We at Toward the Truth respect the work of Jonathan Merritt. His observations about religion in the US, especially about evangelicals and certainly about Southern Baptists, are among the best in the business.
We read with interest his Atlantic article Southern Baptists Call Off the Culture War. We ourselves are observers of evangelicalism in the US and among us we have decades of experience with Southern Baptists. We hope Mr Merritt is correct in his optimism about the Southern Baptist Convention; we fear he is more hopeful than one should be.
The 2018 Annual Meeting of the SBC, held in Dallas June 12-13, attracted more than 9,500 messengers (think “delegates”) from among the some 47,000 cooperating congregations that ostensibly include over 15 million members. (The 15 million figure has long been in question. Some 5 million people attend SBC churches in a given week. The larger membership number is calculated in ways that some consider dubious.)
To be sure, there were actions at the meeting that spur optimism. The convention dealt with the messy affair of the recent termination of Paige Patterson as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and turned back any attempt to unseat the board of trustees executive committee who took that action. This was significant, among other reasons, because a critical impetus to remove Patterson had to do with his statements about and treatment of women, especially women who are abused by men.
The convention elected J.D. Greear as their new president, which is largely a figurehead position, but it does signal the sentiments of the messengers at an annual convention, and in this case they overwhelmingly elected a president who offers at least a different style, if not a different doctrinal commitment, than many of his predecessors.
Also, some messengers objected to the presence of Vice President Mike Pence at the Wednesday morning session of the meeting. We acknowledge that the resistance to Pence was slight, but it was vocal and it was articulate. Further tying the SBC to the GOP and the administration of Donald J. Trump is bad news for Southern Baptists, whether people like Robert Jeffress (pastor of FBC Dallas and an apologist for Trump) understand it or not.
We applaud those who spoke up about Pence and, in particular, we were surprised that J.D. Greear, just elected SBC president at the time, tweeted after Pence’s appearance, “That sent a terribly mixed signal. We are grateful for civic leaders who want to speak to our Convention — but make no mistake about it, our identity is in the gospel and our unity is in the Great Commission. Commissioned missionaries, not political platforms, are what we do.” We’re sure Mr. Greear took plenty of criticism about this and, while it’s not a monumental statement, its at least something.
Finally, in our SBC optimism roundup, we note that the SBC passed a resolution (these resolutions are non-binding, yet they are statements about the sentiments of the annual convention that passes them) supporting immigration reform and criticizing the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the border.
Again, we’re glad for these hopeful signs at the SBC. Yet any signs of optimism are clouded by the history of the SBC itself.
While the SWBTS trustees removed Paige Patterson as president of their seminary, it is notable that they did so not by their own impetus, but because they were pressured by a cultural movement – #MeToo – and some brave women, rather than standing up to Patterson sooner. They had cause to do so, but did nothing until forced. For a denomination (sure, we know it’s not technically a “denomination,” but you know what we mean) that prides itself on being influential in the culture, the SBC was trailing far behind on this one, just as it did on slavery and civil rights and, well, many matters of import.
Regarding immigration policy and the attachment to the GOP, we are doubtful that Southern Baptists as a whole will do anything more than they have in past decades. They will stay attached to the GOP and will, in large part, help elect more Republicans to support the agenda of Donald Trump. And, given the opportunity, they will line up to pull the lever for Trump to serve four more years. We are glad to be proven wrong about any and all of this prognostication, but we will believe it when we see it.
Finally, it is true that J.D. Greear appears to be a different leader. He certainly dresses differently than many of his predecessors and, more substantively, he attempts to be a serious theologian and exegete, something that can be said of few SBC presidents in recent memory. That is, he takes doctrine and its implications seriously.
And this is where our real concern lies and why any optimism we might have about the future of the SBC is muted, at best. Paige Patterson and his wife Dorothy made “complementarianism” a cardinal doctrine in the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC. They, and others, used the doctrine to wield power over women – and men – for decades. We believe the view as espoused by the Pattersons et al is actually hierachichalism (a doctrinal nuance we may explain in a later post), and their oppression of women was extended to every facet of life. Ask someone who worked for them and they’ll tell you what we mean. This isn’t a biblical doctrine; it is a human construction meant to accumulate and wield power.
