In a jam-packed convention hall June 15, Southern Baptists waited in long lines at microphones to bring recommendations and debate motions. Texas pastor David Bumgardner went to three mics before he was able to say his piece.
“For the love of everything that is good and holy, please turn on the air conditioning!” Raucous laughter echoed across the hall as messengers (the Baptist term for voters) waved their ballots high in the air to second his motion.
It was a light moment in a lengthy, often tense meeting of Baptists in Nashville. More than 21,000 people were at the 2021 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), including 15,726 registered messengers. That’s the highest messenger total since 1995. The big crowd meant more business to consider than any year in recent memory. There were motions made to add time to the sessions (so that more motions could be made).
In Nashville, Baptists made strong statements on sexual abuse prevention and care for survivors, and on Scripture’s sufficiency to diagnose the sin of racism. They did not, as some had anticipated leading up to the meeting, rescind a controversial resolution on Critical Race Theory adopted two years ago.
Other issues anticipated in Nashville didn’t materialize as major debates, including the role of women in churches and possible defunding of the SBC’s public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). That entity, however, was at the center of one of the meeting’s major discussions: handling of the sexual abuse crisis by the SBC Executive Committee (EC).
The EC faced criticism from some at the Nashville meeting based on claims in leaked letters written by former ERLC President Russell Moore that it stymied the SBC’s response to sexual abuse in churches. The EC had previously announced a third-party investigation in the charges, but messengers voted to transfer oversite of the investigation from the EC to a task force appointed to be appointed by the incoming SBC President.
In Nashville, messengers voted down a proposed financial plan critics said would have given the EC more control over SBC entities. The SBC’s six seminaries opposed the plan because of their concerns that it could impact their accreditation processes.
SBC President J.D. Greear completed his third year leading the denomination, passing the gavel to Alabama pastor Ed Litton in the meeting’s final moments. Litton was elected president in a runoff with Georgia pastor Mike Stone, a leader in the Conservative Baptist Network. The group was created in protest of Baptists’ current direction on social justice and other issues, and some members had referred to the meeting in Nashville as an opportunity to “take the ship.” The vote was close—52.04% for Litton and 47.81% for Stone.
As Baptists leave Nashville, some divides seem bridged, for now. But the weighty issues that took center stage in Music City, and a pending investigation into how leaders have handled the sexual abuse crisis, signal Baptists have more tough conversations ahead of them.
New resolution on race
Leading up to the annual meeting, the Conservative Baptist Network warned of liberal drift in the SBC’s seminaries and among some leaders. One area of major concern was Resolution 9 passed in 2019. The measure on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Intersectionality affirmed Scripture as the ultimate authority to redress social ills, and recommended the frameworks “should only be employed as analytical tools subordinate to Scripture—not as transcendent ideological frameworks.”
But critics of the resolution said it indicated a dangerous direction for the SBC. The presidents of the denomination’s six seminaries issued a statement late last year declaring CRT incompatible with Baptists’ statement of faith, “The Baptist Faith and Message (2000).” Some leaders, including the National African American Fellowship of the SBC, felt the statement denied the existence of systemic racism.
In Nashville, Florida pastor Tom Ascol made a motion to rescind Resolution 9. His motion was later ruled out of order and SBC attorney Jaime Jordan came to the podium to explain that an opinion expressed by a previous convention cannot be nullified by a current one. The current convention can, however, express its different opinion on the same subject.
Messengers did deal with race in a new resolution presented by this year’s Committee on Resolutions. Individual members of the committee presented most of the resolutions in Nashville, but in a powerful display of unity, the whole group stood together while chairman James Merritt introduced Resolution 2: “On the Sufficiency of Scripture for Race and Racial Reconciliation.”
The resolution reaffirms “our agreement with historic, biblically-faithful Southern Baptist condemnations of racism in all forms,” and rejects “any theory or worldview that sees the primary problem of humanity as anything other than sin against God and the ultimate solution as anything other than redemption found only in Christ.” The resolution does not mention CRT by name.
“Our aim for Resolution 2 was not just to deal with CRT, but to deal with…all types of theory that have come out of academia and out of culture that are inacceptable as worldviews and insufficient for salvation,” said committee member Adron Robinson, pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Country Club Hills. “We wrote something that covered all of those, and then reminded the messengers that we are to place the authority of Scripture first and foremost, and then submit all theories to the authority of Scripture.”
Robinson noted the resolution doesn’t deny racism. “We wanted to be clear that we were not denying the presence of systemic racism in our society, or in the history of our convention. For we know that’s true, because we know that all humanity is fallen due to the result of sin.”
