Excellent recommendations and well written. Very direct and to the point which leaves no room for ambiguity.

Max:
The SBC annual convention will be held next week (June 12-15) in Anaheim, CA.There will be various resolutions voted on by the thousands of “messengers” gathered there.I hope someone has drafted a resolution which includes these actions to be presented at the conference.

But resolutions are nonbinding.

Tom Parker: resolutions are nonbinding

It’s really the only mechanism within SBC life to “bind” Southern Baptists to anything … except the Baptist Faith & Message, of course.

However, a perfect example of the “nonbinding” nature of SBC resolutions was one approved in 2013 “On Sexual Abuse of Children” strongly encouraging “denominational leaders and employees of the Southern Baptist Convention to utilize the highest sense of discernment in affiliating with groups and or individuals that possess questionable policies and practices in protecting our children from criminal abuse.” That didn’t stop Al Mohler from hanging out with his bud C.J. Mahaney, eventually helping him set up shop in Louisville and becoming a Southern Baptist!

Burwell Stark: Meanwhile, I noticed this statement in the e-mail I received from the Biblical Recorder (NC Baptist newspaper) regarding the upcoming annual meeting:
With all that is unfolding in the SBC family, let’s keep our eye on the ball. The feature story this week takes us to the ministry of international missions. IMB released the report of 2021’s international mission work.

Really, if they can’t appropriately deal with the sex abuse and cover-ups (AKA Evil) perpetrated by their leaders, the SBC HAS NO testimony to take to an international mission field, just no credibility. But they are conveniently ignoring (and trying to distract from) that fact.

Unfortunately, the most powerful and moving part of that document is the number and names of the survivors. May God heal the survivors and hold the abusers to account for their abuse of these people and for the dishonoring of God’s Holy name.

Max,

It’s a hideous deflection – as if their missionaries will be listened to after these sex abuse scandals have been so poorly handled.

The last time I was in Ireland was not long after another set of revelations about the Catholic Church & the attitude towards the church had shifted palpably away from the authority it had always assumed in Irish society, especially in Dublin – it was very striking. The SBC is going to shoot itself in the foot in exactly the same way. Who cares about the ‘gospel’ preached by such lawless & immoral people? If they don’t show any care about something so horrendous, as well as so against their own moral rules then why should they get a hearing? B

The Biblical Recorder used to be a free-standing news journal for NC Baptists before the “Conservative Resurgence.” I was a proud member of the Board of Directors during that time. One the Fundamentalists took over the Baptist State Convention of NC around 2002, the autonomy of the Recorder was ended and it was folded into the operations of the BSCNC and since that time became its “mouthpiece”, which is evident in its comments.

BeakerN: Who cares about the ‘gospel’ preached by such lawless & immoral people?

One sex crime story after another, the never ending saga of the patriarchal empowered church … too male to fail.

elastigirl,

Unfortunately, I don’t know who wrote it. It was a summary e-mail.

dee:
grberry,

Christa is a lawyer and I can assure you she read the report. Knowing this, why do you think she said what she did?

Asking anyone to guess the motives of somebody they don’t know is a fool’s game. Asking me even more so.

Two real ideas come to mind, but my first choice of answer is #3 that isn’t a real idea.
#1 They saw something inside the report I didn’t notice. What? Where?
#2 Someone more concerned with advocacy than accuracy thinks this wording will achieve their advocacy objectives. Who? What objective? Why?
#3 I don’t have a clue why.

Ava Aaronson: If it walks and talks like a duck, it’s a duck.

SBC has become a duck pond.

elastigirl:
Denny Burk tweeted this on June 4:
…

…that $4.5 million is enough money to fund 75 missionaries…

…

I’m going in a different direction than elastigirl did from that tweet, focused only on the part I chose to requote.

Many, most of us believe that the sex abuse and coverup scandals damage the witness of the SBC for what it believe to the gospel. I’m among those who do. Is dealing with these scandals this way more or less impactful on evangelism than the effective productivity of 75 missionaries?

I don’t have an answer. I don’t think either the damage of the scandal or the productivity of the missionaries is really quantifiable by any human. None of us knows enough. But there ought to be enough data out there for a reasonable argument to be made and a plausible approximation to exist.