Mr Greear, amidst this scandal (we mean this literally in the sense of “skandalon” in New Testament Greek, something over which people trip and fall that keeps them from the gospel) wants to maintain this doctrine. He may dress it up more nicely than do the Pattersons et al, but the doctrine remains. And the doctrine has implications, as Mr Greear knows. It is our view that such a doctrine inevitably leads to chauvinism, at best, and misogyny, at worst. We need not defend an assertion to which history well attests.
So for optimism to break the clouds of our view about the SBC, we’ll be looking for other signs, chief among them a serious reflection on doctrine in the SBC, a serious reflection about the conventions ties to the GOP, and, finally, a sober reflection on how the SBC relates to culture.
This last point gets back to the question of how the SBC is seen in the world and its commitment, to whatever extent, to the culture war. We work outside any ecclesiastical structures (i.e., none of us work for a church or denominational agency) and spend almost the entirely of our working and personal life among people of different faiths and many who espouse no faith. Among our circles there are two prevailing views about Southern Baptists.
Most people have no idea who Southern Baptists are. SBC churches simply are invisible to very many of the public. We understand this assertion is a surprise to many Southern Baptists, one to which many in the SBC will surely object. Yet, it is a testable hypothesis. We encourage people to do so, to get outside their circles and see what people think. In our circles it is largely the case that the SBC is invisible, a non-factor in culture, including our experience in cities in the southern US.
The other view people have of the SBC, those who know of it, is that it is a collection of strange people who are mad about something (mainly gays and abortion), who are condemnatory, and who are something like an ecclesiastical arm of the GOP and Donald Trump. Of course there are exceptions since some know Southern Baptists who are lovely people, but this is the prevailing view in our experience.
Few in our circles think that Southern Baptists are followers of Jesus, so known by their love for one another, their neighbors, and their enemies.
This is the truth as we see it from our vantage point. Whatever we’ve gotten wrong, we doubt we’re too far from the truth. Again, we’ll be glad for history to prove us wrong.
We read with interest his Atlantic article Southern Baptists Call Off the Culture War. We ourselves are observers of evangelicalism in the US and among us we have decades of experience with Southern Baptists. We hope Mr Merritt is correct in his optimism about the Southern Baptist Convention; we fear he is more hopeful than one should be.
The 2018 Annual Meeting of the SBC, held in Dallas June 12-13, attracted more than 9,500 messengers (think “delegates”) from among the some 47,000 cooperating congregations that ostensibly include over 15 million members. (The 15 million figure has long been in question. Some 5 million people attend SBC churches in a given week. The larger membership number is calculated in ways that some consider dubious.)
To be sure, there were actions at the meeting that spur optimism. The convention dealt with the messy affair of the recent termination of Paige Patterson as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and turned back any attempt to unseat the board of trustees executive committee who took that action. This was significant, among other reasons, because a critical impetus to remove Patterson had to do with his statements about and treatment of women, especially women who are abused by men.
The convention elected J.D. Greear as their new president, which is largely a figurehead position, but it does signal the sentiments of the messengers at an annual convention, and in this case they overwhelmingly elected a president who offers at least a different style, if not a different doctrinal commitment, than many of his predecessors.
Also, some messengers objected to the presence of Vice President Mike Pence at the Wednesday morning session of the meeting. We acknowledge that the resistance to Pence was slight, but it was vocal and it was articulate. Further tying the SBC to the GOP and the administration of Donald J. Trump is bad news for Southern Baptists, whether people like Robert Jeffress (pastor of FBC Dallas and an apologist for Trump) understand it or not.
We applaud those who spoke up about Pence and, in particular, we were surprised that J.D. Greear, just elected SBC president at the time, tweeted after Pence’s appearance, “That sent a terribly mixed signal. We are grateful for civic leaders who want to speak to our Convention — but make no mistake about it, our identity is in the gospel and our unity is in the Great Commission. Commissioned missionaries, not political platforms, are what we do.” We’re sure Mr. Greear took plenty of criticism about this and, while it’s not a monumental statement, its at least something.
