It should not surprise any observer of Southern Baptist matters that there has always been a market for fake news among us, mainly through unofficial outlets like blogs, blog comments and the like. While I am probably not informed enough to offer an exhaustive list of fake SBC news items, these below are some of the more current and prominent ones. I welcome any additions to the list
The Cooperative Program is Dead or Dying
The Cooperative Program provided over $478 million for the state conventions and SBC entities in the latest figures available. At almost half a billion the CP is certainly not dead. Our venerable flagship cooperative giving program is slightly declining and has been for years. To say it is “dead” is fake news, flatly inaccurate. To say that it is “dying” is to cast the trend in a negative manner. Let’s say the trend lines are almost flat but slightly declining.
The International Mission Board went bankrupt.
As was widely noted, our largest and most important entity, The International Mission Board, was running steady deficits for years until last year. The overspending totaled the staggering sum of $210 million in the period 2009-2015. If bankrupt, the Board would be out of money and unable to pay its debts and obligations. They were not bankrupt. Obligations were met by use of reserve funds and receipts from overseas property sales. Those who declare the IMB “bankrupt” are purveyors of fake news.
The International Mission Board had to fire hundreds of missionaries.
The IMB reduced its personnel numbers by 1,132 by early last year. Overseas workers made up 983 of this total. IMB leader, David Platt, said “This [personnel reduction] process remained entirely voluntary for all IMB missionaries,” he said. “No IMB missionary has been required to leave the field during this time. IMB missionaries have been encouraged to make a transition off of the field only if they sense the Lord leading them to do so.”
Not a single IMB missionary was involuntarily terminated, fired, released, or sacked. Some official outlets like to do a bit of tendentious reporting and will describe missionaries as being “terminated” and that they received “pink slips.”
It is fake news to say that IMB fired missionaries. There were 30 stateside staff in the media section who were laid off, involuntarily. Not a single missionary though.
The North American Mission Board is planting Presbyterian churches.
Anti-Calvinists in the SBC sometimes offer this bit of fake news. NAMB only plants SBC churches, churches that subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message Statement and support the Cooperative Program. Church planters must agree to this list of NAMB expectations. In 2012 NAMB adopted guidelines on networking with other groups. I am unaware that any of these have been rescinded. If critics wish to reclassify this bit of fake news the simple solution is to track NAMB plants that affiliated with Presbyterian bodies once NAMB funding expired and the pastor an church were no longer bound by NAMB guidelines. Until then, fake news.
The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and IMB conspired to help construct a mosque.
The ERLC and IMB joined a lawsuit against a New Jersey township which denied a building permit to a group who wanted to build a mosque. The friend-of-the-court document included Brief of American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Center for Islam and Religious Freedom, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Muslim Bar Association of New York, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, National Association of Evangelicals, New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association, Queens Federation of Churches, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Sikh Coalition, South Asian Bar Association of New Jersey, South Asian Bar Association of New York, and Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of New Jersey. The IMB later apologized for the “divisive” brief citing a desire to keep focus on their main mission.
The underlying issue with the mosque was denial of a permit for zoning reasons and was ruled unconstitutional, a denial of free exercise clause of the First Amendment. The federal district ruling said that the township “improperly applied different legal standards to a mosque simply because it is a mosque.” The ERLC and IMB considered it a religious freedom issue. Frank Page is quoted as saying, Cooperative Program funds are used to further Southern Baptists’ singular purpose — to reach as many men, women, boys and girls as possible with the saving Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Page said. “We have never been asked for CP gifts to be used for the construction of any non-Christian house of worship; nor would we agree to such a request. In an age of satirical websites and fake news stories, Southern Baptists can know with confidence that claims to the contrary are spurious reports.”
While some Southern Baptists object to our ERLC or others joining in an effort to support religious liberty, we are taking the right course on this. Regardless of differences of opinion on the ERLC’s religious liberty mission and how it is carried out, to frame this particular matter as the SBC helping build a mosque is fake news.
