The meeting in Southern California comes less than a month after the publication of a bomb report alleging that dogma leaders had filed reports of sexual abuse and resisted reform proposals. The delegates will also elect a new president – a decision that will shape how the dogma becomes involved in national politics and how it handles the abuse scandal that has rocked its members. “This is going to be one of the most historic and important conferences in the history of the convention,” said Jared Wellman, a pastor in Texas, Monday, hours after he was elected chairman of the convention’s executive committee, which helps with operations and finances. of the group. Although the meeting is important to Southern Baptists, it also serves more broadly as a bell for conservative Christianity at a time when the country is divided over guns, abortions and sexuality. The Supreme Court is expected to overturn 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 divided group and its approach to a range of increasingly controversial social issues. The first signs seemed promising for those hoping to make reforms in response to the report on sexual abuse. Mr Wellman, the newly elected head of the executive committee, spearheaded efforts as a member to relinquish the lawyer-client privilege to support the third-party inquiry that led to the report. The next vice-president and secretary of the commission, David Sean and Pamela Reed, supported these efforts. Their challengers had opposed the move. A separate vote Monday on the pastor of the Pastoral Conference, a role that is largely symbolic but visible, has attracted more attention than usual this year. Superconservatives have suggested Voddie Baucham, a popular preacher and author who warns against a liberal shift to issues such as critical race theory. With 608 votes, Mr. Baucham lost by 82 votes to Daniel Dickard, a pastor in North Carolina.
Unrest in the Assembly of Southern Baptists
Internal and external crises have struck the nation’s greatest Protestant doctrine.
The delegates, called messengers, will vote on Tuesday for the next speaker of the assembly. The leading candidates represent completely different directions for the future of the assembly. Bart Barber, a Texas pastor who advocates proposed sexual abuse reforms, has lamented how “secular politics” has affected the tone and content of discussions in Southern Baptist circles. He has been backed by Rick Warren, the landmark pastor of Sandleback Church, one of the denomination’s largest churches, who was attacked by ultra-conservatives when his church ordained three women pastors last year. Mr Barber’s opponent, Tom Askol, is a Florida pastor who has criticized what he describes as a shift to the left on issues such as gender, sexuality, abortion and critical racial theory. publicly confirmed it as a potentially useful “analytical tool” in 2019. It has asked Baptists to be “culturally incompatible.” Mr Ascol has condemned the sexual harassment documented in the recent report, but has warned of overly sweeping reforms that he says could jeopardize the autonomy and finances of the individual church. Mr. Askol is the president of the Founders Ministries, an influential organization that is part of a growing super-conservative wing of the doctrine. “We believe that God is watching, that He alone sets our terms and sets our agenda,” wrote a group of conservative Baptist leaders, nominating Mr Askol for the presidency in March. “And God is not Awake.” At times, the contest for the leadership of dogmas has taken on the meaning of a traditional political campaign. Mr. Ascol has been interviewed by far-right media outlets such as One America News, Real America’s Voice and the 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 that focuses on naming. Mr Benkert has been instrumental in promoting abuse research at last year ‘s conference and is backing Mr Barber’s candidacy. Delegates faced a similar decision at last year’s conference in Nashville, which confronted Mike Stone, a Georgia conservative pastor, with Ed Leighton, an Alabama pastor who avoided direct involvement in the civil war. Mr. Litton won marginally. However, he announced in March that he would not seek a second one-year term. Attendance at this year’s convention is significantly lower, largely because a trip to Southern California is prohibitively expensive for many of the small southern churches that are still the dogma center of gravity. This reduction in numbers is expected to favor Mr Barber. With 13.7 million members, the doctrine is steadily declining from a ceiling of 16.3 million members in 2006. However, it still prides itself on 47,000 churches spread across each state and is closely followed by a much wider range of conservative evangelicals. In May, the conference released a nearly 300-page report documenting how its leaders mishandled abuse allegations, downplayed victims and their families, and opposed reform efforts. The messengers at last year’s conference commissioned the report. Leaders had long argued that the decentralized name structure meant it had little capacity to force an individual church to take any action once the abuse was discovered. In 2008, the executive committee rejected a proposal to set up a database of clerics and staff “involved in sexual harassment or abuse”. Meanwhile, a staff member compiled an informal list of people suspected of abuse, which he shared with former commission vice-president and general counsel D. August Boto, the report said. Mr. Boto could not be reached for comment. The executive committee published a 205-page version of this list in May, which its chairman, Rolland Slade, described as “an initial but important step towards tackling the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing the reform of the Convention.” He also announced the creation of a confidential hotline for victims and others to file allegations of abuse within the organization, which he described as a “disruption”. The hotline is maintained by Guidepost Solutions, the company that wrote the report. On Monday night, Mr. Askol spoke to about 100 supporters who had gathered under tall palm trees in front of the convention center. Ethan Hardy, a seminary student, had parked a car with two others from his church in Oregon to vote for Mr. Askol. His concerns about the doctrine included what he described as a creeping tolerance for women as pastors – something the doctrine forbids – and a declining commitment to Bible truth seminars. Mr. Hardy was not convinced that his candidate would win. But it was important for him to come and be heard. “There is a gap in the Assembly of Southern Baptists,” he said. “It is God’s will for us to be here and to take a stand for justice.”
