Baptist Press reported yesterday about the SBC Credentials Committee’s establishment of an “online submission portal for reports of a church’s alleged departure from Southern Baptist polity, doctrine or practice.”
I want to be optimistic and supportive of the effort. It’s a difficult task. Good people are involved with the best motives and highest concern for these things. My observations are not criticisms. I’m reading the stuff for the first time and relaying what strikes me about it.
A few observations:
- It should be remembered that this is about CHURCHES, not INDIVIDUALS. The Credentials Committee may receive names of abusers, volunteers or clergy in an SBC church but the committee’s work involves ONLY CHURCHES. No minister can be defrocked, disapproved, blackballed, removed from their post, censured, reprimanded or anything else. Because…
- The only action the Credentials Committee can take is to REMOVE THE CHURCH FROM BEING CONSIDERED A COOPERATING CHURCH. The committee may refer individuals to law enforcement. They may inform a church about a complaint. They cannot take action against a church or individual other than exclusion.
- While the Credentials Committee may meet more often to consider submissions, the ultimate action of excluding a church can only be made by the whole Executive Committee of the SBC which meets only three times annually – February, June, and September.
- No submission will be received that is anonymous. This has raised concern of abuse survivors and advocates.
- The Credentials Committee flatly states that they “have no investigative authority or power.” However, the Committee will “review any information available,” will “inquire of the church under question,” may “garner the information necessary to fully vet the concern.” Lawyers, surely, have pored over every word used here. I suppose “not having investigative authority or power” simply means the committee cannot compel any church or individual to cooperate with them.
- We’re in the high weeds right out of the starting blocks. The phrase “alleged departure from Southern Baptist polity, doctrine or practice” is greek to most SBC members, not to mention most outsiders. “Polity?” What’s that most folks say.
- The submission forms require a “yes” or “no” box to be checked about reporting to law enforcement.
- The process requires a submitter to check “yes” or “no” to receiving a phone call from “an individual trained to assist victims of sexual or other forms of abuse.” It’s good to offer this. It should be noticed that the “individual” is not called a “counselor.” The BP report adds that the phone call will include “information about the abuse recovery process and identificaiton of resources in the individual’s local area.” The Credentials Committee is not taking on the job of counseling victims.
- Names of submitters “may” be disclosed to the church accused or named. It is unclear if the Committee will commit to respecting an submitter’s request to be kept anonymous.
- The Committee will “seek to protect the identity of individuals who make a submission, or a church submitted for inquiry status” until the church is voted to be excluded. This means there will be secret lists of accused churches kept by the committee (and the use of “secret” is indendiary here; I’m predicting that the phrase will be used early and often by others). I don’t disagree with the policy of keeping the name of the church confidential until found to have acted in such a way to be considered not to be in friendly cooperation with the SBC but I’d expect push back on this. The Committee may meet frequently but the total Executive Committee only meets those three times annually with months of tight lips on accused churches. This one is problematic. Already, bloggers claim to have inside sources that name a specific number of accused churches. The Credentials Committee is composed of nine individuals, five men and four women. Presumably, they will have staff help. The SBC isn’t known for keeping secrets.
A few questions:
- Will third party submissions be accepted? Those that name churches and give information about suspected or actual abuse but not made by the alleged victim or a member of the church involved?
- The question about reporting to law enforcement doesn’t cover the necessary information about reporting. If the Credentials Committee person or staff person who reviews an online submission has reason to believe that abuse has been or is occurring and it isn’t clear if law enforcement has been contacted will they make the required report to the appropriate authorities? This needs some explanation.
- What and when will we hear from the Credentials Committee? Just the three times annually? I can see an entire series from the Houston and San Antonio newspapers being published before the Credentials Committee gets to one of their three scheduled meetings.
- Will any SBC leader attempt to explain this process? Ronnie Floyd (Executive Committee CEO), Mike Stone (pastor and current chairman of the SBC Executive Committee), J. D. Greear (current SBC president), Russell Moore (CEO of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, or Phillip Bethancourt, point man on Caring Well)?
- Will the process serve to disincentivize churches from cooperating with the Credentials Committee? If there’s an allegation, it is the church that should handle it. Would getting involved with Nashville only complicate things?
- Does this mean the SBC president or other leader will not offer a list of possible offending churches of his own compilation?
- Will survivors and victims feel that this is helpful or impenetrable and a waste of time.
- Will the committee maintain a permanent record of all submissions, even those not to have been found actionable?
I’m guessing we are in new territory on all this and no one knows where this will go, how effective or ineffective it will be. I don’t have a lot of confidence that the national SBC either in annual session or through the workings of the Executive Committee can be effective in sanitizing our convention of almost fifty thousand churches from those that don’t handle abuse, race, or other things well.
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I’m not a lawyer but that hasn’t slowed me down from thinking about legal stuff. Someone else can probably do a lot better with this.
Also, what of churches who still follow the 1963 BFM? Will they be shown the door because they are not in compliance?
Churches aren’t required to approve the bfm2k.
I am aware of that, but this part makes me question if that might be a possibility in the future. “The Convention has no authority over any local church, however, it retains its sovereign right to determine whether it deems a church to be in friendly cooperation with the Convention. If a church is deemed not to be in friendly cooperation with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith and practice, the Convention has the autonomous authority to declare it will no longer recognize the church as a cooperating church with the Convention and to sever its relationship with the church.”