State Conventions keep less than half of all monies received by the churches
This falls more into the category of spinning the news rather than fake news. A statement sometimes heard from the larger state convention leaders is, “We forward to the SBC more of the receipts we receive from the churches than we keep in our state.” States currently keep an average of about 62% of every Cooperative Program dollar they receive from the churches. The two large mission offerings taken by most SBC churches, Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, are typically sent to their state office to be forwarded to the proper entity. These are designated offerings, never intended to be kept by the state an used. The state is the forwarding agent for the money. Add the two together and the state conventions do keep less than half of all monies received from the churches. State convention leaders, sensitive to the complaints that too much CP money is spent in-state, don’t mind finding a way to subtly communicate something different.
The new giving category Great Commission Giving has hurt the Cooperative Program
Those who posit the above do so as an opinion because there is no evidence, data that prove the point. At the SBC level designated giving has exceeded CP giving for several years. As a statistic, aggregate GCG giving for all SBC churches is virtually worthless, since some state conventions do do even ask churches for GCG on their annual church profile.
The opinions of GCG critics are interesting but it is fake news to state that GCG has harmed CP.
__________________
I’ll not touch the most obvious, typical, and common bit of fake news heard in SBC churches. That would be the pastor talking about his average worship or Sunday School attendance.
Where I used to serve, the weekly church attendance was printed in the paper. We noticed that the reported attendance of the Methodist Church doubled from one week to the next, yet no one saw an increase in their parking lot. A little bit of “investigating” found that they were combining their head count at every activity for the week, even their Thursday morning prayer group. Now that’s some fake news.
Thank you
William you say no missionaries were fired. Technically that is true. I was on the field during that time. Missionaries were told 600 to 800 missionaries were going to be let go. If we do not get enough taking the VRI you may be one of those terminated. Many were informed there positions were going to be eliminated so if the did not take the VRI they may be in danger of being terminated. It was explained in such a way that many would have been foolish not to take the VRI.
Ron, words have meanings. No IMB missionary was fired. It’s not just “technically” true it is actually true. No one disputes that IMB had to downsize. That they were able to do this by offering incentives so that not a single mssy was fired should be a reason to commend the new management and their policies.
The way IMB critics want to frame the matter is to flatly state that mssys were “fired”. This is fake news.
Another example fake news in the early days of the CR was when IMB trustees were announcing that the IMB was controlled by liberals before the CR and that missionaries were spreading heresy all of the world. Unfortunately there were few pastors willing to stand up for the truth and call this fake news what it was, a lie.
Excellent post! Now let the feeding frenzy ensue. 🙂
Fake news like that Prestonwood is escrowing $1 million CP dollars when they actually only give half of that? I’m nothing like that would appear in a state baptist paper.
(Before someone say it, yes, that’s still a LOT of money and I’m thankful for their past giving. HOWEVER when you’re talking to the press and trying to make waves with news that you’re escrowing for political pressure, isn’t it pretty ridiculous to inflate the figure? Double it? Doesn’t “journalist” Will Hall have a job to report clearly and accurately what’s happening? This is one reason I continue to refer to Louisiana’s paper as a tabloid.)
I noticed that and it should be corrected. The $1m included Lottie and Annie, the designated offerings not $1m CP offering. I’m not sure who put the CP figure at $1m.
One addendum to the final point. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention forwards 55% of their receipts to the SBC, only keeping 45% in state. For inquiring minds…
They do indeed and I commend them for it. The two new conventions (SBTC and SBCV) give >50%. The other old line, legacy state conventions are all under 50% but some would like to make it sound like they aren’t.
Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, will escrow what would amount to $1 million annually, the Message reported Feb. 16…
Asked whether Prestonwood also will escrow funds for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention — the state convention with which it cooperates — Graham responded, “We’re evaluating everything.”
http://www.bpnews.net/48364/prestonwood-escrows-cp-funds-cites-erlc-actions
Perhaps they were referring to all their SBC mission giving, which would amount to one million or more.
David R. Brumbelow
Perhaps, David, but isn’t it the responsibility of the news organization to report accurately? They didn’t report that Prestonwood was escrowing Lottie Moon offering funds in addition to Cooperative Program giving. We can imagine why. That doesn’t play well in the press does it? Can you find out for me? I contacted the church and they declined to comment. Is Prestonwood escrowing Lottie Moon offerings because they’re upset at Russell Moore?
