Southern Baptist Convention to discuss race, gender and sex abuse in seminal meeting

Mike Stone, the most conservative candidate expected to be nominated for the SBC presidential election and pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in south Georgia. Creative Commons photo.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— More than 16,000 “messengers” of the gospel are gathering in Nashville June 15-16 for the first meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in two years. They’re expected to vote on several hot button issues, including women’s ordination, approaches to racial justice, resolving sexual abuse and electing a new president. 

As a temperature check from the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S, the results may be an indicator of the ideological direction of American White evangelicalism and will likely cause further division within the group.

The messengers will also vote to accept or reject many “resolutions”, which are non-binding to member churches but indicate which goals and values the SBC desires. For example, one resolution released early Tuesday denounced the Capitol riot as “inconsistent” with Christianity. Another asks for voters to “reject any theory or worldview that finds the ultimate identity of human beings in ethnicity or in any other group dynamic.”

On Monday, the SBC executive committee voted to re-elect Rev. Rolland Slade as chairman, the first Black person in that role who’s been outspoken about reforming the SBC. About 6% of its 14 million members are Black.

“This is good because [Slade] is his own man,” said Rev. Nathaniel Thomas, pastor of the Forestville Redeemer Baptist Church in Forestville, Maryland and president of the African American Fellowship of the Baptist Convention of Maryland and Delaware, a separate entity from SBC. “My hope is that there will be a serious movement toward reconciliation and ending the racial tone in our country.” 

The SBC has lost 2.6 million members since 2006, new data shows, with the steepest year-to-year drop occurring in 2018-2019 after the Houston Chronicle uncovered widespread sexual abuse in the denomination. While officially counting 14 million members in 2021, the SBC reports weekly church attendance at 4.4 million (that in-person worship count is affected by the pandemic). More recently, the former chief ethics advisor Russell Moore departed, shortly after the popular Bible teacher Beth Moore (no relation to Russell Moore) announced her exit from SBC, though she is still Baptist.

On Sunday before most registered delegates arrived at Nashville's Music City Convention Center, Grammy award-winning gospel televangelist Tony Evans preached and Michael W. Smith and CeCe Winans teamed up to sing on a program that emphasized unity in Christ ahead of what all expect to be a rough meeting about increasing divisions in the denomination. 

“God is not colorblind but neither is He blinded by color,” preached Evans. “We are of every tribe and nation and God sees us. But the only subject of the Bible is the glory of God and the advancement of His Kingdom. We are never to allow the politics of men to break up our togetherness, so stand together as the Lord sends you.”

When asked about the mood at the convention in terms of race relations, Jonathon D. Howe, Vice President of the Southern Baptist Convention for Communications, said in an interview with Religion Unplugged, “I was very encouraged by Dr. Evans' message last night. I would hope that all Baptists would hear it and learn from it on how to better relate to one another united as one to grow the Kingdom.”  

The Southern Baptist Convention was first organized in 1845. The group split with northern Baptists (known today as the American Baptist Churches USA) over the issue of slavery. After the Civil War, another split occurred when most freedmen set up independent Black congregations, regional associations and state and national conventions, such as the National Baptist Convention.

Historically Baptist church congregations have been very independent, and the local pastor is his own top official as opposed to Catholics, Methodist and Lutheran denominations. Many Black pastors like Thomas are members of several conventions at once.

Rev. Guy Williams, pastor of the Parker Memorial Baptist Church in Silver Springs, had no plans to be in Nashville. Williams, who is Black, said, “I have a 30-year history of engagement with the Southern Baptist Convention. I have  gone from being very active, then active to inactive. While there are some Southern Baptist Convention leaders who are not racist, those in power have dismantled all of those we help to put in position.”

The hot topic among Southern Baptists this year is debate over “Critical Race Theory,” the academic theory that challenges traditionally liberal approaches to civil rights, assumes there is no universal truth and teaches that systemic racism is embedded in American institutions. Several Republican state legislators across the South are voting to ban the philosophy in public schools.

“It’s foolishness!” said Rev. Leslie Copeland-Tune, an ordained Baptist minister who works at the National Council of Churches and graduated from the Duke University School of Divinity. “Critical race history doesn’t make American history. It is just a way to look at history through a racial justice lens instead of white civilization.”

Tune said she doesn’t have hope for the SBC changing. “They passed a resolution condemning slavery, but then they don’t support a woman’s right to preach,” she said. 

Rev. LK Floyd, pastor of the Heart Changers Baptist Church in Silver Springs, said while his church is affiliated with the local arms of the SBC, he would not be attending the convention because he doesn’t see them as really being inclusive in terms of significant racial inclusion.

“The convention was birthed in racism and injustice and the Southern Baptist Convention was one of the main institutions that supported slavery in the antebellum South,” Floyd said. “We can not escape the past of the Southern Baptists, nor is it surprising for them not to support Critical Race Theory as well as social justice or cultural sensitivity.”

Northwest Baptist Convention Executive Director and Treasurer Randy Adams announced Jan. 20 he would be nominated for SBC president, a two-year term. Adams, who has served in his current role since 2013, intended to be nominated for president at the 2020 SBC annual gathering but the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Other candidates expected to be nominated June 15 for the presidency (and considered more serious contenders than Adams) include Mobile, Ala.-area pastor of Redemption Church Ed Litton; Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and Mike Stone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Ga. and immediate past chairman of the SBC Executive Committee. Stone is the most politically conservative candidate who opposes Critical Race Theory and is a member of the Conservative Baptist Network, led by Paige Patterson, the former SBC seminary president who was fired in 2018 for his handling of sexual abuse cases. 

Mohler is a well known name in the SBC for his blog and podcast and for supporting Donald Trump for president in 2020 and organizing SBC leaders to oppose Critical Race Theory. Several Black pastors announced their exit from the SBC after Mohler’s remarks.

Litton, the pastor from Alabama, has more support from Black pastors for his approach to racial reconciliation and openness to other congregations in the SBC (while not his own) allowing women to preach.

Even longtime SBC leaders are uncertain which candidate has the best chance of winning the election. 

Meagan Clark, managing editor of Religion Unplugged, contributed reporting.

Senior contributor Hamil Harris is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland College Park and has been a lecturer at Morgan State University. Harris is minister at the Glenarden Church of Christ and a police chaplain. A longtime reporter at The Washington Post, Harris was on the team of Post reporters that published the series “Being a Black Man.” He also was the reporter on the video project that accompanied the series that won two Emmy Awards, the Casey Medal and the Peabody Award. In addition to writing for ReligionUnplugged, Harris contributes to outlets such as The Washington Post, USA Today, The Christian Chronicle and the Washington Informer.