THIS, I CANNOT NOT LEAVE ALONE
“Bless everything you can bless and leave the rest of it alone.”
Glen Money; until now
It has been nearly three decades since I have felt that my primary Christian and ministerial identity was Southern Baptist. I suppose I have come to see myself as a Baptist minister from the South, with feet and hands in more camps than just the one I was born into. Yet, over these years, I have pastored, with both intent and integrity, churches that partly or primarily identified as Southern Baptist. How have I done that? First, I embraced this as a practical reality of pastoring a church of much consequence in our tradition and territory. Secondly, I decided to bless everything I could bless and leave the rest of it alone.
There has been a lot to bless. Southern Baptist world raised me and nurtured my strong and simple Christian faith. Its campus ministry helped me keep that faith and develop it into a deeper belief in the suddenly bigger God who, for reasons I have yet to fathom, called me to minister in His name. It gave me space to grapple with the questions and complexities that led others to abandon the old gospel ship. Southern Baptists of that generation afforded me a world class seminary education, largely funded by the genius of the Cooperative Program. I bless the SBC churches that took chances on a young, unproven “preacher boy.” I am likewise indebted to the SBC endorsed Army chaplain who took me under his wing and showed me a level of ministerial thought and practice I did not know existed. I revere the hundreds like him who have served on the frontlines of all manner of non-congregational settings, unleashed by Southern Baptist ministerial imagination. Nobody, and I mean nobody, does disaster relief better than Southern Baptists. State run Baptist homes for children, seniors, and the disabled are historically stellar. And though oft misguided, the Southern Baptist’s zeal and structure for missions, evangelism, and religious education has been the envy of the denominational world for decades.
There is, however, a lot that is distinctly Southern Baptist that I have found myself unable to bless and have chosen to just leave alone. Sadly, over the years, this list has grown.
I just can’t bless a narrow understanding of scripture that picks and chooses what parts of the Bible to take, and not take seriously, while refusing to be honest about the Bible’s historical construct and context. I can’t endorse the minimizing of Jesus by making an interpretation of the written Word of God a higher source of authority than the Living Word Himself. Nor can I bless limiting the roles half of God’s human creation can fill in the service of His church and kingdom. Women are worthy of far more than just “complementing” men in church, home, and society. I cannot bless its use of power and politic to steal and dismantle institutions of serious theological inquiry, ministry, and mission. I’m long done with infighting that demeans, demonizes, damages, and eventually dismisses any dissenting voice. This mean-spirited certitude has wreaked its havoc on lives, careers, congregations, and once glorious institutions. The cherished “Four Fragile Freedoms” (Bible, Soul, Church and Religious) seem shattered beyond easy recognition. Still, for the most part, I have managed to live out my faith, pastor my churches, and leave these and other things alone.
Until now.
It is now a matter of national news (and national embarrassment) that for years, the Executive Committee of the SBC refused to act on hundreds of instances of clergy sexual abuse. While publicly claiming it would be impossible to gather and responsibly handle such information, they indeed possessed a database of over seven hundred convicted or credibly accused offenders. This list was never used to help prevent abuse, provide consolation and care for victims, or warn unknowing churches. It was secretly guarded by a body whose primary concern was avoiding liability for the SBC. All this began to come to light through an investigative report by The Houston Chronicle in 2019.
Despite resistance from convention leadership, the convention messengers (Baptist word for delegates) who gathered two years later in Nashville, called for an exhaustive, independent investigation into the matter. A private company, Guidepost Solutions, was contracted to investigate the matter and provide a full report to the convention. Despite much internal obstruction, the firm produced a nearly 300 plus page report detailing hundreds of instances of sexual abuse of women, men, and children. All knowingly covered up by SBC leadership. The report was made public in late May of this year. I have read it all. And the content, called “apocalyptic” by longtime Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore, is grievously shocking.
Hundreds of convicted or credibly accused sex offenders continued to use ministry settings to abuse women, men, and children with the knowledge and protection of convention leadership. Some SBC household names, complicit in the cover up, were outed as abusers themselves. Victims were egregiously and repeatedly ignored, vilified, intimidated, and threatened in efforts to silence them. A seminary president once sought to meet with a victim to, in his words, “break her down.” This same SBC leader recommended a charismatic pastor, who is now imprisoned, to multiple churches knowing his long history of sexual abuse of young girls. His fellow architect in the SBC’s “conservative correction” is now civilly charged with the rape of young boys. The list goes on and on, so I will not do so here. You can look it up. To this there is no, “yes, but” or “what about?” here. It is sick, systemic sin, brought forth and carried out in the same spirit that captured and corrupted this once great convention.
The SBC is now seen in the public eye as joined with the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, and USA Gymnastics.
I take as encouraging signs the election of a more moderate convention president who vows to take seriously this matter. Yet, there is already a movement afoot to discredit and dismiss the factual report and “move on.” And the vile voices who have called this a “demonic distraction” for whom the victims are “complicit in the devil’s work” are still heard and widely supported. And on matters of doctrinal diversity, the role of women in leadership, love for all God’s children, and what it takes to remain in “friendly cooperation,” the lines have been even more sharply drawn.
To echo an old 80’s car commercial, this is not your father’s SBC. And it has not been for a long, long time. And while I still bless what I can bless, those blessings seem much more behind me than with me. And while I leave alone all I can, on this I will not miss this chance to be crystal clear. I abhor the indefensible abuse of power, absence of grace and concern for victims, and scandalous dereliction of duty shown by keeping avoidance of liability as the main motive. All paid for at the expense of vulnerable people and churches. And Cooperative Program dollars.
This I cannot leave alone.