What's Frank Page's Calvinist Team to say?

Frank Page's Calvinist advisory team, a group of mostly SBC luminaries, leaders, and heavyweights will issue a report during the convention next month. Forgive my pessimism, but the prospects for much impact have diminished greatly since he announced the informal group last June in New Orleans.

They have met. They have discussed, in the lamentably traditional Southern Baptist method of being behind closed doors and without ordinary Southern Baptists being able to listen, and have issued bland statements.

So, what is to come out of this?

Nothing to do with the Baptist Faith and Message Statement, unless it is to restate that the BFM allows for both Calvinist and Traditionalist beliefs.
Page said as much earlier:

I have no interest in changing The Baptist Faith and Message. It has been wisely crafted by previous generations of thoughtful, thinking Baptists to allow for a breadth of interpretations about God's purpose of grace. It was written so that Calvinists and non-Calvinists can join hands and hearts for the common cause of world evangelization.

Current SBC president Fred Luter gave an indication of the outcome in March when he said,

"There's going to be a proclamation given out that hopefully will satisfy everybody," Luter said. "We've got to look at this thing as spiritual warfare. ... It's an issue that has to be dealt with, and unless we deal with it in a Christian-like manner, I really believe the enemy can come and divide us."

I love an optimist and someone who has hopes that "everybody" in the SBC will be satisfied. Such a person is either an incorrigible optimist or has just arrived from Mars. Luter is not from Mars.

Here is my rank conjecture as to what the team's report will say:

1. Both traditions are welcome in the SBC and have been historically present.
2. SBC entity leaders and trustees should be careful not to discriminate on the basis of either Calvinism or Traditionalism in their hiring.
3. SBC seminaries are encouraged to be welcoming and affirming to students from both groups.
4. The BFM is sufficient as it stands and needs no clarification or revision.
5. Southern Baptists of both traditions agree on the primary doctrines and this should be a source of rejoicing.
6. Healthy, civil, congenial, and respectful debate on secondary doctrinal matters is to be expected and even encouraged.

I'm predicting a report that will be encouraging though banal. The silence of this group for the last few months is an indication that nothing surprising is to be expected.

Here are some things that should be said but will not:

1. Any quota system that seeks to apportion seminaries, SBC officers, SBC entity CEOs is harmful and destructive and should be avoided. Trustees should be encouraged to seek the best leaders and administrators and the best and most qualified faculty that are available without regard to how Calvinistic or Traditionalist the candidates are.

2. Trustees of state convention and SBC entities which sponsor websites whose purpose is to promote one camp or the other should reevaluate their priorities and promote Christ instead.

3. Bloggers are to be commended for providing the only arena where the issue of Calvinism and Traditionalism can be discussed openly and civilly by pastors and laypeople in the SBC.

4. Some bloggers who write and comment in a harsh, judgmental, and destructive manner on these issues should just shut up.

5. Any entity that seeks to purge its faculty, administration, or trustee board from either Calvinists or Traditionalists should feel the weight of disapproval from Southern Baptists of both camps and should be marginalized and condemned.

6. Prospective Calvinist pastors should avoid blowing up churches in order to correct what they see as heresy and should fully disclose their intents prior to accepting a pastorate.

7. Any new SBC war along the lines of the Conservative Resurgence of a generation ago will be very costly to our already beleaguered Cooperative Program and to the cause of Southern Baptist missions in our country and around the world should be avoided at all costs.

Some have already drawn the battle lines and are determined to fight. I hope that they are few and that we can find a way to shuffle these bellicose Baptists off to the side while the vast bulk of us do the work of Christ.

Autonomy makes Baptist life so interesting

Our polity that puts autonomy at every level of Baptist life does make for some interesting situations.

I wrote earlier of the church in a Missouri association that retained their pastor even after he was arrested on felony charges for sexual crimes with minors. They exercised their autonomy to keep an accused pedophile in their pulpit. No other Baptist church, association, state convention, or national organization can do a doggone thing about it.

Autonomy at work.

The church’s local association, exercising their autonomy, expelled the church but not for the retention of the pastor but rather for not being cooperative.

Autonomy at work.

Consider the case of a Virginia church and their association. The Ginter Park Baptist Church in Richmond ordained an openly gay man after which the Richmond Baptist Association appointed a group to examine the matter and that committee voted to retain the church. The entire association narrowly ratified the committee’s recommendation and the church remains a member in good standing with Richmond Baptist Association.

Autonomy at work.

Vote to retain church brings backlash is the story on the latter situation, carried by ABP.

Now, a number of churches have quit the association and a considerable number of others are considering such a move. Together, these churches represent about 40% of the association’s budget.

A church ordains a gay man. The association votes to "embrace Giner Park Baptist Church as a sister church" but without endorsing its views on ordaining homosexuals. Evidently, the association does not feel that such actions rise to the level necessary to expel a member church. 

Autonomy at work. 

Now, other churches in the association are withdrawing from the group over the decision. 

Autonomy at work.

The beleaguered associational missionary, concerned about the fragmentation of his group and loss of a significant amount of funding takes a group to the pastor and others of the church that started this mess, the one that ordained the homosexual man, "to share with [Ginter Park leaders] the impact of [the vote] and to let them know the serious situation we find ourselves in". 

