Some SBC News

Welcome to Conversations That Matter Podcast. My name is John Harris. We're gonna talk about some SBC news today. There is a newspaper going out, I saw on social media last night at the convention. People are posting on social media about it and there's actually a soft copy version out there and I'll link to it in the info section.

But the reason I wanna talk about it is it is one of the best just treatments of the issues plaguing the SBC I've ever seen as far as the content, the writing style, the pictures and I mean it's made for someone with a short attention span so it can't cover everything.

There's probably a lot more that could be put in this but it really gets to the heart of some of the issues and it gets there fast, it does so well. And so we're gonna talk about some of this. I think it'll help people tomorrow and the next day when they are looking at resolutions and floor motions and people to vote for for the president of the convention, all that kind of stuff.

Because it gets into some of the issues and what they are. So we'll talk about that. Two things that have not gone out as far as I know yet, maybe they have when I upload this but in an article form. But there's been some developments today.

One, I'm getting just kind of vague summaries of what happened. I'm not sure exactly what it was and I'm secondhand so I don't have a primary source really other than just some things people have said very briefly.

But it sounds to me like the executive committee for the Southern Baptist Convention, somehow a number of people have been voted off of it from the conservative Baptist network, including Rod Martin. And that's not good.

If you're a Southern Baptist and want to keep biblical orthodoxy, that's not good. If you wanna stem the tide of social justice, that's not good. And apparently some rules were changed. I'm not sure what, but I have already heard that it's been a bad day for conservatives.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. It does kind of, the way we're starting this podcast though is kind of picking up where we left in the last one, where I had talked about how voluntary associations are going the way of the dodo bird.

And even if a conservative gets elected as SBC president, voluntary associations are just not that popular anymore. People aren't, young people aren't engaged in them. They're more individualistic and they don't commit themselves as much.

We have a centralizing tendency in the national government, but, and now maybe international organizations, but we don't have the local organizations and the ecclesiastical organizations we used to. And they're not as strong as they used to be.

And the Southern Baptist, I think, is sliding in that direction along. I'm just saying there's a bigger trend here. And so I don't say that to discourage anyone. And I said that in the last episode, but I do have that thought in the back of my mind that even if the conservatives can't really take it back right now, it's a temporary institution at best.

The Temporary Nature of Denominational Institutions

And we know in the long, looking at the big picture, it's gonna be a temporary anyway. The church is the institution God has ordained. And this is just a way that people in the church organizations, churches can cooperate to further the great commission and achieve certain ends, but it's not the church itself.

So key thing is to remind yourself of that, to remember your local community, your local church. That's the important thing. And not that this is not important, it is. That's why we're doing episodes on it.

But it's not a lost, it's not like Christianity is gone in the United States if the worst happens in the Southern Baptist Convention. I do think though, and this is just a hunch, guys. It's just a hunch.

I don't know. I do think that there's a conservative that's going to be at least on the second ballot tomorrow. I don't think it's going to be between Mueller and Lytton. I just don't see it. I can't imagine as many people showing up, assuming that a lot of them are angry conservatives, they're going to allow that to happen.

But there are some people that are afraid of that. One of the things I would caution everyone to do is to be careful about pointing fingers, especially if the vote doesn't go the way that you might want it to go.

Well, if that candidate would have done this, or that candidate would have done this. I think right now, it's just important that conservatives try to stick together as much as possible, which is why I'm going to focus on the problems in the convention as much as possible.

And then I think I leave it to your conscience, who you vote for. If you're right now at the convention and you're thinking about voting, and you're listening to this video, I don't know why you would be.

You're probably busy at the convention. But if you're maybe taking a walk and you're listening to a podcast, and you just so happen to be listening to me right now, that's a conscience decision that you have to make on who would be the best president.

But there's so many other decisions that you got. You got floor motions and resolutions. And I just really, and there's other positions that our people are running for. And I just, I think the best thing to do is keep our eyes on the problems, the issues that are there, and what can we do in our limited ability before God with the responsibilities he's given us to steward the denomination well, to steward your vote well.

And that's all we can do. So we're gonna talk about some of this. Let's see. Oh, one more thing I was gonna mention. What was it now? I said I had two things. Trying to think what the other one was now.

