COVID-19 and churches. Need anything more be said?
The seminary president’s statement on CRT/I blows up. This is ongoing as I write. Messy.
Alaska Baptist state convention votes to destroy the Cooperative Program. Very poor move by one of our smallest state conventions. As Ronnie Floyd said in response, “It’s the CP program, not the CP cafeteria.” Undermining the CP because you are mad at NAMB is not a good approach.
Six state convention leaders issue joint complaint to the SBC Executive Committee about NAMB. Back in the sultry days of August, six smaller conventions sent a letter to the EC complaining about NAMB. It’s about money and the letter is about lobbying for the status quo ante where NAMB just flung dollars all over the country.
ERLC carelessly signs amicus describing “hierarchy” and “umbrella” in the SBC. This was appalling error for which ERLC apologized. Abuse plaintiff lawyers were ecstatic. Ronnie Floyd and other SBC leaders had to quickly and pointedly dispute this. “Autonomy. Autonomy. Autonomy. “Write that a thousand times on your whiteboard.
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary establishes a $5 million fund ” to assist qualified black students at SBTS…” This announced at the same time the seminary voted to retain the names of seminary founders who were slaveholders: “James P. Boyce and founding faculty members John Broadus, Basil Manly Jr., and William Williams, all of whom held slaves prior to emancipation.” This is a tough needle to thread – keeping these legacy names and hoping the $5 millions for “qualified black students” will assuage the offense; nonetheless, it was a fairly spectacular move by Mohler and SBTS.
“The SBC Annual Meeting is cancelled and JD Greear gets a rare third term as SBC president. more appointments for JDG will only help our current messes.
The Conservative Baptist Network pulls off a back door coup in the SBC Executive Committee. Here’s the SBCVoices article (by EC member Jared Wellman) on the matter. While that’s a tendentious way to describe it, the vehement denials may be overdone. “Took control” is a bit heavy. Regardless, it was a problem. The EC should be seen and not heard. Unfortunately, the are heard too often in a negative manner. Maybe 2021 will be different.
The SBC Executive Committee’s Credentials Committee struggles to establish credibility in regard to churches who have handled abuse poorly. Frankly, they have an impossible job. They cannot investigate churches, cannot discipline clergy offenders and can only suggest churches be expelled from the national SBC. I’m not having much optimism about the process but, persuade me.
LifeWay has severe crises. Beloved, ancient conference center in Ridgecrest, NC is sold, we think. I went once this year. Would like to continue until I die. Former LifeWay leader get huge exit settlement, and a car. There were lawsuits. Messy. I have no idea where LifeWay is headed. Maybe they do.
Thousands of SBC churches get free government paycheck protection pandemic money in an unprecedented event that has government paying clergy salaries. Numerous old time Baptists were rolling over in their graves on this one.
Several prominent African-American SBC pastors exit the SBC loudly and with harsh criticisms. Some did so after being given tens of thousands in SBC grant money. While the numbers of these are few, it is unknown if they are a harbinger of a mass exit of ethnic churches. I think not, but, who knows?
Southwestern Seminary, Baylor University lawsuit against a charitable foundation. Named in the Baptist Press article are former SWBTS president Paige Patterson, former SBC Executive Committee VP Augie Boto, and a couple of SWBTS trustees (who have been suspended) who are defendants in the lawsuit. This promises to be a confusing and complicated, Texas-sized embarrassing mess for a lot of people.
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Maybe there will be a part two but one hopes the SBC is totally done with making news for this calendar year.
What better picture of the SBC in 2020 than the ugly virus graphic?
I think I’m getting ahead of Baptist Press on the top news stories. Maybe they are waiting for the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s when no one will read all the bad news.
I’m looking for 2021 to be a better year. Quieter year…if we cancel the 2021 annual meeting. Not otherwise, I’d speculate.
Not a syllable about J______ F_______ from me.
“…and the gates of Hell shall NOT prevail against it.”
I could not disagree more strongly with the way William presented some of these.
LifeWay sued an HONORABLE Thom Rainer and the evidence supports that.
It was NAMB who changed the way it related to state conventions and their efforts at getting a response from NAMB to restore cooperation are probably worthy of more than snark.
