Toward an SBC Reform ‘Platform’ (I): “A Contract with the Southern Baptist Convention?”

Surely most of you remember the Republican “Contract with America,” authored by Newt Gingrich and others, which was set forth only a few weeks before the 1994 mid-term elections of the first Clinton presidential term.  As you probably recall, the Contract contained a number of, at the time, radical ideas about reforming the United States government, including term limits and several ways to promote both transparency and accountability in the way the legislative branch of our federal government does business.

It is insightful to review the fact that almost every Republican incumbent and every single Republican candidate trrying to unseat a Democratic incumbent signed the Contract with America.  Even though they could not deliver on all its promises, the Republicans were at least saying loud and clear that the abuses which had been largely responsible for allowing the Democrats to remain in control of Congress for several decades needed to be addressed with fresh measures that would reform the corrupt “business as usual” approach to governance. 

Again insightfully, it must be noted that, when the Conservative Resurgence–long since become “Dominance”–gained the power in the SBC, the only significant changes made were in the people in the key positions and, eventually (i.e., in 2000), in the Baptist Faith and Message.  Now, it should be recognized by all that, because of the stronger theology of those who took the various power positions, significant improvement took place.  However, it should also be admitted that the “business as usual” that continued by virtue of the virtually unchanged political process allowed by the SBC Constitution and Bylaws did nothing other than transfer the potential for the maintaining and abuse of power to the new conservative elite.  And, now, even though many will disagree with this assessment, Lord Acton’s dictum, that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” has become 99% as true for the current conservative ruling elite as it was for their moderate/liberal predecessors.

Given this situation, which is at least substantially due to a group taking political advantage of holes through which you can drive Mack trucks in the SBC Constitution and Bylaws and related documents, it may be an idea whose time has come for there to be framed and set forth a reform “Contract with the SBC” before the meeting in Indianapolis in June, 2008.  Thinking in that general direction, before breaking for Christmas (see my December 19, 2007 post), I summarized the following four areas strongly needing reform that I had observed from my study of the SBC Constitution and Bylaws:

“1) Given how often churches and other ministries get burned when they don’t very carefully check the references/spiritual track record of those they hire, the SBC absolutely must do the same with all candidates and appointees. 

2) Given how many pastors and others in ministry fall into various kinds of grievous sin largely because of lack of accountability, there simply must be realistic means of accountability built into the Constitution and Bylaws. 

3) Given how much corruption has occurred in society over the centuries due to nepotism and cronyism, such practices in the SBC must be completely stopped. 

and 4) Given how long-term power tends to corrupt–and the greater the power, the more absolute the corruption–strict term limits, without the possibility of repeated service, should be instituted.  

Then, in his guest post last Monday, Matt McGee built off these four in his assessment of what needs reforming in the SBC Business and Financial Plan (I am italicizing his key observations):

1.  Those who serve must be spiritually qualified to do so.  In the realm of finances, I would add that those who serve must also have sufficient financial education and/or experience.

2.  There must be realistic means of accountability built into the Business and Financial Plan.  I would go even further by endorsing principles of radical transparency in addition to principles of accountability.  With accountability, we can hold people responsible for their decisions after the fact.  With radical transparency (at all stages of the decision-making process all relevant information is publicly available), the churches can head bad decisions off at the pass before the decisions are made in the first place.

3.  There is no place for nepotism and cronyism, and we must have safeguards against such evils built into all our foundational documents.

4.  There is a need for strict term-limits to keep anyone from gaining too much power.  This concern is less applicable, but still appropriate, to the Business and Financial Plan than it is to the Constitution and Bylaws since financial administrators don’t have the same level of authority as entity heads and board members do.

With these opening comments in mind, I propose the following reforms to the SBC Business and Financial Plan:

VI.  Fund Raising Activities – I would add specific safeguards to require that all approved fundraising be done in an ethical manner.  While the ECFA is far from perfect, its fundraising standards ought to at least be adopted as a bare minimum.  Within evangelical Christianity (including some SBC churches and entities) the M.O. in fundraising is often to share all information that would tend to make a potential donor want to give and fail to disclose all information that might tend to cause a potential donor not to give.  Thus, everything the fundraiser says is technically true, but the overall impression he gives to potential donors is extremely misleading and gives the donors a far too rosy impression of what is really going on.

