Serious Thinking toward an SBC Reform Agenda (I): “Assessing the SBC Constitution”

Before beginning the task at hand with all due seriousness, a couple of comments should be made: 1) In a comment last week, Bob Cleveland rightly noted that this needs to be a series in its own right, not just a break in the my ongoing series on “The Holy Spirit and the Southern Baptist Convention Today.”  And so it shall be.  We will let the brainstorming and hammering out of an appropriate agenda run its course in this series.  That will be followed by another series on thoughts about how to strategize and implement whatever seems to congeal as a duly debated Spirit-led agenda.  Then, I will get back to “The Holy Spirit…” series.

2) I must admit that I was slightly surprised at the Goergia Convention passing a resolution against blogging.  However, when I found out Bill Harrell was behind it and how he decided to use his “doctrinal sermon” to the Convention meeting to serve his own ends, I was even less surprised.  In regard to the resolution itself, you do not need to go any further than the section about criticism of entity trustees to find out what a primary motivation was behind the resolution: keeping trustees above criticism and without accountability to the SBC at large.  So, if we ever wondered whether SBC entity trustees are actually feeling the heat from SBC reform bloggers, that question has now been answered by Harrell and the others behind this resolution.

OK. As we begin this series, let’s briefly look ahead at the general sequence in which I am going to address relevant subjects.  In today’s post, I am going to look at what I think needs to be changed in the SBC Constitution, and how.  Wednesday, I will get into the SBC Bylaws.  Next Monday (after my Friday newspaper article, of course), I will deal with the type of candidates that we should be nominating and electing to key SBC roles.  Next Wednesday, I will briefly address several selected wider issues that are floating around out there, needing to be faced.  The Monday after that would then be an attempt at crystalizing the “agenda.”  But, of course, if one or more of these subjects “catches fire” in the comment stream, I may prayerfully push the timing of these subjects back as appropriate.  If I do so, please understand that it will be with the intent of getting the best “iron sharpens iron” sense in regard to whatever area is up for discussion.

Having said that, here goes in regard to the SBC Constitution.  Please note that I am listing each needed change separately, both to highlight all the areas and because they might well have to be treated separately (depending on how the attempt[s] to amend the Constitution would be handled).

Agenda Item 1-  Article IV presently reads: “While independent and sovereign in its own sphere, the Convention does not claim and will never attempt to exercise any authority over any other Baptist body, whether church, auxiliary organizations, associations, or conventions.”  At the end of the sentence, I think something like the following wording should be added: “… although it is completely appropriate for the Convention, which owns all its entities, to require whatever accountability is deemed necessary of entity trustees and adminstrators by the vehicle of motions passed by the Convention.”  My reasoning here is that, while accountabilility is assumed by the SBC Bylaws to be present, there is presently no mechanism to hold entities accountability.  Thus, trustee/administrator accountability in the SBC is currently no more than a ”lip-service” sham of a concept, no matter what howls to the contrary are forthcoming.  (To demonstrate this, we do not need to go any further than the utter refusal of the trustees of NAMB, IMB and SWBTS to re-visit their short-sighted policies on speaking in tongues, even after they heard that the results of the Lifeway survey put them in a minority position among SBC pastors on these issues.  There is currently no accountability to the will of the SBC, just to those who wielded the power to get the particular trustee appointed and their political perspective.)

Agenda Item 2- Article V presently reads: “The term of office for the president is limited to two (2) years, and a president shall not be eligible for re-election until as much as one (1) year has lapsed from the time a successor is named.”  In my view, the possibility of re-election should be prohibited by shorteing the wording to the following: “… and a president shall not be eligible for re-election.”  After all, if, in a Convention of over 6 million active believers, we do not have enough leaders who can handle the presidency without “good ole boy” retreads, we are in the deepest kind of trouble in regard to our leadership.

Agenda Item 3- Article VI, 1, (3) reads: “Board members having served two (2) full terms of four (4) years shall not be eligible for re-election until as much as two (2) years have elapsed.”  I believe this sentence should be deleted, which would effectively limit board members to one four-year term of service.  Again, re-cycling board members is limiting other extremely well-qualified SBCers from the blessings and responsibilities of such service.

Agenda Item 4- Article VI, 2, (3) allows two terms of service for entity trustees and only one year is currently necessary until a trustee can be re-elected.  Again, I would limit service to one four-year terms, without possibility of re-election.  My reasoning is the same as above.

Agenda Item 5- In light of what I have said above, I would delete Article VI, 2, (4), since it speaks of re-election after two four-year terms of service.  Please see my reasoning stated above.

Agenda Item 6- Article VI, 3 currently reads “No trustee of a board, institution, or commisision, or a member of the Executive Committee, shall be eligible to serve for more than two consecutive terms.”  I would change that to “… serve for more than one term,” with the reasoning being the same as I have stated several times now. 

As I’m sure you can tell from what I have laid out so far, my two biggest areas of concern have to do with: 1) term limits for all elected personnel, which will minimize, even if not fully prevent, “power bases” with their own agendas contrary to that of the SBC at large from forming; and 2) accountability “with teeth,” in which all board members and entity trustees and administrators must comform to, and abide by, the decisions of the SBC.

In preparing to close, as Agenda Item 7, I would like to float the most radical idea of everything I have said so far.  I believe that the presidency of the Convention should be on a rotating basis among the following five categories: 1) pastors of “small” churches (less than 200 attendees); 2) missionaries (from either IMB or NAMB); 3) pastors of “mid-sized” churches (200-999 attendees); 4) professors at one of the SBC seminaries or SBC state convention-related colleges or universities; and 5) pastors of “large” churches (1,000 or more attendees).  In regard to my reasoning here, I am leaning on figures Les Puryear obtained from Lifeway.  Of the 40,186 local churches in the SBC, 83.4% (33,522 congregations) have less than 200 attendees, while 15.2% (6,100) have between 200 and 1,000 attendees, and only 1.4% (564) have more than 1,000 attendees.  In my view, something is terribly wrong with an organization that simply ignores well over 80% of its makeup (with the 15.2% of “middler” churches being in essentially the same boat!).  What kind of elitist organization will only consider electing their presidents on a strictly “bigger is better” mentality, especially when the “bigger” represents only 1.4%?  Likewise, how can we continue to ignore the visionary leadership for church planting and missions that representatives from NAMB and IMB could bring to the table, as well as the studied perspectives offered by wise veteran scholarly professors.

In closing, you may have noticed that I did not mention entity administrators in that rotation.  And, that is for a crucial reason, as far as accountability is concerned.  If an entity administrator is elected as President of the SBC (as Paige Patterson was from 1998 to 2000), there is a clear conflict of interest.  The Convention President appoints those who appoint the trustees of the entity where he serves.  And, in case you haven’t noticed, there is already plenty of reason to think that certain trustees are accountable to the entity head instead the other way around, as it is supposed to be.  Thus, we can avoid all “appearance of evil” simply by not allowing entity heads or senior administrators to serve as SBC President under any circumstances.

Now, it’s your turn.  Tell me what you think.

Coming Wednesday: Serious Thinking toward an SBC Reform Agenda (II): “Assessing the SBC Bylaws”