I agree that Alaska overreacted but there were provocations.
People need to understand. William is a valued contributor here, but his opinions are his. My opinions are mine. Other contributors hold their views. None of us speak for all of us.
Mr. Thornton, I cannot believe you continue to spew the disinformation about Alaska. Let me repeat: What Alaskan messengers did was to say to NAMB, “Hey, talk with us! Include us! Let’s work together! Because if you don’t, then we’ll have a serious problem.” What they, and the six letter-signers you mention later in your diatribe, are saying is that NAMB makes these state conventions feel unimportant and unnecessary, and as if the state conventions are in competition with NAMB in the cause of reaching people for Christ. There shouldn’t be this competition. We should be working together to build… Read more »
On Ridgecrest, I beat you to it by a few months: https://sbcvoices.com/ridgecrest-conference-center-scares-me/
On Alaska, there was not a syllable of misinformation. The Alaska State convention trashed the CP to make a point about namb. I didn’t repeat from earlier, but namb put $8 million in the state over the past several years. And what? Get kicked in the teeth for it? Where did that money go? The SBC needs to have honest conversations about the future, namb, state conventions and funding. I commend the states that are on a path to be self sufficient. Based on results, members and churches, namb may just as well have piled their cash up and put… Read more »
You are misguided at best, Mr. Thornton. The situation brought to the forefront by Alaska and the letter-signers didn’t happen overnight. This year was the culmination of years of trying to work things out with NAMB. It’s been NAMB saying, “It’s our money. We’ll do with it as we want. We don’t need you to tell us how to do our job.” But it’s not NAMB’s money. It’s the tithes and offerings of Southern Baptists. We’re a family, Mr. Thornton. We want our churches to be healthy, to work together cooperatively. Why would we not want our entities to do… Read more »
It’s namb’s money. Please explain the $8m. You are a highly educated SBC observer. Explain how the abc action did not trash the cp.
Why in the world would you say it’s NAMB’s money? It’s Southern Baptists’ money entrusted to NAMB to do with as Southern Baptists want, in partnership with the rest of the SBC. As to the $8 million amount, where did it come from? Let’s just let that pass, because without your source, how does anyone know the truth of that amount? The first Southern Baptist church in Alaska started in 1943. It was joined by several others — 12 as I recall from faded memory — in 1946 but was refused entry into the SBC until 1951. Let’s posit there… Read more »
The $8m is for just the past decade. I thing the math works out to a little under $1m per net church growth. Let abc make their case. It’s hard for me to justify that kind of investment for those results. You could check the state budget for the past few years and tell us what namb funded. I favor trying something different if the results are so meager. I understand that it’s a tough place.
Let me repeat what you repeatedly ignore, Mr. Thornton: you are completely missing the point, Mr. Thornton. The question is merely, “Is NAMB willing to work in partnership with the state conventions, or has it set itself up in competition to the state conventions, using money FROM the state conventions? That’s the concern being expressed, as I understand it, in non-Southern state conventions,
I understand and am perfectly willing to hear the abc plan for spending money in the state as it differs from namb’s. You could start there, explain the fact that namb has put more per capita in ak than any other state, and demonstrate where namb’s $8m has gone, why ak adds about 1 church per year, net. Then you could recognize that namb controlling it’s budget was a specific goal of the GCR which was adopted by the SBC in Annual session. Then demonstrate that you recognize what Ronnie Floyd was speaking of when he said the cp is… Read more »
Mr. Thornton, No. I do not dislike NAMB’s policies. I don’t even know what they are, beyond broad generalities. All I am saying is there obviously has been a lack of communication between the state conventions and NAMB. Alaska is merely a case in point. It is not up to you — or me, for that matter — to tell NAMB and/or any state convention how to do what God has called them to do. You apparently want to know the inside details of Alaska; Why? I don’t think that’s any of your business. Or mine. Here’s my understanding of… Read more »
You started by saying I was spewing disinformation, continued by saying I was misguided at best, and ended by writing, rather condescendingly, that I (and namb) are incapable of understanding. Along the way you blithely ignored the huge sums of money (both per capita and in absolute dollars) put into the state, the very low almost nonexistent rate of growth in the ABC, and most critically, while lamenting lack of partnership, you failed to even acknowledge the fact that the ABC stuck a dagger into the heart our 95 year old flagship, fundamental program of cooperation and partnership, the CP.… Read more »
Years ago I stood up during a BSSB/LifeWay trustee meeting and seconded the motion to declare the chair of President vacant. After years of reflection, I would do it again. Lloyd Elder needed to be fired and should have been fired that day. He wasn’t. Due to the fact that I was a trustee, I know why he should have been fired. Yet, even to this day, because I was a trustee and have privileged information I just simply say he should have been fired. As a current trustee of NAMB, I cannot speak publicly about what has been publicly… Read more »
Counts for a lot, cb.