Translation: “Our budget is shot to pieces. Would you help us out by withdrawing?”

To her credit, the Ginter Park pastor, Mandy England Cole, refused to quit, neither did she allow the associational missionary to make her and her church responsible for the association’s actual and potential budget woes. After all, the association did not "find" themselves in the current dire situation; they created it by exercising their autonomy to “embrace” her church - the Big Hug that will likely end the association as it has been known.

Autonomy at work.

If the same circumstances arose in my association, I would (a) vote to expel the church, and if that failed (b) leave the association.

I suspect that another autonomous association will spring up in Richmond, proving once again that the way we Baptists start new churches, associations, and state conventions is the old fashioned way – we split the ones we have.

Autonomy at work.

How can churches be so stupid in responding to clergy sexual abuse?

How can large evangelical churches, organizations with considerable resources, multiple specialized staff, and highly sophisticated social media resources be so stupid in their responding to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by their staff members?

I cannot explain it but see it regularly.


Check the recent case of The Church in Corinth, an Assembly of God church near Dallas:

Texas pastor tried to coerce high school girl into stripping for him

 The pastor, perhaps forty something, locked the high school girl in a room and tried for two hours to get her to strip for him. The actions, if proved, constitute a felony.

Here is the initial statement of the church:

“We have no knowledge of nor any reason to suspect any inappropriate behavior,” Fink said. “We intend to and will fully investigate the allegations, and we will fully cooperate with the authorities. Our prayers go out to this family of our church.”

Here is a formal statement issued later by the church:

 

Allegations have been made. At this time, they are allegations. And, our Pastor is on a leave of absence. A leave of absence is the best thing we can do for him to give him time to be with his family and to deal with everything going on in his life. Any time, when something like this happens, the impact that it has on everyone is painful. With that pain often comes a response that looks very much like the stages of grief. You may be feeling hurt, afraid, and confused. Many of us will feel angry. Anger is a response that we use to defend ourselves against the hurt, fear and confusion. Some will feel depression. But, with time – and a lot of prayer, we will begin to go through a period where we can begin to heal.

Wonder of wonders, the pastor is a victim!

We are going to give HIM time to be with HIS family, to deal with what is going on in HIS life...it's painful...the church family is grieving, hurt, confused, afraid, and angry...but in time WE can begin to heal.

The church website has this message for members:

So, what will the future look like at The Church of Corinth? In the short term, the Deacon board will continue to help in the day to day decision process of the operation of the church. We have already been in contact with the leadership of the Assemblies of God about the events of this week and are following their direction as well as getting input from their vast experience and wisdom.... 

Something missing from the church's response?

How about ANY mention of the victim, the girl the spiritual leader, authority figure trapped in a room with lecherous intent?

Not a syllable.

This is as pathetic as it is stupid.

Sure, the charges are allegations (although authorities have audio recordings, a couple of hours worth, of the pastor) and a measured response would be appropriate.

But to read the church statements one would think that it is all about them, their people, their future.

Oh, by the way, the church website says this:

Our community believes that it is our responsibility to be the hands and feet of Christ to the world. We desire that our body is marked as Christ-followers in a culture that is broken and in need of hope.

 Something is indeed broken here.

Association expels church with accused pedophile pastor

A Southern Baptist association in Missouri has dropped from its membership a church whose pastor is to stand trial for sex crimes with minor females. The charges include six felonies involving two different women who were minors when the incidents allegedly occurred.

Bob Allen of Associated Baptist Press has the story:

Association drops church with accused pastor

Headlines notwithstanding, the Lamine Baptist Association dropped the church for "non-compliance with the association’s constitution and bylaws" without mention of the sex charges.

The pastor was acquitted of similar charges in 2011 and the current charges are for forcible rape, statutory rape, sexual abuse and sodomy that are alleged to have occurred in 1998, 1999 and 2005.

Our cherished and closely guarded doctrine of autonomy, each level of Baptist life is independent and cannot be ordered to do anything, means that a local church may have an accused sexual predator as pastor if they wish, and this church, inexplicably, so wishes.

Southern Baptist pastors are fired for the most trivial of reasons and one would think that if a church's pastor is indicted for such serious felonies, he would not last long in the pulpit.

Think again in this case. The church stands by her man.

Indeed, one of the earlier crimes for which the pastor was acquitted was a statutory rape charge. It turned out that the victim was 17, the age of consent in Missouri, and that no crime occurred. 

The church is comfortable with their pastor having crime free sex with a 17 year-girl?

Evidently.


Sure, the law presumes innocence until guilt is proven in a court of law. But, if a church volunteer worker or staff member is accused of sexual crimes with minors, at the very least such an individual would ordinarily be suspended from their duties and prohibited from contact with minors until the charges are resolved.

I'm not sure how one can pastor a church without contact with  minors, but the church is untroubled by such things, one member claiming that the pastor is "wonderful" with children in the church.

Wonderful indeed.

