Less than a month ago, my dad dropped dead of a heart attack. This was shocking, unexpected, and disorienting for our family. As much as we wanted to pretend it didn’t happen or distract ourselves with other things, we have been helped through the process by talking about it, expressing our emotional responses, and letting each family member grieve in his or her own way. We knew we were going in the right direction when my 3-year-old said, “I miss Grandpa. I feel sad. Grandpa was a pilot. Grandpa died. He’s dead now.”
Perhaps because the loss of my dad was so fresh on my heart, I was hoping the SBC Annual Meeting in Dallas would offer our family of churches an opportunity to state difficult realities and express our emotional responses to them. In the last three months we have taken one leadership hit after another in front of a watching nation. Frank Page, the CEO of our Executive Committee, resigned due to an adulterous relationship. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Seminary, was fired because of (among many other things) mishandling two cases of sexual violence. Paul Pressler, Patterson’s fellow architect of the conservative resurgence, is being sued on charges of predatory behavior against young men. And three seminary professors from our Southern Baptist seminaries have resigned due to (stated or implied) moral failures. Save Pressler, all of these have been exposed in the last three months.
So when we gathered in Dallas for our annual meeting, I expected that some part of our meeting would include a time of lamentation, of repentance, of expressing our brokenness over the sin in the camp. Because healthy families talk about our losses. We tell the truth. We communicate. We discuss what is going on, even when it isn’t pretty or easy.
But instead, we didn’t hear any of these fallen brothers even mentioned. Their disgrace thrust them into some Voldemortian category of “he who must not be named.” It was like they did not exist and nothing happened. Rather than having space to lament the moral blight on our denomination, we learned Monday afternoon that Vice President Mike Pence initiated a visit to the meeting on Wednesday to commend us “for our contribution to the moral fabric of our nation.” At the risk of redundancy, let me reiterate. Two high-level leaders who were supposed to be on the platform leading our gathering were absent because of moral failure, yet this was eclipsed by the fact that we accepted Vice President Pence’s offer to praise us for our moral uprightness.
This burdened my heart deeply. Healthy families grieve. Healthy families talk about reality and set an appropriate tone based on that reality. We don’t plan circuses when we should be at the funeral home. We don’t just go on, business as usual, as if nothing happened. We process. We feel. We hurt. And we figure out what needs to change to move forward in a healthy way.
So on Tuesday morning I began planning a time of lamentation, repentance, and prayer for renewal in our family of churches. And on Wednesday, while Vice President Pence delivered what turned out to be a political stump speech, a group of pastors joined together to cry out to God, to express our broken hearts over the state of our convention, to listen to God’s word, and to repent from our own sins based on God’s holy standard. We prayed for our President and our Vice President; we prayed for our denomination; and we prayed for ourselves, knowing that the same weakness and struggle that brought down our fallen brothers exists in us as well.
One of the texts that we listened and responded to is James 3, which contrasts demonic wisdom from below with Spirit-birthed wisdom from above. This text broke us, because even as we gathered in quiet protest to the way our annual meeting had turned into a political rally, James’ words pierced our hearts about our propensity to become cynical, jagged, arrogant, and bitter. You stand up and say, “It shouldn’t be that way, it should be this way” and it is easy for that process of working toward the right way of doing things to turn into what James calls “bitter jealousy and selfish ambition.” Our ambition for the power to move things in the right direction can subtly morph into the ambition for power for its own sake.
At the end of the day, I think that is what I was grieving most in Dallas. I owe a debt of gratitude for the conservative resurgence and the biblical faithfulness it has yielded. But in the last year, the two primary architects of the resurgence–Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler–have been exposed for abusing power in very different but seriously damaging ways. The old adage that “power corrupts” has been on display in those who used power to bring about change for the better in the SBC. If we do not learn from their failures, we will be bound to repeat them.