The 3rd paragraph of the original Will Hall article states this:
“The decision impacts $1 million the 41,000-member congregation would otherwise contribute through the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ primary funding channel for support of state and national causes.”
Which is clearly claiming what I indicated.
The Baptist Press article is merely repeating that claim because Prestonwood only responded to BP in a text message. The first three paragraphs (condensed):
“A Dallas-area megachurch has decided to escrow Cooperative Program funds temporarily in order to evaluate future support of Southern Baptist Convention causes… At issue are … according to a statement the church released to Louisiana’s Baptist Message news journal. Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, will escrow what would amount to $1 million annually, the Message reported Feb. 16.”
It wasn’t ambiguous. The early report was clear and claimed $1 million CP funds, either because that’s what Prestonwood claimed or because Will Hall reported it incorrectly with Prestonwood making no effort to correct the error. BP and others (including me!) repeated that claim (what other info did we have at the time?) and now it’s almost second hand for people to refer to Prestonwood escrowing $1 million in CP funding
This, folks, is fake news.
Brent,
Seems to me the BP article I referenced above, got it right and got it accurate.
Same with Prestonwood getting it right and accurate.
Others inferred things that were not said.
David R. Brumbelow
here’s the quote that will (should) put to bed all of the (illogical) comments that Prestonwood is not doing what they’re doing because of their disagreement with Russell Moore…as well as the notion that ” they never said it was about Russell Moore”.
“There various significant positions taken by the leadership of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission that do not reflect the beliefs and values of many in the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Rev. Buster
Executive pastor
Prestonwood BC
Notice he said POSITIONS – he did not say Tone – he did not say rhetoric – he said POSITIONS… And I am still begging anyone to show me that which of the positions that have been taken by the ethics and religious liberty commission are not in keeping with the articulated views of Southern Baptist as stated by the Baptist Faith and message and resolutions.
Not to mention that during the Q/A segment after chapel at NOBTS, Graham specifically said it wasn’t just about Trump, which means part of it WAS about Trump (and the part Russ Moore played in calling those within the SBC to reject him for President).
Not fake news but wrong thinking that states should send more to the EC. Money invested in the states will make more of difference than giving it to the EC!
Tarheel:
You ask the 1 million dollar question [well I guess it is literally the $1,000,000 question}.
Specifically: >>>>>>l
What exactly are the POSITIONS of the ERLC that Prestonwood has a problem with? Are these POSITIONS somehow linked to Dr. Moore?
It could be that Prestonwood’s reasons for their action are totally different from any issue we have been discussing here on Voices for the last couple of weeks. I don’t know.
It could be: (a) Prestonwood is raising issues regarding both the role of the ERLC as well as having problems with Dr. Moore, (b) Prestonwood doesn’t necessarily have a problem with Dr. Moore — just the renegade operation of the ERLC as an entity, or (c) they think there is a legitimate role for a separate entity — like the ERLC — to officially represent the SBC to the public square but they don’t want Dr. Moore running it.
Prestonwood obviously doesn’t adhere to option (d) —> both the ERLC and Dr. Moore are OK as is.
How is anyone going to know what is the underlying issues are if there is a de-facto news blackout when Dr. Graham holds a Q&A regarding the ERLC?
For example, the fix I’m calling for might not patch things up. I am NOT calling for Dr. Moore to be fired. But it could be that Prestonwood is.
Roger OKC
Roger:
What exactly are the POSITIONS of the ERLC that Prestonwood has a problem with? Are these POSITIONS somehow linked to Dr. Moore?
Given that Dr. Graham also specifically referenced Dr. Moore and the election we know that THAT is at least one of the reasons for their angst….
It is a good catch you made there though that the word positions is plural …. I admit I assumed it was the religious liberty issue…but who knows…other than Prestonwoods issues with Moore’s comments about the unfitness of Trump we do not really have specifics.