I can't remember. Oh, I do remember now. I don't think the story's been out there yet. So there is a story I've heard that should be out. I don't know why it's not. But this is secondhand again. So we'll see.

Maybe you can, maybe it's there now. Now I post usually a little after I record. So you can go look for it. But I heard that there was a story about J .D. Greer calling the police on someone who confronted him in an elevator about critical race theory.

I don't really know anything more about that. So it's gonna be, there's gonna be a lot of tension. There already is, but there's gonna be a lot of tension tomorrow, I think, and the next day. And that's not a bad thing.

That's not a bad thing. One of the things I've been suspicious of, and this goes for politics as well, someone who comes along, in this environment at least, and then says, well, we need, as all Americans, we need to be united on ABC.

And yeah, we do. I get it. But here's the thing. We are, there is a Cold War going on right now. And in some places, it's actually gotten hot. I view the last summer, especially, what happened as maybe a manifestation of that.

There, it's becoming harder and harder to find things you have in common with someone across the aisle in the political realm, on a national level. And we've analyzed that. I'm not going into all that now.

But the SBC mirrors that in some way. Some of those same fractures are happening in the SBC, and they have theological ramifications for revelation and the nature of it, and for the communion table and the unity we should have there.

I mean, that's being fractured, our view of justice. So, I think, I don't think there's a way that you can say, can't we all just get along and unite around these common things? And I know that's being tried here and there.

I just don't, I think a lot of the conservatives who are coming, they're hungry to hear someone say, you do not, you who are secular, who are bringing in secular mindsets, pagan mindsets, non-Christian mindsets, causing mission drift in this organization, causing corruption, you do not have a voice at the table if I have a say.

I am not gonna allow the Lord's money to go to your wicked causes. That sounds drastic to so many. It's against the 11th commandment. And then name the names, right? That's, I think, what people are hungering for, though.

And I'm hoping that that tune is struck somewhere. I don't know where. This newspaper, though, is kind of a first step in my mind. This is a step in that direction. And again, this is not a quote-unquote discernment blog.

This isn't Reformation Charlotte or, and I'm not, that's their term, not mine. Those who criticize quote-unquote discernment blogs, basically organizations that will expose and are willing to print things that are not so desirable about evangelical elites or Southern Baptist elites, that's a pejorative that they're called, which I don't know why that's a pejorative, but it is.

But this isn't Reformation Charlotte. It's not Pulpit and Pen. It's not Capstone or whatever other blogs are out there that get categorized that way. This is an actual newspaper that's being handed out all over the convention.

And it's sourced. And so I think it's helpful for Southern Baptists to go through it. So I was gonna actually post this earlier today, but I got caught up with some stuff. And I should probably tell everyone, those who are supporting me, thank you, by the way, do not take it for granted, those who support me.

I'm a stickler for sources and I'm doing, I'm writing a book right now. I'll just, just a little aside for one moment. I'm writing a book on the social justice issue. And I just last week finished the chapter on standpoint epistemology.

This week, I'm doing one that's more on, it's kind of, it touches on historiography, but it's the lies. I can't go through all of them, but basically why the social justice movement, why they adopt so many lies, both in journalism and in history.

What's the motive for that? How to spot that, that kind of thing. And so I've been, I have actually, I have a pile of books here I was looking at. I'll show you for those who support me and are curious about this stuff.

I have a pile of books. This one's about journalism, death by journalism. I haven't actually read this one yet, but this is on my list. But historical consciousness by John Lukacs. I'm not endorsing all these, by the way, I'm just telling you, these are some of the books that I was looking at this morning.

Herbert Butterfield, Writings on Christianity and History. His famous book was called A Weak Interpretation of History and it's pretty good from what I understand. Historiography, Secular and Religious, Gordon Clark.

This one, I flipped around this one quite a bit. Gordon Clark is a kind of, he's a presuppositionalist, known for presuppositional apologetics, I think, more than anything else. But he wrote a book on historiography and it's interesting.

It's so, he's just a very cut and dry, very black and white kind of writer. Whereas someone like John Lukacs, man, this guy, you can't leave the page because it's like you're having a conversation with someone, it's very flowing and it's like you would miss something.