The techniques and thinking style of the effective altruism movement ought to be applicable. But it isn’t often done. Even in the forum of a small organization focused on effective altruism for Christians, I find only one post discussing effective evangelism – and no replies. That post starts “Within the Christian effective altruist community, the concept of “effective evangelism” is controversial.” A later paragraph begins “Rigorous analysis of “effective evangelism” is difficult to find.”

From what little I can see from that forum posts, the answer is almost certainly that dealing with these scandals is certainly more impactful than 75 missionaries sent to Japan (estimate of $2.7M per baptism) and almost certainly more impactful than 75 missionaries sent to Mozambique (estimate of $1,366 per baptism). Since those are the two ends of the scale from the one study actually cited in that blog post.

If someone wants to persuade another, speaking to that other person’s known values is important. Many in the SBC care about evangelism. I’d guess most messengers to the convention do. Finding a way to speak their language is important for effective advocacy.

Wild Honey: who exactly is the gospel for?

It’s obviously for the people make money from book and merchandise sales, speaking fees, endorsements, and tithes and offerings.

Wild Honey: who exactly is the gospel for? Are sex abuse survivors not worthy of missional focus, too?

If the mission of SBC does not include them, their gospel is not good news for all people.

elastigirl: Denny Burk tweeted this on June 4:

“The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee’s (EC) proposals for funding abuse reform efforts in the denomination will cost the International Mission Board (IMB) roughly $4.5 million…

…that $4.5 million is enough money to fund 75 missionaries…”

If the SBC is not capable of dealing with sin in the camp at whatever the cost, it won’t be effective camping out elsewhere.

Friend:
Does the SBC really measure productivity in cost per baptism, or is that simply a math problem anybody could do (comparing the cost of one missionary with the number of baptisms during their stay)?

I have no evidence that the SBC measures productivity at all, much less that way.

In theory this is a math problem anybody with all relevant data could do. Obtaining all relevant data would be effectively impossible. So simplifying assumptions would need to be made.

I was baptized above age 30, so my own life is a relevant example of the challenge. As you read the following, think about which denominations, churches, ministries, and missionaries should get what share of the credit for my baptism? As I wrote it more relevant old events kept coming back to mind. I’m sure there are relevant ones I have not remembered or have omitted.

My parents brought me to a Presbyterian church for the first 6 years of my life. Infant baptism was done to me then. The family moved to another state and we attended a UCC church for the next 5 years. Things happened, we started looking for another church, and my younger brother and I expressed the feeling “Why go to church? We’d rather play.” My parents never resumed regular church attendance. During Jr. High and HS years I was in a scout troop sponsored by a local protestant church and the local Roman Catholic parish. Once a year we all attended service at both churches on the same morning, and that was the extent of my churchgoing until I turned 29.

I’ve been a voracious reader since before I started attending school. I read much fiction and non-fiction, including Christian non-fiction, even before I became a Christian. I especially liked SF/Fantasy, and repeatedly read both the Narnia books and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Around age 20 to provide background information for an early text only multi-user online game, I borrowed a copy of a old, out-of-copyright translation of the Rule of St. Benedict (a Roman Catholic monastic code) and transcribed it to an online web site. A Benedictine monk later emailed me to talk about it.

In freshman year of college I encountered a random missionary who tried to evangelize me on the public transport ride to the intercity bus station, and at least had my attention enough that I missed my stop and had to walk back a couple stops in the other direction. I had close friends in a service/social group who were various forms of Christian and were visibly so at the time (among the closest were some whose denomination I don’t know, one belongs to the LCMS, one is Roman Catholic, multiple were Jewish). At various points I saw sandwich board hellfire and damnation street evangelists near/in public transit stations. A Conservative Jewish girlfriend from that organization got me to think about becoming Jewish which started my active seeking phase. Even after we broke up I kept seeking. I purchased a lot of books from the ethics bookshelf of a college bookstore which led me to reading natural law ethics. Natural law ethics is effectively divine law ethics but not labeled as such.

A female coworker (same manager) had moved to this city with, but not part of, a church planting team from a missionary organization inside a SBC megachurch (First Baptist of …). Some members of the team were on missionary support, but so far as I known none of them were funded as SBC missionaries. But the new church did receive a church planting subsidy from the SBC ($30K year 1, #20K year 2, $10K year 3.) Watching her lived practice out of the corner of my eye and then hitting serious questions worth talking about led me to going out to dinner once a month and plying her with those questions, some of which were from those ethics books and outside her comfort zone. Eventually that switched to attending the small group she was a co-leader of, then my going to church.

