word article, Addressing Abuse in the SBC: A Proposal, it seems to me that the key sentence is this: We must leverage our autonomy to call our churches into […]
A century after prohibition
One hundred years ago last month the necessary number of states ratified the 18th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors. The Amendment went into effect the following year. Thus, next January, my fellow dry Southern Baptists may raise a toast to the time when our great […]
Protecting children in your church
In regard to child protection in SBC churches and entities, whatever solutions are proposed or adopted in the various levels of Southern Baptist life if they prove ineffective in local churches the effort will have minimal value. Our convention has 50,000 or so individual churches that voluntarily cooperate on associational, state, and national levels. The […]
The ordination scandal in the SBC
Some Southern Baptist churches would ordain a ham sandwich. One pastor told me that his ordination was a joke. One ordination council in which I participated would have been a joke if I had not been present. No one seemed to know why they were there. Ordinations are quickly given but rarely revoked. Ordinations are […]
Search committee fundamentals, tawdry messes, and the bovine vote
Eleven day ago two former SBC presidents, megapastors both, and another prominent SBC pastor wrote the Search Committee for the SBC Executive Committee and asked if minority candidates were interviewed for the open position and if not, why not. The letter was leaked to one of the Baptist state papers. The SC issued a statement […]
About being their “favorite” pastor
Edith lived along the highway a few miles down from the church. With her in the modest frame house was her infirm husband who had been ill for some time. She was an authentic “shut in” in the ecclesiastical lingo of that rural church, confined to her home because of the condition of her husband […]