I do not pretend to know how a denomination so unwieldy and loosely held together as ours is to maintain humility while we hold firmly to God’s unchanging truth. But I know how God is calling me to lead the SBC church for which I will give an account. It has everything to do with atmosphere.
On our drive from D.C. to Atlanta for my dad’s funeral, the AC started going out in our van (our dog also had to be put down–it was quite a week). The light indicated that the AC was on, but it seemed like something changed in the type of air coming out of the vents. Before long, complaints were registered from the way, way back and the reality was unmistakable: the AC was definitely not on, light notwithstanding. Thankfully the problem was temporarily addressed by turning the AC off and on multiple times. But to avoid precipitous rises in temperature, my wife and I developed a keen nose for when the atmosphere in the van shifted from the cold, dry, conditioned air to the cool, moist, recycled air. The change was subtle but consequential.
In the same way, the shift from James 3’s wisdom “from above” to the wisdom “from below” is frighteningly easy. You don’t have to convert to Satanism to exhibit “earthly, unspiritual, demonic” wisdom. You simply have to take whatever power you have and start using it for yourself instead of for others.
The stories emerging about Paige Patterson’s litigious responses to actions by his board of trustees and, most ominously, his request to meet with a rape victim to “break her down” serve as cautionary tales of what power can do to any of us. We must train our fellow leaders to sense the first hint–subtle and atmospheric though it may be–of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in our use of power. The only hope I have for our denomination is if it is led by those with a finger on the trigger, ready to repent at a moment’s notice when our power is driven by anything but the wisdom that is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17). God help us.
CHRIS,
I’m neither a regular reader nor commenter of this particular blog, but I do enjoy reading it once in a while, and I did read you post and need to reply.
First, my condolences in the loss of your father. I know you know where he is, but the kind of relationship you had with him IS lost. That makes the thought of reunion powerful. Then, I must say Thank You for what you said so well about our denomination. You’re on target with your thoughts about it all, from my perspective, and I appreciate your candor.
I recently had my fourth meeting at a church in the Washington D.C. area where I preached to four different language groups who came together to hear me, all of whom understood English well enough that I didn’t need a translator. But when we sang we all sang in our native tongue. It was a moment of heaven. I will be remembering your ministry at Groveton! Thank you for it and thank you, again, for this post.
Paul Burleson
Thanks for the encouragement, Paul. We have 20+ nationalities represented in our church family and it is glorious (also has its own challenges if you want to involve everyone). Appreciate your kind words.
Yes. Amen. This gives hope.
This is a really good analysis of what felt off about the responses to all the revelations leading up to the SBC at the actual meeting itself. I am encouraged by hearing of your time of prayer and lament during the political rally.
Condolences on the loss of your father and thank you for writing and sharing out of your grief. God be with you brother.
Thank you, brother. Overall I am encouraged about the SBC, but we need to feel the freedom to discuss reality (as the EC report did, for example). Thanks for the condolences.
Thank you Chris! I attended the Convention–I have said several times at the convention and since the convention there was no confession that there is something wrong. Something is not working like your AC.
I have been unable to attend the SBC Convention most of my ministry because I have been bi-vocational. Four years ago the Holy Spirit told me to go to the Convention in Columbus, Ohio. The big issue then was the debt of the IMB and decision to lay off many tenured missionaries. Ronnie Floyd, was the President of the SBC. He made the decision to suspend business in one session and have a prayer meeting. We sang and worshipped and then as the prayer meeting was to begin the chair I was sitting in exploded and I found myself sitting flay on the floor. The demise of the chair sounded like a gun going off so all of a sudden I was surrounded by ushers and security checking on me and what happen. In the moment I was on the floor the Holy Spirit spoke into my spirit and said: “this is the Southern Baptist Convention!” He went on to say I had a choice–I can tell everyone trying to get me up that this was normal and I was happy with my chair and there is nothing wrong. BUT, revelation, honesty and confession I needed to stand and proclaim–the chair is broken and I need a new chair. He also said I could use my ability to persuade people and some would eventually begin to accept this broken chair and sitting on the floor as normal. No matter my choice or the acceptance of others the reality was the chair was broke and should be discarded and replaced with a new chair!