However, I am still begging anyone to tell me a single “official” POSITION of the ERLC or by Dr. Moore that is not in keeping with official articulated SBC positions given through the BFM2000 and resolutions, as Prestonwood’s Executive pastor contended.
PBC Exec. Pastor contended that positions taken by the ERLC are “not in keeping with the beliefs and values of most SBCers”….but the ONLY way to know what the values and beliefs of SBCers are is to look to the messenger affirmed BFM and the resolutions passed.
If they are right and the majority of the SBCers would rather only *suggest* that political leaders possess character integrity or state that we only expect when the candidate is democrat and republicans can be and act as they choose with our blessing….and revoke previous firmer stances then its an easy fix at convention…propose a new resolution.
Or if the majority no longer want to affirm “religious liberty for all people” as the BFM article 17 clearly states – and state that we only affirm religious liberty for Christians or Baptists and no one else – then again that is an easy fix….at convention.
I think they should propose it and see what the majority” really believes.
No IMB missionaries were fired.
But many IMB missionaries left regretfully, and under pressure, because of financial mismanagement.
No matter what side you are on, that is a fact, and it is sad.
David R. Brumbelow
Makes what wonder what, exactly, trustees were focused on for all those years while the IMB was deficit spending.
Tarheel:
I think the threading on this series of comments is coming apart. My reply to you right now is not in the proper sequence.
You are exactly correct to bring up the situation of if or how the ERLC and/or Dr. Moore said or did anything contrary to the BF&M. I just went over to my bookshelf and picked up my copy of the BF&M. I don’t see anything in there that covers whether or not we as Baptists should or should not either endorse or not endorse a particular political candidate.
I think a fair reading of Dr. Moore’s comments in the November 2015 NYT article could be construed to tell us that Dr. Moore gives a negative endorsement to Donald Trump. He specifically, by name, mentions Trump. He says {exact quote — except text in brackets which is directly lifted from previous sentence in Dr. Moore’s op ed}, “To back Mr. Trump, these voters [evangelicals and other social conservatives] must repudiate everything they believe”
The BF&M does not codify a stance regarding endorsing, or not endorsing political candidates. So, in my opinion, Dr. Moore is freelancing.
Dr. Moore made a mistake. He apologized for it. I accept his apology.
Aaccording to article XVII Religious Liberty in the BF&M: “The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work.”
But the BFM is silent on whether the church should get involved in electoral politics. All we know empirically is that getting involved in electoral politics is like stumbling on a trip wire to a booby-trapped stick of dynamite.
The SBC was so vocal in numerous formats relating to Presidential candidates for decades – long before RM came on board….Richard Land endorsed many REPUBLICANS over his term. He condemned many democrats (especially with regard to morality issues – Think Clinton and others) no one objected it was applauded – as B. Clinton was clearly morally unqualified to be President….but once Moore spoke against a Republican with the same convictions of morality and integrity – the poop his the fan.
This is about about Republican politics plain and simple. The problem here is not that RM articulated what SB’s have always publicly articulated – but that he did so against Trump. That cannot be separated from this issue. This is clearly about some poeple’s support of Trump and RM’s opposition to him.
The ones who have failed to clearly articulate what the SBC has historically articulated (at the SBC level and state convention level in resoultions and local churches in sermons and the like) regarding integrity and character in political figures are J. Graham, F. Graham, J Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress, Ronnie Floyd, Huckabee and others who have full throated endorsed 9and in many cases defended the indefensible) a greedy, groping, dishonest fraud named Trump.
Russell Moore was the consistent one here. If he did anything – he violated the unwritten rule that apparently is pretty deeply written in blood…”thou shalt no speak ill of Republicans.”
Also, he did not apologize for “freelancing” he apologized because he did not anticipate the fall out from his being consistent on the issue and that some people (nose holding Trump voters) felt lumped in with the real focus of his “ire” the all in surrogates and defenders -no matter who they were. I think he was right, and by the public stances taken in the past by the SBC my thinking is validated.
Tarheel:
I can’t refute any of your points. I have not been keeping track of who is a Republican and who is a Democrat in the SBC leadership. To me, it doesn’t make any difference.
