I attended my first Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in June of 1987. Participation was part of my first class at Southern Seminary, Bill Leonard’s J-Term study of the SBC. (As I recall, I made an A; nowhere to go but down.) I was standing with Dr. Leonard, then and still our preeminent Baptist church historian. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Baptist icon Will Campbell ambling toward the entrance. Brother Will was a hero of mine, and as I got to tell him years later, he was unknowingly instrumental in my call to ministry. When I asked Bill if he would introduce me, he kindly obliged.
We walked quickly towards the man from Mt. Juliet, though we didn’t have to. Will was moving slowly, but purposefully. His hand carved cane and signature Amish hat rendered “God’s Will” instantly recognizable to anyone acquainted with his image, story, words, and “crazy ideas.” The Rev. Will B. Dunn from the comic strip Kudzu in the flesh.
“Will”, Dr. Leonard called out to get his attention. And as we drew closer, “What in God’s name are you doing here?” What Will said next is forever etched in my memory.
“I came to watch a great convention die.”
I can still hear his voice today. Words deliberate and slow. A clarion call to all with ears to hear. Measured and sure, they were. No joy, just reasoned remorse. Evenly dosed with disdain and disappointment. The confusing, confounding, controversial, convoluted reality, in that moment sounded confirmed. Confirmed for and by Southern Baptist’s most famous steeple dropout.
1987. Again I say, 1987.
I did not attend this week’s gathering in New Orleans of what passes for Southern Baptists. Truth told, I last graced those grounds in Atlanta, summer of 1991. But the inevitable conclusion of what I witnessed then was reached and realized this week in the Crescent City. Ironically, “the room where it happened” sits only blocks from Café Du Monde, where the road to this particular perdition was mapped out in 1979.
The nation’s most prominent, conservative, effective evangelical church saw the door they were already shown shut and locked behind them. Rick Warren and Saddleback Church was deemed a threat to the unity and doctrinal purity of the SBC. Their crime? Daring to affirm God called women as pastoral ministers with authority to bear the title and teach the Word of God. Even on Sunday morning.
The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, as many of us predicted, was wielded as a weapon of exclusion over just one of its 4032 words. This document - disguised as a consensus statement drawn way too narrowly for this Baptist’s adherence – became an iron clad, enforceable fiat. And the vote to affirm the ouster wasn’t even close. Could not have been less Baptistic.
Turns out, turning out the congregation founded by the once revered pastor of the Purpose Driven Life and Church was not enough. A Louisville church of lesser stature proved easy picking. A resolution was crafted, then amended, making even clearer their conviction that “God only calls men to the office of pastor/elder/bishop.” Then, this constitutional amendment (in italics) was put forth and affirmed:
The Convention will only deem a church in friendly cooperation with the Convention, and sympathetic with its purposes and work (i.e. a “cooperating” church as that term is used in the Convention’s governing documents) which: affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder, as qualified by scripture.
No presumption of friendly cooperation. No wiggle room. No exceptions. No women pastors. No women preachers. None.
Truth is, most churches with earnest convictions and a history of affirming women in ministry have already disembarked the SBC ship. Others, like the one I love and lead, have kept a rope loosely tied to the bow, blessing what we can and leaving the rest alone. We have done so with two wonderful women on our pastoral staff and a decades long line of women deacons. But as this year’s meeting made clear; that ship has sailed way out into the sea and is not returning to that blissful shore. Any church failing to recognize this will be tossed overboard soon enough. Including ours.
It doesn’t matter that we were among its founders and sustainers for nearly two centuries. Or that our church was the by God birthplace of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Or that besides a history, we share a mission and the majority of Bible beliefs and gospel convictions. Here’s the bottom line; they don’t want us anymore. And we must learn to be ok with not wanting them.
Thirty-six years ago, Will Campbell “Came to watch a great convention die.” Prophet among us, perhaps he saw clearly what others were only viewing through a glass darkly. Today, for me, like-minded brothers, and especially sisters who looked in on this week’s posturing and purging, all we saw was all there was to see.
If any greatness was left in the body once formed from the clay of cooperation, trust, missional zeal, gospel ministry, honest inquiry, and respectful differences, it died Wednesday. It succumbed to the emboldened forces of anger, power and protection of privilege. Cultural and doctrinal homogeneity. Arrogance and ignorance. An unmistakable misogynistic, anti-egalitarian spirit. Cold hearts and closed minds.
And as is often the case when a once strong and beautiful life breathes its last, it wasn’t pretty.