It's very long though, I can't read the whole thing. Anyway, and then this one, I've actually, I think, read this before in graduate studies and I barely remember it though, but it's called Historian's Fallacies by David Hackett Fisher.

I think we had to read at least excerpts of this, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong about that though. I had to read so many things, it's like a fire hose, I don't remember it all. But anyways, I was looking through those and listening to some lectures and stuff and that's why I'm getting this out kind of late today.

But I just wanted to mention that for those who do support me on Patreon and pray for me, I am working on stuff and I appreciate it. Even if I'm not making a video, there are things I'm trying to think through and really the purpose of all of it is to help laymen, to help pastors, anyone who's navigating this issue in their church or denomination or wherever.

It could be in a secular environment, I wanna help you out. And so I hope this content is helpful. So let's do something now. Let's talk about some SBC News. Let's see, I don't wanna block myself. How do I do this so you can see it?

Maybe I should turn my camera a little bit or here. There we go. Now you can kind of see me and you can see the SBC News here. So we're gonna talk about this quite a bit. It says SBC News and it says shocking 10-year report card.

And there's a number of articles in this particular publication. First one, and it's written, it almost has sort of like a, if you go through it, I'm just gonna show you. It has almost like a National Enquirer type of, not that I've ever actually opened a National Enquirer, but I've seen the covers.

It's got kind of that, the cover looks kind of like that, like shocking. But then it's not aliens or Elvis, it's true things. So let's go to the first one here. This is an article by Randy Adams. And I just thought this was shocking.

Some of it suggested we write an obituary for the SBC. He says the SBC is sick. 5 ,258 fewer churches supported the cooperative program, missions in 2019 than in 2007. That's a decrease of $85 .1 million.

And that doesn't include inflation. Even more tragic is a massive decline in baptisms of more than 100 ,000 a year. Wow. That's amazing. And here's the kicker. NAM, the North American Mission Board's church planting budget has exploded, growing from 23 million to 75 million annually, I guess from 2010 to today.

That's, let's see, that can't be right. I guess that's right. Huh. So yeah, since 2010. So NAM has grown by three times as much money, it looks like, according to this. And meanwhile, baptisms are going down.

How in the world can you say that NAM is being successful? SBC finances are cloaked in secrecy, lacking transparency, and preventing accountability. According to some, what organization did this? Give .org, the YMCA, Salvation Army, Prison Fellowship, Habitat for Humanity, a bunch of organizations it lists here, are more transparent than the SBC, including the Clinton Foundation and Planned Parenthood.

Yeah, that's right. Planned Parenthood is more transparent, according to Give .org, than the Southern Baptist Convention. Weakened local mission partners and strengthened national SBC. So this, I gotta read for you this.

Check this out. In 2010, the SBC took a path toward top-down control of much of the SBC mission in North America. The Great Commission Resurgence Report was adopted in 2010. This resulted in more cooperative program funds sent to the SBC and cutting investment through state conventions.

That, together with ending the cooperative agreement with NAM and state conventions, resulted in about 60 to 70 million more dollars shifted to the SBC from the state conventions and local associations.

Most of this is being directed to NAM, with a much smaller gain by the IMB. This, if this surprises you, you should know that the Great Commission Resurgence benefited NAM more than all other SBC entities combined.

So basically, this is consolidation. That's the argument, that this is consolidation. And this is Kevin Eazell, the head of NAM. He said this on October 8th, 2010. "'You can take your shots at me. "'I may not fit your credentials or critique, "'and I may not have the resume that some prefer, "'but I will take ownership of the next decade.'".

That's pretty damning. If he's taking ownership of the next decade, and this is what happened in the next decade, that's pretty bad. We'll continue with this. Let's see. I gotta find the article now. I think this is the article.

Is this the article? Yes. "'NAM church planning budget "'exploded from 23 million to 75 million.'". I already mentioned that. "'New church plants plummeted "'to less than half the number planted a decade earlier.

"'Churches did not establish the SBC "'so that it could direct how missions and evangelism "'are to be done throughout North America.'". That's actually very true. That should be more up to the local conventions, local Baptist conventions.

That is not up to a central authority. But this is, we've gone the same way. Our Christians are going the same way the federal government has gone. "'The last decade is the worst in 175 years, "'but still SBC refuses to turn from failure.

