Editorial: In or out of the SBC, one connection matters most

The 2024 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting will be political, meaning the meeting will focus on how the convention will be governed. There doesn’t seem any way around it.

As it stands, messengers to the upcoming SBC annual meeting will elect one of six candidates as president of the SBC. They also will conduct the second vote on the so-called Law Amendment.

In response to these governance matters, many churches have been and are asking: “Will we stay in the SBC, or will we go? Will we make that decision, or will it be made for us? And if we go, where?”

These are challenging questions for those still connected to the SBC, because they are about identity, community and history.

While the 2024 SBC annual meeting will help some decide whether to stay or go, the more important concern—in fact, the most important concern—is that each church remain in Christ.

Which leader and which collection of churches enables you and your church to remain in Christ? That’s the most important question to answer. That’s the connection that matters most.

Those for whom the SBC is that place need to pay attention to the 2024 SBC annual meeting.

Six presidential candidates

The six candidates for SBC president are listed in order of nomination:

1. Clint Pressley, senior pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.
2. Mike Keahbone, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Lawton, Okla., and vice chair of the SBC’s Sexual Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force.
3. Jared Moore, senior pastor of Homesteads Baptist Church in Crossville, Tenn.
4. David Allen, former dean of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary School of Theology and current dean of the Adrian Rogers Center for Biblical Preaching at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.
5. Bruce Frank, lead pastor of Biltmore Church in Arden, N.C.
6. Dan Spencer, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Sevierville, Tenn.

That six candidates have been put forward this year when two is typical reveals just how unsettled the SBC is. Despite the evident factions each represents, all the candidates agree with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

Until it was amended during the 2023 SBC annual meeting, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000’s “Article VI: The Church” stated: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Messengers amended “pastor” to “pastor/elder/overseer” in 2023.

Many churches weighing their connection to the SBC are waiting to see what the convention does about women pastors.

All the candidates agree women may not be pastors. They may disagree on whether this is limited to the senior or lead pastor position in a church. They also may disagree on whether this needs to be codified in the SBC constitution—such as through the Law Amendment. But whoever of the six is elected will uphold Article VI of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

The person elected also may have to uphold an amended SBC constitution.

Being in ‘friendly cooperation’

Under “Article III. Composition” of the SBC constitution, the Law Amendment proposes a sixth criteria be added for a church to be in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC: “Affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”

Proponents of the amendment believe it draws “a clear and bright line of Cooperation for [SBC] churches.”

Submitted by Mike Law, senior pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Va., and amended during the 2023 SBC annual meeting, the proposed amendment passed overwhelmingly on first vote. The required second vote will take place at the 2024 SBC annual meeting.

It seems likely messengers will give final approval to the Law Amendment in 2024, setting “a clear and bright line” for what churches are in or out of “friendly cooperation.”

Also during the 2023 annual meeting, messengers approved the formation of a group to study how to determine if a church is in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC. The Cooperation Group released their four recommendations May 1.

With respect to seating a church’s messengers—a formal recognition of which churches are in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC—messengers have “sole authority,” Jared Wellman, the group’s chair, explained.

Is it necessary?

Randy Davis, president and executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, agrees with the Cooperation Group’s assessment of SBC messengers.

As he pointed out in a recent op-ed, messengers in 2023 demonstrated their capability to determine what churches are and are not in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC when they “overwhelmingly voted not to seat messengers from churches that had either a lead pastor or a campus pastor who is a woman.”

In light of that existing mechanism, the Law Amendment is unnecessary, Davis contends.

Davis further argues the amendment would make the SBC creedal and “a legalistically narrow road.” Many would respond that ship sailed decades ago. He also worries there may be no end to the narrowing. Again, a concern raised decades ago when the SBC was less particular.

What is necessary, Davis argues, is to “lay hold of God’s Great Commission vision that unites us and drives us into a spiritually lost world.” If you’ve read this far, I bet you agree with Davis on that point.

And that point matters more than who is elected president of the SBC and whether the Law Amendment passes.

Whether you or your church remain in the SBC is an important decision, but the connection that matters most is remaining in Christ, in whom is our true unity and purpose. No vote changes that.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.