I agree, Mr. Scott, that to the best of my limited knowledge, Mr. Ezell has not as you said, “betrayed his position. I do think there is a lack of communication; that’s the problem as I see it, a lack of communication that leads to a breakdown in the relationship. Easy to fix
Well, Mrs. Willoughby, I am not at liberty to speak to that, although I am greatly tempted.
Therefore, I will maintain my position. I stand by Dr. Ezell.
Years ago when I was growing up in an SBC church in a non-southern state convention I remember them promoting the fact that for every CP dollar from the state that went to NAMB, seven dollars was returned in the allocation to the state. It was a big share of the state convention budget, it paid salaries for nine directors of associational missions and several consultants in church planting and church revitalization on the convention executive staff. In a state with booming population growth, the convention’s total membership and attendance was stagnant, it seemed that new church plants barely kept… Read more »
Bingo!
There are a couple of areas where Dave and I disagree. But you can’t say it often enough that separate opinions are expressed here.
And, where we disagree, I am right and he is wrong
In regard to the SBC seminaries president’s statement on crt/I,
Swbts prez Adam Greenway has this excellent response:
https://swbts.edu/news/an-open-letter-to-the-southwestern-seminary-and-scarborough-college-family/
Outstanding.
I bet you find that’s another place where you’ll find disagreement “here”. I believe that statement will only add to the mess.
Would be an excellent discussion. I thought his letter was thorough and quite solid. It needed to be said, not the least reason for which has been the totally gratuitous criticisms.
If one carefully reads the statement and objectively analyzes it, even if one doesn’t agree with it, one should understand the other side better than they did before. It really only adds to the mess if the reader is allowing their emotions to override reasonable engagement with what is written.
But this issue is currently clinging to strong emotions rather than reason on both sides, so maybe your right.
Unfortunately both sides are currently showing all the reason and restraint of Yosemite Sam right now.
Dr Greenway’s letter was most excellent! Thanks for sharing that link.
He espoused truth in love and never backed away from the contention that CRT/I is incompatible with the BFM2K. He also made it clear that one can truly be for racial reconciliation and at the same time reject that CRT/I as the way forward. Indeed, the Bible has a much better way forward!
I pray that nobody leaves the SBC over this biblical statement from the seminary presidents, but if there must be a division, let that division be over truth.
Thank you William for your article and that link. President Greenway did a great job with it in my opinion. One of the standout paragraphs is… “One final point: in making the statement that affirmation of CRT/I is incongruent with the BFM, the CSP did not declare that CRT/I offers no insights at all, as some intellectually dishonest detractors have charged. CRT/I does rightly decry racism and injustice, not unlike Islam’s adherence to monotheism, Mormonism’s valuing of the family, and inclusivism’s emphasis upon Christ’s power to save. I doubt anyone would seriously argue though that Islam, Mormonism, and inclusivism should… Read more »
“Not a syllable about J___ F___ from me.” That’s eleven syllables, and I have no idea what you are talking about. Care to spill a few more syllables and offer a clue or two?
I’m not including as SBC news the disgrace of a certain scion of a famous evangelical preacher now departed. That enough?
Yes, I get it now. I suppose you were not at liberty to say.
Giggle; Great response, Bro. Patrick. I had the same question.
C’mon, Rick. Its too close to Christmas to make people sick with puns like that.
Perhaps a J____F____, Jr. might have helped?