"'No corporation could continue pursuing a strategy "'that has failed for a decade, "'but that is what the SBC has done.'". And it gives some stats on that. "'NAM and the ERLC have taken Southern Baptist "'to the Supreme Court in the United States.'".

Did you know that? If you didn't know that, if you're not hearing that, what sources are you listening to? This is so big. I know I had Will McCraney on to talk about this. I think I was even late in getting him on to talk about this.

This is important. "'After losing two decisions "'at the U .S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, "'despite admittedly deceiving the court "'with false information about the SBC "'being a hierarchy over all Southern Baptist churches.'".

Now listen to that, a hierarchy over all Southern Baptist churches. That's not what the SBC is. The SBC is a cooperation of churches. This is the whole, this is actually very similar to, did the states create the federal government compact, that's not as I say theory, I say it's a compact fact, or did the federal government, national government create the states, right?

And so many neoconservatives and the progressives all, they believe this. You're having a similar issue here with you have these entities saying the SBC is the hierarchy and the entities, so forth, the local churches and stuff.

Actually, I'll read it for you again because I don't wanna mess this up. "'The SBC is a hierarchy "'over all Southern Baptist churches,'' yes, so churches, associations, and conventions. So that's wrong, that's backwards, but that's what they're arguing in the Supreme Court in McCraney, SCOTUS lawsuit details of name abuse.

"'Okay, SBC must return to the New Testament model "'of advancing God's mission. "'New Testament missions is based on the call of God "'on the missionary, the empowerment and direction "'of the Holy Spirit in ascending and support of the church.'".

New Testament Missions and Local Church Authority

Very good, absolutely. "'In the New Testament, "'the elites did not control how missions was done. "'Financial resources were not amassed in Jerusalem "'or Antioch or by the 12 apostles "'and then dispersed from headquarters "'in ways the remote elites determined best.

"'Peter didn't control the,'' this is great stuff, guys. You need to download this thing. It just really blasts this. "'The SBC was birthed by churches "'that believed they must advance the mission of God.

"'It's churches that created it, not the other way around. "'Top-down control of missions in North America must end.'". And then Randy Adams, he's the one that wrote this, so he gives his, what he's gonna do as SBC president.

"'As a candidate for president, "'if elected, I will bring transparency, "'the books will be opened. "'SBC president can make a difference. "'Some question what the president can truly accomplish. "'I assert the SBC trustees will take notice "'when the president demands financial transparency, "'reveals conflicts of interest, "'and tells them that they serve the churches first.'".

This stuff is really good, by the way, and this is an angle I haven't even, maybe I've said it, but I can't remember saying it in regards to denominations in the SBC. This, a true conservative sees that and makes that a big point, I would think.

The local missions, organizations, local associations, and the churches are the ones that must have control. That's where there's gonna be more accountability. You know them personally, and you can see the results and keep them accountable for those results.

A nameless, faceless entity, way bloated entity in the bureaucracy, way off somewhere, not gonna get it done. And it just, it's temptation for waste. So, anyway. Let's see what else is in here. Bunch of articles.

One million giveaways from Lifeway revealed in lawsuit. Did you know about this? WMU president to nominate Randy Adams. So this is, I guess, a very pro-Randy Adams paper here. Maybe we'll get to that in a minute.

I'm not sure the significance of that other than it's an endorsement. Let's see here. All right, let's go to this one. The one million giveaway from Lifeway revealed in lawsuit. Who is getting a million dollars?

Double and triple dipping on income while serving Southern Baptists. Okay, so this is conflict of interest stuff. How many Southern Baptist leaders and mega church pastors are double and triple dipping their income?

There are likely far too many. Let's see, skip ahead. Former Lifeway Christian Resources president Tom Rainer reported receiving a gross weekly income of 225 ,000 to churchanswers .com while serving at Lifeway.

In 2016, Rainer tweeted his weekly gross income to Church Answers. Let's see here. Lifeway in 2017 reported an operating loss of 35 .5 million. In 2019, Lifeway closed all 170 retail stores. You remember that?

You had a Lifeway store in your town, it's gone. We had one here, it's gone. Rainer also received a $1 million bonus of sorts as he left Lifeway to work his high-paying side gigs. This bonus was approved by a single Lifeway trustee, Rainer's good friend, Pastor Jimmy Scroggins, of Family Church in West Palm Beach.

