A number of Southern Baptists — some well known and others new to the national stage — have released books, videos and statements on various issues ahead of next week’s SBC Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
Chuck Kelley, Rick Warren, Mike Law, Dwight McKissic and Tom Buck are among those who have publicly spoken out on issues expected to come before SBC messengers when the convention meets June 13–14. Those issues include the convention-wide decline in baptisms, the role of women in ministry and sexual abuse reform.
Chuck Kelley
Kelley’s most recent book, “The Best Intentions: How a Plan to Revitalize the SBC Accelerated Its Decline,” was released May 19.
The book documents the SBC’s adoption of a plan known as the Great Commission Resurgence, an effort which changed the SBC funding process and asked states to shift a higher percentage of Cooperative Program funds away from state causes and send more to the national Executive Committee to distribute to missions and ministry efforts led by national entities. GCR also redefined the relationships between the North American Mission Board, state conventions and regional associations and established church planting as a major focus of Southern Baptist evangelistic efforts.
In the book, Kelley, retired president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, outlines a series of concerns, among them a decline in Cooperative Program giving by churches, a decline in baptisms and a decline in new church plants.
The topic of whether church plants have actually been decreasing in recent years has been a point of confusion in the decade since the GCR report because strategies and metrics were changed, according to NAMB leaders. Comparing current years with past years could be an “apples and oranges” situation, NAMB leaders have argued in previous church planting discussions.
Still, “the role of low self-esteem in the contemporary SBC may be the most overlooked issue in the crises facing today’s Convention,” Kelley writes. “We are a Convention clearly in decline. Now, where do we go from here?”
Rick Warren
Warren also has the future of the SBC on his mind. The founding pastor of Saddleback Church, the largest church in the SBC, issued a statement June 1 outlining why the church is appealing the decision of the SBC Executive Committee to disaffiliate with Saddleback after the church ordained several women.
In his letter and a series of videos posted at www.sbcstand.com, Warren says he is “deeply concerned about our denomination’s 17 years of decline and the loss of a half million members just last year. No denomination can sustain that kind of loss.
Warren lays out his argument for the appeal of Saddleback’s disaffiliation on the grounds of traditional Baptist polity. The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 is “not a creed,” but the EC’s use of the document to enforce doctrinal uniformity among churches will turn it into one, he says.
“Our appeal to reverse the Executive Committee ruling is NOT asking any Baptist to change their theology,” Warren writes.
“This is a vote to affirm the God-given freedom of every Baptist to interpret Scripture as a Baptist — by saying NO to those who deny that freedom. This is a vote to affirm evangelism by saying NO to factionalism. This is a vote to refocus on the Great Commission and say NO to a Great Inquisition, which will waste enormous time, money and energy that we should be investing in revitalizing our churches.
“This is a vote to prioritize Baptists working together to heal the hurts of the world in Jesus’ name, instead of nitpicking at each other over our many differences.”
Saddleback, a multisite congregation based in Lake Forest, California, counts some 24,000 members spread across 15 U.S. campuses and four international campuses. On Mother’s Day weekend in 2021, Saddleback ordained three women who were longtime staffers. Nearly two years later, Katie Edwards was announced as the new campus pastor of the church’s Lake Forest, California, location.
Andy Wood succeeded Warren as lead pastor of Saddleback in September 2022, and Wood’s wife, Stacie, is a teaching pastor at Saddleback.
Warren said he has been given 3 minutes during the Tuesday afternoon business session on June 13 to speak to Saddleback’s appeal. Messengers will then have an opportunity to affirm the EC’s decision to remove Saddleback from affiliation with the SBC or overturn the decision and reinstate Saddleback.
Mike Law and Dwight McKissic
Saddleback’s 2021 ordination of three women is part of what motivated Virginia pastor Mike Law to propose a motion last year to amend the SBC Constitution to prohibit women pastors of any kind.
Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church, is advocating to amend Article 3, Paragraph 1 to read, “… a church [is] in friendly cooperation with the Convention … which … [d]oes not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.’ ”
“To refer to a sister in Christ serving in any capacity in the local church as a ‘pastor’ is to subvert the clear teaching of Scripture and to disregard the plain teaching of the Baptist Faith and Message,” Law writes in the FAQs section of his website, sbcamendment.org.
“This increasingly common practice of referring to a sister in Christ as the children’s/women’s/worship pastor confuses God’s people regarding his good design for the pastoral office and is a slippery slope into egalitarianism. As we disciple and teach the people of God, we don’t want to be confusing, we want to be clear, and we want to please the Lord by ordering our churches according to his good and glorious design.”
Law believes that “dozens of SBC churches have already left or stopped contributing [through] the Cooperative Program due to the toleration of female pastors within the convention on this issue and more.” Aside from biblical concerns about the practice, Law said “the same interpretive method that leads to female pastors also leads to practicing homosexual pastors.”
While some 2,000 pastors and other ministry leaders have co-signed a letter Law sent to the SBC Executive Committee advocating for the motion to be sent to the convention floor for a vote, several male Baptist pastors are campaigning against the motion via Twitter, blog posts and podcasts.
Texas pastor Dwight McKissic (@pastordmack) is one of the most outspoken on Twitter as he advocates to reject Law’s motion as well as reinstate Saddleback (and Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, which was also disaffiliated by the EC for having a woman pastor and is appealing for reinstatement).
“What we believe about God’s word … and the respect and value we place on women is at stake here,” McKissic tweeted recently, pointing to a tweet by John Sam Wallace that said the title “pastor” only appears in reference to church leaders once in the New Testament (Eph. 4:11). “Nothing limits the title to men,” Wallace states and McKissic affirms.
Many others across Southern Baptist life disagree with McKissic — some in full support of Law’s motion and others against Law’s motion but in support of Saddleback being disaffiliated. The comments on all sides have grown more intense over the past week.
Tom and Jennifer Buck
Tom Buck, pastor of Lindale Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas, and his wife, Jennifer, this week released a series of videos on Twitter documenting their rationale for requesting an investigation into what they describe as Jennifer Buck’s “mistreatment” by employees of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
At the heart of the issue is an article Jennifer Buck wrote that detailed the story of her mistreatment bordering on abuse by her husband early in their marriage.
The Bucks acknowledge sending the manuscript to Karen Swallow Prior, an author who at the time was research professor of English and Christianity and culture at Southeastern Seminary. The Bucks describe Prior as a “friend” they believed could help find a publishing outlet for the article. The article was leaked to Baptist News Global, who declined to publish it because they could not verify the source.
Buck’s article was published by G3 Ministries 11 days later on April 7, 2022. Baptist News Global reported that the accounts in the 2018 draft and the article published by G3 “differ vastly in content, detail, scope and length.”
The request for an investigation into the role Southeastern Seminary staff members might have played in the leak was made as a motion at the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim and referred to the seminary trustees.
In a June 5, 2023, tweet, Buck said, “Jennifer waited 8 months for the Trustees to contact her to interview her and see our evidence. She finally wrote to request an in-person meeting at our expense. They wrote and declined to meet with her in person and told her to take any evidence we had and ‘make it public.’ ”
The videos, released on June 6 and June 7, include video and audio clips from conversations between the Bucks and several Southeastern Seminary staff members, including president Danny Akin, former provost Keith Whitfield and Prior.
Whitfield stepped down from his administrative roles as provost and dean of graduate studies to serve full time as associate professor of theology effective June 1. Prior announced in March that she would not return to Southeastern Seminary for the fall semester due to differing visions for “carrying out the Great Commission” and the realization that she is “simply not well-suited to the politics of institutional life in the SBC.” Prior to her tenure at the seminary, Prior was a faculty member at Liberty University from 1999 to 2020.
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