All I can say is that I don’t see a pathway to resolving this unless the ERLC is gone. Hopefully Dr. Moore can go somewhere where his contribution is appreciated. Hopefully he can work in an atmosphere where partisan politics and/or moral relativism does not rise above Christian discernment.
Your roll call of people, mostly pastors, and their involvement with the Republican party does inform this whole situation in a new way for me. I’m thinking through the ramifications of this.
I guess there are now two questions to grapple with: [1] Why have so many in “people in the pews” turned to Trump; [2] Why are some leaders in the SBC turning a blind eye to the stuff Trump has stood for? I never distinguished between these two subsets of Evangelical supporters of Trump. Specifically I never considered the second question — I just did not realize it was part of the whole problem space.
Roger OKC
Roger the whole point of what Russell Moore said was exactly about Christian Discernment, and how that should affect how we stand on politics. The whole reason the ERLC exists is to be the arm of the SBC which specifically engages on faith and politics. If we just decide the ERLC must be dissolved because some people got emotional about assailing their political sacred cow, then I think that smacks of giving into PR pressure and not being willing to take the time to actually educate our people. If people decide to leave the SBC because Russell Moore took a right stand, so be it. There is certainly nothing that he said which rises to the level of some kind of moral failing.
Why have so many people “in the pews” turned to Trump? It starts with team sports politics. He’s a “Republican,” therefore people vote for him. Next is Clinton fear/hatred. Anyone with the name Clinton must be voted against. Next I think you get into the actual logical camps, where people make judgments based on “lesser of two evils” and hold their nose while voting for Trump, or vote third party because they cannot stand either of them. The other thing is Trump’s campaign on nationalism and populism is attractive to people who are angry about the last 8 years, or fearful about the next 8 years.
As a Convention we need to stop trusting in Presidents or Supreme Courts to “save America.” If God deems America important enough to save, he will do it in his time and in his way. If God deems America worthy of judgment, then we must stand and be judged as Israel has been so many times. My feeling is the Lord is calling us to emphasize more from our pulpits our Heavenly citizenship, and not be worried so much about American citizenship. The Church all over the world is healthier and stronger than the one here in this country. This should tell us everything.
In my opinion, the ERLC has been championing our Heavenly citizenship, and standing for love for all people, regardless of their politics or religion, without compromising right Biblical thinking.
First time commenter here: Former pastor and current IMB missionary.
It’s true there’s a lot of fake news.
I’d like to share a few facts:
Fact: IMB leadership caused folks 50 and above to feel pressured into retirement with incentives that were coupled with the knowledge that some retirement benefits would change after VRI. Also as Ron West mentioned, they also were pressured with the knowledge if 600-800 didn’t step down some people would be let go.
Fact: IMB leadership continued to offer incentives for others to walk away after they had more than enough missionaries resign.
Opinion: The leadership should not be commended for this leadership tactic as William suggests. Again, it’s my opinion not a fact.
Fact: none of those who took the VRI or HRO will be commenting about here about it because they were forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement if they wanted to take the money.
Fact: IMB missionaries got a nice raise this year and an increase to field parity supplement.
Fact: Starting this week, IMB will be letting go or firing all field missionaries and support staff who are in Technology support services. This was announced at a town hall meeting last week. We are restructuring our IT/Tech Services and as a result are letting everyone go. They will be all allowed to re-apply for a few new tech positons if they meet the new requirements. This applies to IT related folks…Some are field missionaries some are Richmond Staff. Most didn’t know this was coming either.
Fact: IMB missionaries love the CP. (we are so grateful to all of the churches represented on this blog and throughout the SBC for sending us and generously supporting us…THANK YOU). Of course, We also tithe and give sacrificially to Lottie Moon and CP. But despite our love for CP and dependence on it, another fact is that many missionaries support churches like Prestonwood’s decision to escrow their CP funds. Many of us also have questions about what’s happening in the various SBC entities and, for example, do not support the reasoning behind filing legal documents supporting building Mosques anywhere.