Scroggins was a trustee despite, this is just, this is so dirty. I feel like I need to take a shower. It goes on, man. This is what makes people mad. Remember all the Golden Parachute stuff from companies that had received bailouts from the federal government?

I mean, it feels like that. This is just, how is this possible? How is this even allowed is incredible to me. Former Lifeway past, yeah, oh. Former Lifeway president, failing company, failing ministry, if you wanna call it that, and he's out and gets $1 million?

What is that about? Let's see, it says continue page six. Let's go to page six and see if this, what more this has to say. Oh yeah, it's got a bunch of names here of, I guess, bad actors, and it goes through all kinds of corruption and outlines it.

Dottie Lewis, oh, it goes after him. Blueprint, which is his church, has also received unpublished amounts of money from NAMM, which he oversees for Lewis to distribute to others. One cashier's check from Blueprint went to Pastor Johnny O. and Cornerstone Church for $175 ,000 to help them refurbish their worship facility.

NAMM had already provided a loan for Cornerstone to secure the buildings. All this right before Pastor Johnny O. publicly kissed the SBC goodbye. I remember that, he left. So they get all this money, and then they just leave.

Wow, all right, I'm not gonna read any more of this. This is just so eye-opening, though, and the fact that this isn't being talked about much. I mean, this could be a game changer if it gets into enough hands.

This could really get conservatives kind of like, and just anyone who's against corruption kind of on point with some of this stuff. Russell Fuller's got an article here. Where does it start? Let's see, I think it starts here, page four.

And I think it's just his endorsement of Randy Adams. Randy Adams and the need for change in SBC seminaries. Wow, okay. Let's see, I haven't read this yet. Can you tell I haven't read a lot of this yet?

I actually skimmed parts of it, and I thought, wow, this is pretty amazing. But as I'm looking at it more, I'm even more impressed. Fuller says the seminaries lack transparency, and goes through that.

Talks about, wow, squandering money, Al Mohler. I'll read this. Let's see. During my time at Southern Seminary, transparency rarely happened. This was especially true of how the money was spent, or how much money was spent.

For example, Al Mohler, the president, wanted to expand the extension in Nashville. Some churches offered to house this extension. Mohler, however, decided on office space adjacent to Nissan's headquarters.

Some estimated the cost at $100 ,000 a year, but we may never know for sure. Few students signed up. It was a disaster. The extension finally ended up in a church. Later, Mohler came to the faculty meeting to announce that Southern Seminary intended to acquire Northland College, a school located two hours north of Green Bay, Wisconsin, more north than most of the population of Canada.

And without a Southern Baptist within the time zone, Mohler's jubilation turned to panic and despair when he realized that only about a dozen students signed up for our Siberian extension. He bailed, but not before squandering an estimated $500 ,000 to $750 ,000.

We may never know for sure. Okay, so this is, he's just going through the scandals. Okay, the squandering here. The seminaries lack accountability. Talks about C .J. Mahaney. Let's see. And what he gave, let's see, page six.

Let's see here. Oh, that's page seven. Page six, he talks more about this. Talks about sexual misconduct. The Mahaney, the whole Mahaney situation. I talked about that at the time. Some of you might remember.

The seminaries can become transparent and accountability by electing Randy Adams, and he gives a whole argument for that. NDAs, he says, a big problem. So people, they get fired and they have to, you know, they signed when they were hired an NDA that they can't say anything bad about the school, that kind of thing.

This is a crazy story. This is by Alan Atchison. That's a capstone report. Proposed plan would hide entity finances, bypass cooperative program for fundraising. I think I can kind of summarize this as, let's see here, if there's some quotes that might.

So this, I think, is about fundraising activities of like NAM and other entities, so they can go. The idea here, and the problem here, is that they can go to the local church and fundraise for their entity, rather than the local.

So they can compete with your local church for fundraising, if that makes sense. The new plan allows entities to bypass cooperative program for fundraising. So the cooperative program is the churches getting together, accountability to the churches.

This would be less accountability, because if the North America Mission Board now can raise funds, and believe me, they have a lot of money for advertising and stuff, they can raise funds outside of the cooperative program.