I don’t see anything in the way this has been worded to prevent someone from reporting a church based on non-compliance with “Southern Baptist practice or doctrine” and bringing them before the credentials committee on the basis of a disagreement over something like, oh, say, egalitarianism, holding a “low view” of scripture, or allowing the practice of speaking in tongues in their worship services. Churches aren’t required to approve the BFM 2000, but if they don’t I can see that there would be some faction or power group within the SBC who might see it as a chance to get rid of some of the “troublesome” churches.
Exactly. This could easily be used by some faction to use it as a chance to get rid of some “troublesome” churches. I know of a church sticking with the 1963 BFM, because they felt if you are going to call out one sin (homosexuality), then call them all out. Other than that, they give to Lottie, Georgia Barnette here in Louisiana and Annie. They are active in their local association and give to the CP. They are Bible-believing, practicing and toting. LOL.
Interesting thoughts.
On the “polity” issue I asked the Credentials Committee to find a Church was not autonomous because it was in an ecclesiastical union with other churches and their book of order provided for governance outside the local congregation. The Committee did not rule because the church sent no messengers. And after the convention the EC declined to address it.
I don’t know if they will look at this again. If they do, the church should be excluded. Depends on the politics. When I objected, the church enjoyed the support of the convention Pres, Ronnie Floyd, and Al Mohler.
Now the church is out of favor. So they might go back and look at this. I haven’t decided whether I will refile my request.
So there’s an example where I believe polity would be a ground for dismissal.
I believe “autonomy” as interpreted by Southern Baptists includes the local church’s right to determine its own affiliations. As long as that church is meeting the criteria for cooperating with the SBC, whomever else it chooses to work with is irrelevant. I don’t see any place in SBC bylaws or constitution that prohibits a local church from belonging to an ecclesiastical union with other churches.
My belief is that the EC should make a recommendation to the Convention and the Convention should vote to find that the church is not in friendly cooperation with the Convention and is therefore unable to seat messengers.
A vote by the Convention is consistent with how we operate.
Having only the EC do this looks like we have denominational enforcement powers.
William…at this early point i think you have clearly outlined the proper observations and questions. I suspect there will be some if not several adjustments to this plan as time goes on. I also suspect the in time this might fall by the wayside like many programs do, thought admittedly that is apples and oranges. Time will tell. I have three “IMHO” observations. (1) It seems to me that the purpose of this endeavor is to address the issue of sexual abuse. It is good that we address the issue. While this is an honest effort to do just that, I’m not sure this is the answer. I’m not sure what the answer is, hence i will support this committee work. I lean toward a MASSIVE effort to educate and train churches to deal with sexual abuse. An effort with the same gusto as “A million more in 54”. “Experiencing God” or “CWT”. SB can do that. I faced the issue of a sexual abusing staff member many years ago. i have to be honest, deciding how to handle it is just not that difficult. I became aware, I reported to the police, a warrant was issued, I drove the staff member to the station where he was arrested, he was sentenced to 16 years. That was the easy part. The greater challenge was caring for the victims. So again i say at this point I favor extensive and intensive education. (2) Regarding”polity etc.” my observation is younger pastors are not asking “What must I do to stay in” rather “WHY should I stay in”. A church that decides it wants to break one of the doctrinal “rules” will do so and stop cooperating. We learned that during the CR. (3) The sexual abuse needs to be a stand alone issue and not lumped in with polity etc. It is that important.
As you suggest, there are potentially competing concerns, though I don’t want them to be seen as alternatives to action. There have been crimes committed, and the victims say the police don’t show up. There’s some pressure to get the car out of the garage, and questions — Do we have brakes? What will improve when we get there? Are we even the police? — stop the car from rolling forward.
Go to war with the army you have, as they say in a different metaphor.
The suggestion, though, that Resolutions could now be a measuring stick for local polity seems like a big legal change. Makes me wonder how many lawyers did look at all of it. I’m not sure that will stick.
And while you note that we can only discipline the churches, I’m hard pressed to think of times it wasn’t also about individuals. How did they deal with the members who objected to African American baptisms? How did they deal with the racist voters in Naples? Did they discipline @Member for RT’ing an out-of-context-quote from a scholar @SEBTS? Did they implausibly believe William Jefferson Clinton was seduced? If we can’t defrock their errant minister, did they?
Before, we did not care much about local failures. Now we want to respond to some individual misconduct if the local church hasn’t, because obscene local errors seem to represent trends in our system. But not every violation of our doctrine and polity seems worthy of excommunication, so you’d like to leave leaders with discretion.
Yet trusting the last leaders with discretion got us into this mess. And I don’t believe they were more saintly or devilish than our current crop. They’ll make similar mistakes if we don’t change the rules.
Not an easy answer in the room. Let’s pray for Divine wisdom, for we need it.
Jon, my post above shares my feelings and hope. “Not an easy answer in then room”. To be sure. To be open and honest down to my core of being, late in the night, I wonder if we will ever find the answer. It took nearly 25 years to deal with the left drift of the SBC and even then a new fellowship (CBF) was formed…just sayin
Mr Thornton,
Would this on-line portal of the Credentials Committee be an effective venue to address a departure in historic and stated polity/doctrine/practice regarding the employment/ordination/affirmation of women serving in the local church under the title of pastor? I am not speaking primarily of the lead pastor role, but the associate pastor role as that appears to be more common. I understand that this was not probably the primary intent of this portal, but curious as to your opinion as to whether this issue might be considered under that umbrella?
It’s wide open, Kevin. You could file one. I don’t see the problem with titles. We’ve finessed those for decades.