When a SBC missionary, who has given his life to preach the Gospel and who is dependent on CP funds to live, tells you he isn’t in favor of any SBC employee supporting in any way at all the building of a mosque anywhere at all, and you ignore him on this point… You’re doing it all wrong.
Most who comment here know nothing about Islamic doctrine. It is unique and the SBC needs to adjust it documents and actions to reflect this uniqueness. But, it won’t. I already know this. And it will continue to suffer the consequence that the average SBC member in the pew has more common sense than many pastors and those currently leading the SBC in the thinking concerning religious liberty.
The Constitution of the United States of America is not a suicide pact to be adhered-to only by those espousing a Judeo-Christian cultural ethos.
Dan: I submit that what you are saying is not true of all Muslims and certainly not in the United States. I have friends who are immigrant Muslims and that is not true of them. They own hotels, motels, work at our local business. We are richer for letting them in our country.
We have always had Muslims throughout our history which says that what you say is not true of all Muslims.
http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/islam-in-america/
Dan, maybe I missed it but are you sbc?
They did not “support the building of mosques.” What they did was oppose zoning restrictions being applied to people based on religious grounds. Whey they decide that speaking out against Homosexuality and Transgenderism is worthy of zoning restrictions, what then? Will you have no one stand with us?
///Not a single IMB missionary was involuntarily terminated, fired, released, or sacked. ///
The charge was coercion.
We’re letting go a thousand of you guys and there is an offer on the table. It’s the best offer there is going to be and if enough of you don’t take it we’ll have to take other actions — but regardless that number is being reduced for sure.
I guess they could have accepted their financial difficulties and hoped for the best.
Thank you Paul for stating facts and not fake news.
The fake news I’ve seen bandied about for over a year now was that the IMB “fired” mssys. Not true. I presume that the reason some felt compelled to make such a false statement was to put current leadership in the worst possible light. No one disputes that IMB had reached a critical financial state, was severely overstaffed, and could not sustain the personnel numbers they had. If sharing candid information of how severely underfunded the IMB was and how unsustainable the the mssy numbers were, followed by offering of retirement incentives is one’s definition of coercion, I’ll respectfully not share in that choice of terms.
The current elimination of some tech support jobs (I believe the net change would eliminate 22 positions) looks like a natural outcome of industry changes. If IMB can do their job with 43 instead of 65 people, then they should make the change and have more resources to put towards personnel whose job is taking the Gospel to the world. Before the personnel reductions of 2015-2016 the ratio was about one support for every five field workers, as I recall. If we can do the job with one per six, eight, or ten then the board would be irresponsible not to make necessary shifts in employment structure.
I have mixed feelings about non-disclosure agreements for denominational workers. One thing that we might agree on is this: we had unsustainable numbers of personnel before.
William, if a church told their pastor he had 2 months to resign or he would be let go but if he did resign before 2 months he would be given 3 month’s salary as severance. If he accepted that offer, you would say he was not fired he resigned. I would say fired or resigned it is the same.
In my opinion to say no missionary was fired is fake news because it does not give the whole story.
Concerning the missionaries taking the VRI you are probably in the majority. Your opinion was formed while sitting in the states writing a blog. I am in the minority but my opinion was formed on the field watching the suffering of missionary after missionary as I listened to them agonize over what decision to make.
I don’t accept your analogy but neither I nor any SBCer I know deny that many workers had to make difficult decisions. My issue is with those who, because of their agenda insist on saying that workers were “fired.”
There was what, over 4500 missionaries and 800 to he reduced. Thus choosing the VRI didn’t mean t hey were choosing not To be fired. For if they hadn’t chosen the VRI, they weren’t necessarily going to fired. 3700 were kept.
So like in any company, when bad mgmt and economic forces cause a downsize in personnel, people have to make agonizing decisions. Should they take the offer or wait it out?
The angst should be directed at the former administration for getting the IMB into that position in the first place.
“I’ll not touch the most obvious, typical, and common bit of fake news heard in SBC churches. That would be the pastor talking about his average worship or Sunday School attendance.”
*gigglesnort* Maybe the EC can address these claims after they’re done absolving Russell Moore.