During the days in Dallas we refused to acknowledge our great Convention is broken! Our great Convention as we have known and love must be changed. All I saw was an attempt to convince all that you revealed in your article and a myriad of other issues are OK.
I have learned in my years of preaching my job when I preach is to lift up the Truth found in a passage of scripture and in essence fulfill Jesus command “if I am lifted up I will draw all men to me.” Lifting up Truth is lifting up Jesus because He is Truth. Then ask the listeners–is this Truth a reality in your life? If the answer is no then publicly you must confess. The public confession allows three things to happen: you agree with God that what is being done in your life even if the whole world says its ok is not ok because God says it displeases Him it is wrong! Second it illuminates the situation. We cannot defeat Satan in the darkness. Third, it tells the Body of Christ a member has infection and needs treatment and care to prevent infection. After, confession, comes a process called Repentance where we do with the help of the Body what is necessary to correct the Wrong/Sin and be changed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Dallas and no where else I seen confession and what is being called repentance is at best a sham and pretense as we try to move on in disobedience to God’s Word!
Ross, I have been grieving for the SBC for 28 years. Would like to stop. Actually thought the last Convention would be a time of confession and repentance, too. Since it wasn’t, the chair remains not only broken, but empty. Where are the chairmen and chairwomen? Perhaps the new leadership feel as you do. Time will tell.
Thanks for sharing this powerful story about the chair. We have to name reality or we cannot move forward.
I believe there are many good things happening in the SBC. It is a sprawling, unwieldy network, so there is no one pronouncement about the whole that can be made. But if we do not start owning the sin in some corners of the SBC, there is trouble ahead.
Does Phil 2:5-6 apply here? We’re supposed to have the same attitude as Jesus, who didn’t regard equality with God as something to be grasped/exploited. I’ve long regarded this as applicable to leadership (and have been surprised to not have heard of it being taught in leadership teaching, though it’s always possible that there are leadership teachings out there that apply it that I haven’t heard of). We have to faithfully exercise the authority, power, and influence that God has given us, but also hold those things only loosely, *not* regarding them as something to be held onto for dear life. Failing to do this, I think, makes it difficult to give more than lip service to the idea of servant leadership.
For some time many in my state have been praying for revival for our nation and for the SBC. I had also thought that our leaders during the recent convention would call us to prayer of repentance and asking forgiveness from those who have been wronged. Regretfully, l fear there is too much pride on the part of our leaders to admit the problems are as big as they are.
The following is a quote from Henry Blackaby on revival that I think applies to our convention at this time in our history.
I’ve heard many “calls” for revival recently but with very little teaching and exposition on revival. It seems that in these urgent days there are too few leaders who actually are leading God’s people corporately to repent, pray, seek holiness and return to God.
Do we not realize that scripturally it is impossible to have a call for revival without a call for repentance? This has always been God’s requirement for His people. The passionate, unceasing corporate prayer that is always present in revival is desperately lacking as well. In short, I see little evidence of sincere brokenness among God’s people for our present condition or the condition of our nation. …….
We must understand that a true call for revival is first and foremost a recognition that we’ve departed from God. It demands a radical response from God’s leaders and His people. Revival has always been, and remains to this day, God dealing with the sin of His own — not the world.
Pastor Chris,
On the transition. Both my parents transitioned within years of each other. So my prayer is for you at this time. Secondly, you were on the money. Instead of listening to a Presidential stump speech I wish I would’ve known about your prayer gathering. I would’ve loved to be involved with fellow brothers of the faith crying out to God for our Convention. You are correct we do need a move of God to usher in our Convention. Prayerfully with the help of the Lord and prayer warriors like yourself, we can bring a change in the coming year. Thank you for your prayers and again this was a great blog.
A.B.Vines., Sr