IX.  Gift Annuity Agreements – Change “encouraged” to “required.”

XIII.A.  Change “each such committee shall include at least one such trustee who is competent by training and experience in fiscal matters” to “a majority of each such committee shall consist of trustees who are competent by training and experience in fiscal matters.”

XIII.B.6.a.  I disagree with a premise underlying this provision of the Business and Financial Plan.  The most natural reading of the provision indicates that as long as an entity president’s expenses and perquisites do not exceed market rates, then such expenses and perquisites are necessarily in keeping with biblical stewardship.  In the United States, the “market” would justify all kinds of extravagant expenses when Christ instead calls us to lives of simple devotion to Him.

XIV.  The statement “Members of cooperating Southern Baptist churches shall have access to information from the records of Southern Baptist Convention entities regarding income, expenditures, debts, reserves, operating balances, and salary structures” needs to be rewritten entirely.  There are three problems:  (1) too little financial information is available (e.g. the salaries of individual entity heads and other administrators are not available), (2) there is no built-in provision for accountability, and (3) the process for accessing the information is not specified.  These flaws resulted in the disastrous responses to Ben Cole’s letter requesting financial information from entities.  Grossly inadequate responses were praised because they seemed good by comparison to the lack of any response whatsoever from SWBTS and NOBTS.  The numerous entities that blatantly did not comply with a clear provision of the Plan have not been held accountable in any way.  To solve these problems I propose changing the text to the following:  “All financial information and records of any kind (with the exception of contribution records of individuals) from Southern Baptist Convention entities shall be public.  All financial records of all entities shall be available on the SBC web site.  No entity may keep any internal financial records of any kind without also making such records available on the SBC web site unless the records concern contributions of individuals or unless the release of such records would violate state or federal law.  At any time if an entity is not in compliance with these requirements, such entity shall immediately be ineligible to receive Cooperative Program funds until the entity is in compliance.”

I also propose adding the following provisions to the Plan:

I would require the highest-ranking financial officer of each entity to have a graduate degree in business from an accredited school.  For some reason, in Christian circles it has become acceptable to hire people to do jobs for which they aren’t qualified.  When I was a student at SEBTS, I noticed that many campus jobs were filled (at ridiculously low wages) by students and spouses who had no relevant education or experience related to the job.  Can you imagine a public university foregoing searching for a qualified person and instead hiring a random student to do a job for which he or she has no qualifications whatsoever?  If your goal is to become an executive at Guidestone, you have a better chance of reaching that goal by attending seminary (3 of 9 current executives) than by earning your MBA (2 of 9 current executives).  The President/CEO of Guidestone has no graduate degrees in business and no professional financial designations (e.g. CPA, CFP, CFA, etc.).

I would require that the highest-ranking financial officer of each entity not be related to the entity president or any board member of the entity.

I would require the board of each entity to directly hire the entity’s highest-ranking financial officer apart from any influence or involvement on the part of the entity head.

I would make sure that financial officers have the freedom (without fearing for their jobs) to share financial concerns directly with the board when they feel the entity head is not responding appropriately to their concerns.  This provision is necessary as a check on the power of arrogant leaders who know nothing about finances yet nevertheless insist on not following the reasoned recommendations of financial experts.”

 

There is great wisdom in what Matt has laid out.  He has seen the tragic realities of unchecked power linked to unqualified personnel up close and personal in a missions organization and I have seen it in the academic arena and the local church.  While I am aware that there are many who would prefer to believe that their heroes, their pedestalized leaders, would never do such things, it must be stated that such a viewpoint is the very kind of naivete that has allowed such things to happen and continue to happen.  What is needed now is for the masses in our churches to awaken from their slumber before things move even further in such wrong directions.

 

Yes, as we look back to the mid-1990s with at least fairly close to 20/20 hindsight, it must be recognized that quite a bit of the Contract with America never came to legislative fruition.  Still, even having said that, it remains true that the Contract made a significant difference in reforming Congress and other aspects of the U.S. government which had long been abused in the interest of maintaining or extending political power. 

This classic example sets before us the reality of any reforming process: It is highly unlikely that everything which is desired to be reformed will take place.  However, unless the sincere attempt is made to bring about such reforms, it is even much more unlikely that any of the most desperately-needed changes will take place on their own. 

Coming Wednesday: Toward an SBC Reform ‘Platform’ (II): “But, It is ‘Broke!’”