Messengers in Nashville debated the resolution on the convention floor until Merritt went to the podium to defend it. “If some people were as passionate about the gospel as they were Critical Race Theory, we’d win this world to Christ tomorrow,” he said.
“What we have done in this resolution is say, ‘Let’s settle this issue once and for all, yesterday, today, and forever. We reject any theory that goes against the worldview that our problem is anything other than sin, and the solution is anything other than salvation.”
Messengers voted to approve Resolution 2 and nine others, including measures on abortion, sexual abuse, and the Equality Act. The full list will eventually be available at sbc.net/resolutions.
Abuse investigation
Much of the national focus on the SBC prior to the meeting was directed at the EC and charges that leaders mishandled sexual abuse. The claims came from the leaked letters by Moore and from a series of leaked audio clips later released by Phillip Bethancourt, former ERLC executive vice president.
In Nashville, Baptists asked newly elected SBC President Litton to facilitate a third-party investigation of the denomination’s handling of sexual abuse and its care for abuse survivors.
Tennessee pastor Grant Gaines made the motion and after debate, messengers voted overwhelmingly to approve it.
The EC had previously announced they would work with Guidepost Solutions on an investigation of the charges. Gaines’s motion sought to make the investigation independent of the EC. “Since they are the ones being investigated, they can’t be the ones in control of the investigation,” he said. The motion asks the EC to “transfer oversight of the independent third-party review into the handling of sexual abuse to a task force appointed by the newly elected president of the SBC.”
The task force should be appointed within 30 days, the motion specifies, and the investigation should include actions and decisions of staff and members of the Executive Committee from January 1, 2000 to June 14, 2021, including the Credentials Committee created in 2019 and tasked with investigating reports of churches mishandling abuse.
In a press conference after his election, Litton spoke in favor of a third-party investigation. “I think we also need to be very pastoral in how we handle victims, in how we hear them, how we empathize and sympathize with them,” he said. “We want to bring all this out and expose it to the light.”
Messengers took more actions on abuse, amending the EC’s Vision 2025 plan by adding a goal to the set of strategic initiatives the SBC will work toward over the next four years. Along with goals in missions, church planting, giving, and reaching young people with the gospel, messengers voted to add: “That we prayerfully endeavor, before God, to eliminate all incidents of sex abuse and racial discrimination among our churches.”
And in a resolution on sexual abuse and pastoral qualifications, they affirmed the belief that “any person who has committed sexual abuse is permanently disqualified from holding the office of pastor,” and recommended SBC churches apply that standard to all church leadership positions.
Agreeable disagreement
The reported “conservative takeover” of the SBC didn’t take place in Nashville. In fact, many news outlets struggled to describe what did happen there, using the word “moderate” to describe Litton’s victory. In Southern Baptist parlance, moderate is often used to refer to those who don’t hold to the conservative theology Baptists returned to during the Conservative Resurgence of the 1970s and 80s; however national news media used the word, not speaking theologically, to indicate a more middle-of-the-road candidate.
Baptists’ conservative theology and embrace of the inerrancy of Scripture was on display throughout the Nashville meeting. What was more up for debate was the tone the SBC takes when they disagree.
In the SBC’s annual sermon on the final day of the convention, Florida pastor Willy Rice condemned divisive rhetoric among Christians. “You and I know there is a profound difference between honest debate and carnal controversies, between brotherly engagement and worldly strife,” he said. “You and I know the difference, and it is time we called it out and say to those whose voices seem constantly motivated to produce dissent and unrest that this will not go unchallenged or unchecked.
“We should not surrender this convention to strident voices who want to play the playground bully behind keyboards, tearing others down so they build themselves up.”
Litton struck a softer tone in a press conference following his election, but still insisted on the priority of the gospel amid lesser differences. Joining him as SBC officers are Lee Brand, first vice president; Ramon Medina, second vice president; John Yeats, recording secretary; and Don Currence, registration secretary.
“We exalt the gospel above all else,” Litton said in a conversation in which he addressed racial tensions, sexual abuse, politics, and gender roles in the church. “Going forward, I want to be clear that my goal is to build bridges and not walls.”
One solution, said Illinois church planter Belafae Johnson, may be to have difficult conversations more often, and in the context of the local church.
“What happens here is beautiful, but it doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t translate into our everyday lives, and our everyday living, and how we pastor our churches, and the conversations that we have,” said Johnson, pastor of Purposed Church in Mascoutah.
“I hope that there are more conversations that take place in our churches before we get here. I think that’s where we need to see it happen.” Then, he said, the annual meeting would be a time to focus on Christ.
“What if we came here just ready to make much of Jesus?”