And back at the college I attended a concert organized by a Christian a capella group that also included at least one other Christian a capella group from another school. In the audience was a young lady who had been in the social/service group but not a close friend. She was then a staff member for Intervarsity. After the concert I called her with some questions and had a phone conversation with her.

Then a combination of my ongoing reading and words from the lord spoken by church members led to my salvation and baptism. One of the people giving me words in this series were also Intervarsity staffers. The final pair of words by husband and wife at once A) confirmed something I had just read in a translation of Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians and B) asked me to submit to the Lord at that time.

The missionary organization that had sent the team amicably split from the SBC megachurch and became a non-denominational megachurch of its own in the original city. (Within two years of the split both churches were of the size of the pre-split church.) I don’t know if that split was before or after my baptism. It and its various church plants are what I would now call a denomination, though so far as I know it has never used that label for itself.

How much fractional credit should each organization or denomination get for my baptism? I believe it would take God’s omniscient knowledge to do assign the 100% for just me. And this analysis really ought to be done for everyone baptized.

Wild Honey: Which begs the question, who exactly is the gospel for? Are sex abuse survivors not worthy of missional focus, too?

There are those who are too focused on evangelizing those who have never accepted the gospel/been saved/been baptized/etc… They can develop blind spots about those already saved.

Most large Baptist denominations in America (including but not just the SBC) are historically rooted in the Triennial Convention (officially named the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions) that was formed/organized in 1814 by existing Baptist churches to support overseas missionary work, including that of Adoniram Judson. The first split of that organization, over the issue of slavery, was in 1845 with the Southern faction forming the SBC after the organization as a whole had declined to support a missionary because he was a slaveholder.

Baptist churches already existed, and joined the convention to support the missionary work. So historically the denominations exist for the purpose of the missionary work and for no other reason. This is very different from other denominations where the churches/parishes were created by and remain subordinate to the denomination (often they are 100% owned by the denomination).

That naturally leads the SBC organization to having a focus on missionary evangelism. It is the reason for the existence of the SBC, and arguably the only thing they should be doing. There naturally follows a blind spot for other issues.

Both that blind spot and that nature of the denomination are part of why the SBC EC handled the reports of sexual abuse the way that they did.

grberry,

I don’t think this is the part of their statement with recommendations. I found 4 different and explicit recommendations quoted here: https://churchleaders.com/news/426227-sbc-sexual-abuse-survivors-statement-reforms.html

grberry: That naturally leads the SBC organization to having a focus on missionary evangelism. It is the reason for the existence of the SBC, and arguably the only thing they should be doing. There naturally follows a blind spot for other issues.

Yet, SBC’s International Mission Board (under David Platt’s leadership) recalled 1,000 career missionaries citing a funding shortage … while SBC’s North American Mission Board found plenty of money during the same period to plant 1,000 new churches each year (actually they have been planting reformed theology). And, of course, there was still plenty of dough for SBC’s elite to live in luxury, some of them even making the bad boy list of abusers. Hyping “missionary evangelism” has morphed into a way to attract more SBC customers to send money up the ladder to sustain the gravy train. Sad, because it was once a sincere mission; evangelism was SBC’s denominational gifting – now forfeited.

Ken F (aka Tweed): the IMB removed their prohibition on praying in tongues

I looked it up. The prohibition was lifted in May 2015, the firings happened in Feb 2016.

grberry: That naturally leads the SBC organization to having a focus on missionary evangelism. It is the reason for the existence of the SBC, and arguably the only thing they should be doing.

in the words of some Rabbi from Nazareth, “Crossing land and sea to make a convert, only to make them twice the child of Hell as themselves”.

SBC’s annual meeting in Anaheim,CA starts tomorrow. There will be thousand in attendance. Will there be a display of brokenness over the darkness which has been revealed in its midst? Will there be an outbreak of prayer and repentance and seeking God to change and redirect both pulpit and pew in the days ahead? Or will the masses show up, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, head over to Disneyland for awhile, and return home to conduct business as usual?