Souther Baptist Convention Report 2021

So as many of you know, the week before last I went to the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, TN.

For those of you who don’t know, our church is a member of the SBC.

Take the sheet I gave you and reference that. I’ll go through that very quickly to help you understand what it means to be a Southern Baptist.

(Discuss the Handout)

Explain the structure. We are not a top down.

We are a bottom up structure.

So anyways, the meeting is to discuss business concerning those entities.

To get a report from each of the entity leaders.

We also vote on a president.

This was my first convention going and representing our church there.

(Taking it all in was a shock in general)

20,000 people there.

This was the largest convention since 1995.

Why?

In 2019, the SBC passed Resolution 9, which stated that CRT and Intersectionality are useful analytical tools.

People had a problem with that.

Founders Ministries created a documentary entitled, “By what standard.” Which essentially called out the leaders of the SBC.

People began to say and claim that there is a LIBERAL DRIFT in the SBC.

Several Reasons for this-

Resolution 9 and CRT- Some things came out that professor at some of the seminaries were teaching these things.

Saddleback Church most recently, and other churches have ordained women or named women as pastors and the SBC hasn’t done anything about it.

There are some professors who have been associated with a conference called Revoice.

The leaders of the seminaries and those in leadership positions in the SBC claimed the opposite.

And the convention has really divided into two groups.

People who believe the leaders who are saying there is no liberal drift , and people who don’t believe the leaders who are claiming there is no liberal drift.

I say that to say, people are divided. The convention is divided.

The reason people showed up in record number for this convention was to fight for their side.

Out of this controversy came the CBN, which some people love. And Some people hate.

(Some of the critics say that this creates unnecessary division because the SBC is conservative).

Really, this has divided the convention basically in half.

Half the churches believe that there is a liberal drift. Half believe we are doing just fine.

Where do I get that number?

That is most evident in who people voted for in the SBC presidential election.

There were four candidates.

Ed Litton- Moderate (Some would say Liberal) Candidate-

Preaches with His Wife. On record as having said the CRT and I are no big deal. Friend of the higher ups.

This past weekend he had to issue an apology for stealing sermons.

Al Mohler- Conservative but is the president of a seminary. This hurt him.

Mike Stone- Known as the Hard Right Conservative. Opposes women preaching.

Randy Adams- No chance to Win.

The first ballot, Mike Stone recieved the most votes followed by Ed Litton.

The second ballot Ed Litton defeated Mike Stone by 500 votes. 48-52 %

This is where I get the number that we are divided basically in half.

Now, I won’t go into the details of it all, but there was some really disturbing and concerning political moves done by both sides leading up to this election.

In my opinion, both sides, are guilty of slander. Those who would say they are conservative put out a video that made claims that I know for a fact are not true in an effort to convince people to vot for Mike Stone.

Those on the other side leaked private letters from individuals who aren’t even a part of the convention any more to try slander Mike Stone and vote for Ed Litton. We had seminary presidents on twitter telling the convention to vote for Ed Litton. The day before the election, a female claimed that Mike Stone verbally abused her and made her cry and they posted that all over twitter.

It was ugly. It was ungodly. It looked more like Washington DC than the SBC.

Explain what the President does.

Some other notable things to mention-

Resolution 2- was supposed to address CRT. It did not sufficiently do that in my opinion. I do think it addressed it, but I don’t think it addressed with directly.

For 2 years we fought about Resolution 9 with CRT/I.

1300 people submitted resolutions about it.

The overwhelming struggle was why are we being so vague. Its as if we provided a loophole.

I felt like they were trying to please every one.

Some argued that they are saying more not less.

People tried to speak against it and the whole crowd was essentially told that we needed to quit fighting about this. That “if we were as passionate about the Gospel as we were about CRT and I, that we could win the world for Christ tomorrow.” 

Heres the problem. CRT and I are hostile toward to the Gospel we proclaim. Its an ungodly wordview that we said two years ago could be a useful analytical tool.

But after he said that.

Someone then called for the question (asked for the vote)- and the resolution passed without anyone having the ability to speak against it.

Sexual Abuse- Investigation of the Executive Committee.

Overall, I left encouraged about some things, but very discouraged about some things.

ill start with the discouragement- The politics are sickening and the things people say online harm the witness of every Southern Baptist Church. And it leads me to doubt the trustworthiness of some people i had a lot of respect for before the convention.

So what do we do?

I think there are two options.

1. Stay in, cautiously and fight for reform. Minimum Ear-Marked Giving through Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon.

2. Leave quietly.

Many churches are leaving. I have several friends who have threw their hands up and said they are done. I don’t think its time for that quite yet.

Why stay in?

The LORD does not need the SBC to grow His church.

A. We have missionaries all over the world sent out by the IMB

B. The seminaries are the theological training ground for 1/3 of North America

-if we don’t continue to push for strong conservative candidates- then the trustees will never be changed- these are the ones that assign the presidents of the seminaries

c. This church has given thousands upon thousands to the Cooperative Program over the years

-Are/have we reached the point to cut ties on that investment?