The executive summary would go something like this. Messengers approved motions that
(1) have had little or no positive effect on making children safer in our 50k or so churches, but
(2) have tied the SBC Executive Committee to enormous legal expenses as far as the eye can see. These expenses are not just those needed for defense of the SBC and the SBC EC but those needed to fulfill the EC’s contractual obligation to defend Guidepost Solutions from any lawsuits resulting from their work for the EC.
(3) If SBC messengers approve of the EC budget recommendations just made, we will skim the first $3 million from Cooperative Program giving in the new 2025-2026 budget year to pay EC costs, mostly legal.
(4) This “priority” CP allocation means that neither of the two mission boards, none of the six seminaries, nor the ERLC get one dime from those CP gifts. Their percentage allocations come only after the lawyers and lawsuit expenses.
(5) We have hired an EC staff guy who is being called the Sex Abuse Czar. Not sure I would want that unofficial title. He will have no say on any of our 50k churches hiring, supervising, or firing of staff. He will have no say on individual, autonomous church policies, actions or anything else. While he is committed, experienced, and respected in the field, it is unclear if he will be anything but a guy in a bully pulpit addressing the issue.
The obvious questions:
(1) If we vote to spend CP money on current legal settlements, is there a linkage now to CP money being available to abuse victims in our churches? That has been the goal of abuse advocates all along. Have they succeeded? This question was asked at the EC meeting. I don’t know that it was given a proper answer. Perhaps we do not know the answer.
(2) Why would churches who object to their CP gifts being shoveled down this legal cost hole NOT choose to make direct gifts and avoid the CP giving that goes into the EC’s accounts?
(3) The two mission offerings are at record heights while the CP is continuing it’s two-generation steady decline. This messenger and EC action seems to assure that it will continue and perhaps be accelerated.
(4) This is a moment of supreme irony. For all the complaints about the SBC being controlled by “the platform” and by small groups of trustees and leaders, it is that group that almost saved the messengers from themselves. Recall, if you will, that the EC could have effectively nullified the foolish messenger actions. That failed by just a few votes.
(5) We are unlikely to see an form of an apology from any of those who proposed and supported the colossally stupid vote of 2021. It’s in our DNA to never apologize or admit wrongdoing. We are already seeing that.
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Jeff Iorg has my sympathy. He is duty bound to pay all legal bills. It would be beneficial to see an honest discussion of what the bankruptcy of the EC would entail. That may be a preferable option. I don’t know. He is reported as saying that legal matters could be resolved by the end of this year or next. How does he know? What’s to stop another lawsuit from being filed in 2026 or 2030 or whenever?