So they become more of an independent entity, not accountable to the convention of churches. That's going on right now, and I probably should read more, but for sake of time, we're not going to. You can go download this if you want to know more about that.

That's an issue that we should have all known about and all Southern Baptists should probably be hearing about. Resolution 9, a whole story on that. Let me see who this is written by, let's see. Page eight.

I'm not sure it says who this is. It's gotta say. I don't know who wrote this, but it is anti-Resolution 9, and it talks about the Marxist influence of it. NAM spends millions on houses. This is another problem.

NAM has become, they have bought these extravagant houses and they hold on to them, and so they're actually in the real estate business, and this is a real problem, but you don't know exactly what they're spending or where because they're not being transparent and accountable.

So this is God's money, again, coming from churches and going to these big houses, that NAM gets to hold on to, even if their church planner ends up leaving or whatever. Talks about Greer using those houses in North Carolina.

So there's all sorts of incentives here. All right, so there's a lot to this, a lot of little fun things too. Here's, clip out your very own Jimmy Scroggins one million dollar bill. So they're trying to make it kind of fun and just really almost like a political cartoon.

They're kind of mocking some of this, but it is a serious issue. So if you want to share this, sbctransform .org, sbctransform .org, and that's where you can go and forward slash news, download your PDF, and you can read it as well.

Here's figures on the cooperative program and baptism and church plans. You can see for yourself what's happening. Lives destroyed by NAM actions, a whole section on that, how NAM has destroyed certain people's lives.

I believe it. I have seen that. I've seen that whole mechanism also, not in NAM, but in the seminaries come after me. So that is not a shock. All right, so this is just a development. I thought, these are some issues that probably need to be on people's radars.

I'm not sure how many people have this stuff on their radar, but certainly is, certainly is important. So all that to say, I will be, hopefully, talking more tomorrow about SBC stuff. We'll have more news, I think, on what happened today.

And I also, I'm hoping to get some people maybe from the convention floor to come on and we'll do like a Zoom interview or something like that, and they'll give us some in the field reporting. But I hope that was helpful for some of you.

There's a lot of stuff going on and we need to be in prayer. And that's what I want to kind of end this on is, prayer does change things. And I don't know what God's will for the SBC is or for even evangelical Christianity or for the United States.

I believe, based on what we've seen, it seems like there's a lot of judgment going on. God is judging us. Prayer, prayer changes things, but the change is gonna start in the heart of people. The Holy Spirit deals with individuals.

It doesn't save entities. Despite what social justice advocates might say about the application of the gospel to impersonal systems and things like that, it's actually individuals that get changed by the Holy Spirit.

They get convicted of their sin and they repent and they turn to Christ. And I don't know how many people in the SBC are even Christians who are in these upper levels. Who knows? But there needs to be some real repentance for these things that we've just talked about.

And it's the entity itself is a sinking ship. But if the people repent, I mean, you could have a revival there tomorrow. I mean, I believe that that can happen. I don't think that's outside of the purview of what God can do.

I think he can absolutely do that. There can be repentance, but it's gonna have to start with the Holy Spirit working on the hearts of people, of men and women. And it can't be, it's not gonna be an impersonal system kind of thing.

And if the SBC is saved, it doesn't mean quote unquote, right? Conservative gets elected and we get some objectives done, which so far it's not going too well. That doesn't mean that it's still not in trouble.

No matter what happens, the Holy Spirit, we need him. We need him to do a move in the SBC and in Christianity in general. And I think I'm convicted myself that I wanna give tools to everyone to be able to fight this in their churches and wherever they are.

But even those tools themselves are not going to work if people are blinded and they're impervious to reason and they're in their sin and they don't wanna know the truth. Ultimately, we need to rely on God.

He is the only one. We need to humble ourselves before him, knowing we can't save this in and of ourselves. We can give it our best shot, but it's the Lord that's gonna have to use our efforts, but it's gonna be his effort ultimately that's gonna make the difference.

So I encourage you all to pray tonight about what happens tomorrow. And no matter what happens, God's still in control and the church is still there and nothing's gonna change no matter what happens tomorrow with those things.

All right, well, God bless you all. And I hope that was helpful. We'll talk more hopefully tomorrow. Have a good night.