ANAHEIM, California – In recent years, the Southern Baptist Convention has struggled with declining membership, high-profile departures and a growing sexual violence scandal. The country’s largest Protestant denomination has also witnessed fierce internal clashes over race, gender and politics. This week, with all this declining pressure, thousands of southern Baptists are gathering for an annual meeting that may be the most consistent in decades.
The meeting in Southern California comes less than a month after a bomb report said the denomination’s leaders suppressed reports of sexual violence and opposed proposals for reform. Delegates will also elect a new president, a decision that will outline how the denomination will engage in national politics and deal with the scandal of abuse that has shaken its members.
“This must be one of the most historic and important conventions in congressional history,” said Jared Wellman, a pastor in Texas on Monday, hours after he was elected chairman of the convention’s executive committee, which helps guide activities and finances. to the group.
Although the meeting is significant for Southern Baptists, it also serves more broadly as a signal for conservative Christianity at a time when the country is divided over weapons, abortion and sexuality. The Supreme Court is expected to repeal the long-standing constitutional right to abortion soon.
For Southern Baptists, not only domestic politics and leadership are at stake, but also the long-term priorities of the schismatic group and its approach to a number of increasingly contentious social issues.
The first signs seemed promising to those hoping to make reforms in response to the report on sexual violence. Mr. Wellman, the newly elected head of the executive committee, is leading the effort as a member to relinquish the privilege of a client lawyer in support of the third-party investigation that led to the report. The next vice-president and secretary of the commission, David Sins and Pamela Reed, backed the effort. Their rivals opposed this move.
A separate vote Monday to chair the Pastors’ Conference, a largely symbolic but visible role, has attracted more attention than usual this year. The ultraconservatives have nominated Vodi Baucham, a popular preacher and writer who warns of liberal bias on issues such as critical racial theory. With 608 votes, Mr. Bausham lost by 82 votes to Daniel Dickard, pastor of North Carolina.
Smooth in the Southern Baptist Convention
Internal and external crises have hit the country’s largest Protestant denomination.
Delegates, known as envoys, will vote Tuesday for the next congressional president. The leading candidates represent radically different directions for the future of the convention.
Bart Barber, a pastor in rural Texas who supports proposed denominational sexual violence reforms, complains about how “secular politics” has affected the tone and content of the debate in southern Baptist circles. He was backed by Rick Warren, the influential pastor of Saddleback Church, one of the largest congregations in the denomination, which itself was criticized by ultraconservatives when the church ordained three women pastors last year.
Mr Barber’s rival, Tom Ascol, is a Florida pastor who criticizes what he describes as the deviation of the denomination to the left on issues including gender, sexuality, abortion and critical racial theory, which the convention has publicly confirmed as potentially useful. He called on Baptists to be “culturally uncompromising.”
Mr Ascol condemned the sexual violence documented in a recent report, but warned against over-large-scale reforms that he said could compromise the autonomy and finances of the individual church.
Mr. Ascol is president of Founders Ministries, an influential organization that is part of the denomination’s energetic ultra-conservative wing. “We believe that God is watching, that He alone determines our terms and determines our agenda,” a group of conservative Baptist leaders wrote in Mr Askol’s nomination for president in March. “And God is not awakened.”
Sometimes the race for denominational leadership takes on the character of a traditional political campaign. Mr Askol has been interviewed by right-wing publications, including One America News, Real America’s Voice and Daily Wire.
“This is probably the clearest choice we have between the two competing directions,” said Todd Benkert, pastor and editor of SBC Voices, an independent website focused on denomination. Mr Benkert has played a leading role in pushing for an investigation into the abuses of last year’s Congress, and he supports Mr Barber’s candidacy.
Delegates faced a similar decision at last year’s Nashville Convention, which pitted Mike Stone, an ultra-conservative pastor from Georgia, against Ed Leaton, a pastor from Alabama who avoids direct involvement in cultural wars. Mr. Lytton won by very few. But he announced in March that he would not run for a second one-year term.
Attendance at this year’s convention is significantly lower, in large part because travel to Southern California is prohibitively expensive for many of the small southern churches that are still the center of gravity of the denomination. This decline is expected to favor Mr Barber.
With 13.7 million members, the denomination has been steadily declining since its peak of 16.3 million members in 2006. But it still boasts 47,000 churches scattered across the state, and is closely watched by many more. – a wide range of conservative evangelicals.
In May, the convention released a nearly 300-page report describing how its leaders have mishandled allegations of abuse, belittled victims and their families, and opposed reform efforts. Envoys to last year’s convention commissioned the report.
Leaders have long argued that the decentralized structure of the denomination means it has little ability to force an individual church to take any action once the abuse is discovered. In 2008, the executive committee rejected a proposal to create a database of clergy and staff “involved in sexual harassment or abuse.”
An official, meanwhile, has compiled an unofficial list of abusive suspects, which was shared with former commission vice-president and chief adviser D. August Boto, the report said. Mr Boto was not immediately available for comment.
The Executive Committee published a 205-page version of this list in May, which its chairman Roland Slade described as “an initial but important step towards tackling the scourge of sexual violence and implementing reform of the Convention.” He also announced the creation of a confidential hotline for victims and others to file allegations of abuse in the organization, which he described as a “break”. The hotline is maintained by Guidepost Solutions, the company that produced the report.
On Monday night, Mr Askol spoke to about 100 supporters who had gathered under the towering palm trees in front of the convention center. Eaton Hardy, a seminary student, had gathered with two others from his church in Oregon to vote for Mr. Ascol. His concerns about the denomination included what he described as creeping tolerance for women as pastors – which the denomination forbids – and a diminishing commitment in seminaries to Bible truth.
Mr. Hardy was not convinced that his candidate would win. But it was important for him to come and be heard.
“There is division in the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said. “It is God’s will that we be here and take a stand for righteousness.”
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