Finally, in our SBC optimism roundup, we note that the SBC passed a resolution (these resolutions are non-binding, yet they are statements about the sentiments of the annual convention that passes them) supporting immigration reform and criticizing the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the border.
Again, we’re glad for these hopeful signs at the SBC. Yet any signs of optimism are clouded by the history of the SBC itself.
While the SWBTS trustees removed Paige Patterson as president of their seminary, it is notable that they did so not by their own impetus, but because they were pressured by a cultural movement – #MeToo – and some brave women, rather than standing up to Patterson sooner. They had cause to do so, but did nothing until forced. For a denomination (sure, we know it’s not technically a “denomination,” but you know what we mean) that prides itself on being influential in the culture, the SBC was trailing far behind on this one, just as it did on slavery and civil rights and, well, many matters of import.
Regarding immigration policy and the attachment to the GOP, we are doubtful that Southern Baptists as a whole will do anything more than they have in past decades. They will stay attached to the GOP and will, in large part, help elect more Republicans to support the agenda of Donald Trump. And, given the opportunity, they will line up to pull the lever for Trump to serve four more years. We are glad to be proven wrong about any and all of this prognostication, but we will believe it when we see it.
Finally, it is true that J.D. Greear appears to be a different leader. He certainly dresses differently than many of his predecessors and, more substantively, he attempts to be a serious theologian and exegete, something that can be said of few SBC presidents in recent memory. That is, he takes doctrine and its implications seriously.
And this is where our real concern lies and why any optimism we might have about the future of the SBC is muted, at best. Paige Patterson and his wife Dorothy made “complementarianism” a cardinal doctrine in the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC. They, and others, used the doctrine to wield power over women – and men – for decades. We believe the view as espoused by the Pattersons et al is actually hierachichalism (a doctrinal nuance we may explain in a later post), and their oppression of women was extended to every facet of life. Ask someone who worked for them and they’ll tell you what we mean. This isn’t a biblical doctrine; it is a human construction meant to accumulate and wield power.
Mr Greear, amidst this scandal (we mean this literally in the sense of “skandalon” in New Testament Greek, something over which people trip and fall that keeps them from the gospel) wants to maintain this doctrine. He may dress it up more nicely than do the Pattersons et al, but the doctrine remains. And the doctrine has implications, as Mr Greear knows. It is our view that such a doctrine inevitably leads to chauvinism, at best, and misogyny, at worst. We need not defend an assertion to which history well attests.
So for optimism to break the clouds of our view about the SBC, we’ll be looking for other signs, chief among them a serious reflection on doctrine in the SBC, a serious reflection about the conventions ties to the GOP, and, finally, a sober reflection on how the SBC relates to culture.
This last point gets back to the question of how the SBC is seen in the world and its commitment, to whatever extent, to the culture war. We work outside any ecclesiastical structures (i.e., none of us work for a church or denominational agency) and spend almost the entirely of our working and personal life among people of different faiths and many who espouse no faith. Among our circles there are two prevailing views about Southern Baptists.
Most people have no idea who Southern Baptists are. SBC churches simply are invisible to very many of the public. We understand this assertion is a surprise to many Southern Baptists, one to which many in the SBC will surely object. Yet, it is a testable hypothesis. We encourage people to do so, to get outside their circles and see what people think. In our circles it is largely the case that the SBC is invisible, a non-factor in culture, including our experience in cities in the southern US.
The other view people have of the SBC, those who know of it, is that it is a collection of strange people who are mad about something (mainly gays and abortion), who are condemnatory, and who are something like an ecclesiastical arm of the GOP and Donald Trump. Of course there are exceptions since some know Southern Baptists who are lovely people, but this is the prevailing view in our experience.
Few in our circles think that Southern Baptists are followers of Jesus, so known by their love for one another, their neighbors, and their enemies.
This is the truth as we see it from our vantage point. Whatever we’ve gotten wrong, we doubt we’re too far from the truth. Again, we’ll be glad for history to prove us wrong.
RSS Feed
