Serious Thinking toward an SBC Reform Agenda (IV): “How Things Got the Way They Are”

(Prefatory Note: No one has come forward to vounteer to write anything on the SBC Business and Financial Plan.  I will try to get back to it sooner rather than later.  However, I have not had the time to get to it so far.  Sorry!)

As I have been thinking through what needs to be changed in regard to the SBC Constitution and Bylaws, a “random” (no, I’m not a postmodernist!) thought popped up, which I stopped to consider: “How did the situation in regard to the Constitution and Bylaws get this way?”  It seems to me that, before we proceed further in attempting to think through an SBC reform agenda, it might be enlightening to review things to make sure we are on the same page historically–even if this is so simple that it virtually insults the intelligence of some of my esteemed readers/commenters.  (If you are in that category, please accept my apology, but also realize that not everyone who is interested in the SBC has your background.)

How did things get the way they are?  Simply put, in the late 1970s, the Conservative Resurgence decided to beat the Moderate/Liberal coalition at their own game and thus take over the Convention.  And, whether simultaneously or at some later point, they decided to also play the same game as the Moderate/Liberal coalition had played in running the Convention.

How do we know that?  It is fairly obvious because so little else changed other than the Baptist Faith and Message (in 2000), well after the Resurgence gained control.  Yes, there is now sole ownership of the entities.  But, which of the many gaping “loopholes” that have been pointed out in the Constitution and Bylaws, which allow for rampant fleshliness among candidates and appointees and no actually meaningful accountability for trustees or administrators to the Convention, has ever been seriously addressed?

Think about it.  When the dust settles, the Constitution and Bylaws are the way they are primarily because the powers that be want them that way.  The present system enabled them to gain control and allows them to maintain control.  Given those realities, why would they have any desire to change anything?

No wonder the Bill Harrell-backed Georgia Convention anti-blogger resolution was done!  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the recent abuses propagated by certain SBC entity trustee boards could only take place with holes in regard to accountability that you can ”drive a Mack truck through” in the way the trustee system is currently set up under the SBC Constitution and Bylaws. 

Similarly, it has been widely asserted that trustee appointees are felt out in advance for their political perspective, and that has been viewed as all-important, with little to no emphasis on each person’s level of spiritual maturity and the consistency of his or her moment-by-moment walk with the Lord.  How does that happen?  Just think about it even for a moment.  What in the Constitution and Bylaws would mandate anything different?

Now, I completely agree with the thought of commenter Greg Harvey (presented in even more depth on his own blog–see his comments on my last past for the link) that, if the SBC were to experience widespead true Spirit-led revival, the Constitution and Bylaws as currently set up would be effective.  And, I continue to pray fervently for just such renewal in our midst!  However, while the Constitution/Bylaws in their current form would get the job done for a spiritually mature and Spirit-sensitized Convention, it must be admitted that, tragically, the SBC simply falls far short of that spiritual status at present.

To use a disconcerting, but true, example, every church that I have ever pastored (three), or worked with as a church planter or interim pastor (seven), was woefully ignorant of the qualifications for leadership in the New Testament.  As a result, every one of those churches heard me preach those qualifications–in one way or another–in order to better stabilize their leadership in the time ahead. 

Admittedly, some already had a clear, biblically-based listing of such qualifications in their Constitution and Bylaws and had just ignored them for years.  So, obviously, having them written down in the right place does not guarantee their being followed.  However, in each case, the dynamics of having them forcefully called to the congregation’s attention in regard to board elections and pastor searches and the like did make a real difference in each situation.

But, in several of the churches–all supposedly Bible-honoring congregations, nothing of any detailed consequence on biblical qualifications for leadership was found in their Constitution/Bylaws.  At finding this out in the first church I worked with like this, I was appalled at the silence.  But, I found it to be more common than I would have ever guessed.

And, why was it the case?  Mostly because a lot of new churches simply adapt their Constitution/Bylaws from the church that planted them (or some other signficant like church/churches nearby).  It simply never occurs to them to do anything different than the traditions they observed/inherited, at least in the Constitution/Bylaws.

As a result of not having such qualifications called to their attention, most of the people never think about them.  They just assume that church leaders should be chosen on the basis of their success in business and their natural (i.e., not spiritual) skill as leaders.  (And, if you are able to be truthful with yourself at this point, you know exactly what I am talking about here!)

Sadly, I believe that my experience is a microcosm of sorts of what takes places in Convention-wide elections and appointments.  Since there is nothing in the Constitution/Bylaws that requires spiritual maturity and a close walk with the Lord, those crucial criteria are simply overlooked in favor of political considerations.  The quality of candidates is considered at the level of the lowest common denominator, not in terms of the lofty spiritual ideals which, scripturally, should be the case.

At this point, we do well to remember the spiritual axiom that followers seldom, if ever, rise above the level of their leaders (see Luke 6:40 and its context–the “blind leading the blind” into the pit in 6:39 and the hypocrite with the log in his own eye in 6:41-42).  As a result, I firmly believe that this issue is critical to address–and keep addressing, until enough people listen and change things–if the SBC is to ever become Spirit-sensitized in the way it does things at the national level.

What do you think?  Since some of you have been at this at the national level a lot longer than me, I expect that you will have some very well-considered viewpoints in this area.

Coming Friday: “Fridays are for Newspaper Articles”