Tragic, high profile Baptist suicides

In widely reported news Rick Warren's son committed suicide last month. Because of the high profile of his father, the tragic death of Matthew Warren triggered a considerable discussion among both church and secular observers.

There is a book coming out soon authored by SBC Executive Committee President Frank Page about his daughter's suicide back in 2009.

Nashville reporter Bob Smeitana has an article on the subject that focuses on Frank Page:

Suicides, assaults drive Southern Baptists to focus on mental illness

Page and several other Baptist leaders plan to meet in Dallas, Texas, this spring to address mental illness. The meeting was prompted by the Newtown, Conn., shooting and has gained more urgency since the suicide of Matthew Warren, 27-year-old son of California megachurch pastor the Rev. Rick Warren.

The publicity and action of such a meeting of high profile Baptist leaders can only help an area in which we are relatively weak, and silent. 

Although suicide has touched every church I have ever pastored and every community that I have lived in has a story about a pastor suicide, the subject is somewhat taboo among the brethren.

In the article linked LifeWay's Ed Stetzer is quoted:

In a blog post after learning of Matthew’s suicide, Stetzer wrote about how mental illness has affected his own family. Several of his relatives have taken their lives, as did a parishioner in a church that he served as a young pastor.

“We need to stop hiding mental illness,” Stetzer said.
Stetzer said some evangelical Christians think that if they pray enough or become more spiritual, then their mental illness will go away. But they don’t look at other health issues the same way.

“People who become a Christian and have a broken leg will still have a broken leg,” he said. “We tend to think that Jesus fixes what is in our heads, and medicine fixes what is in our body. Sometimes what is in our heads needs medicine.”

Stetzer is right and the sooner SBC pastors and others understand that, the better off we will be. We tend to believe we (and our families) are bulletproof. We are not.

Frank Page said,“I do not want you to imagine what that is like [to have a child commit suicide],” he said.

I have sons and a daughter and do not want to imagine what this is like.

Kentucky Bapt. Conv. agressively attacks Cooperative Program

I would be more accurate if I said that the aggression among KBC leaders is being directed at the division of Cooperative Program receipts from the churches.

This is a good way for Southern Baptist state convention leaders to channel their aggressive impulses.

 

State conventions are the biggest beneficiary of Cooperative Program dollars with considerably more than 50% on average staying within each state convention. Many SBCers think that while state conventions do good work and while the division of the CP dollar between states and national entities is consistent with historic levels, state conventions should not be keeping over 50%.

Count me in this number and count me skeptical that the states will ever do much to rectify this for a couple of reasons.

One, everyone can justify their budgets and find an endless stream of in-state projects to eat up CP dollars. Second, state conventions have long been deep into fuzzy math when it comes to CP accounting. In many cases when a state says "50/50" what they really mean is "60/40" or "55/45". Third, the inertia that comes from legacy funding of schools, campus ministries, and other state spending is very tough to overcome.

But I give the Kentucky Baptist Convention credit for taking steps to move their CP split towards 50/50. Baptist Press has a story from the KBC state paper, Western Recorder, on the move: Ky. advisory group proposes $700,000 CP shift.

The shift of CP receipts is in taking CP dollars given by KBC churches away from in-state causes and reallocating them to SBC causes such as the seminaries and mission boards. This is not insignificant and is the most serious such move among the state baptist conventions.

Almost all, about 95% of the reductions are being taken from two KBC colleges, the state paper, and the Kentucky Baptist Foundation. The rest comes from an array of smaller ministries.

If this is implemented, the new funding scheme is just a proposal now, the KBC will be closer to that 50/50 split, which in Kentucky's case actually means 55/45 but the convention is committed to making that 53.5/46.5.

Confused? Join 99.9% of Southern Baptists in that. I will explain later.

I commend the KBC for their relatively aggressive movements in getting more CP money out of their state. The are ahead of most state conventions in this. 

Does this CP shift make much difference?

The math helps us get to a conclusion on that. Stay tuned.

I allow for the possibility that this Georgian may be missing something about this move in Kentucky. If so, I would welcome some bluegrass Baptist if they wish to correct me or supplement my information here.

Being a pastor is a pretty sorry job...

...if you check the latest job rankings. Clergy are ranked number 110 out of 200 job categories by CareerCast.com which analyzed data from the U.S. Labor Department, Bureau of Labor Statistics, other government agencies, trade associations and private survey firms.

Depressed on Monday? You chose this rather meager and unsatisfying career path, but take heart:

Your job ranking beats that of attorney (117) perhaps because attorneys slink around courthouses trying to scare up a retainer or two and others are well paid but work brutal hours slaving away reading tedious documents for a couple hundred bucks an hour.

And you are way ahead of military general (180) even if no one takes your orders and staff undermines you sometimes.

You might complain about how many hats you have to wear as you carry out your clergy responsibility but painters (174), meter readers (194), dishwashers (187), and bank tellers (162) likely look with envy at your job with all of its variety rather than the mind numbing tedium they face each day.

But then do you look with envy at the job of bricklayer (53) which ranks far above yours. You do a lot of small scale building up but just don't always finish the day and are able to look back with satisfaction at what you have accomplished.

I hate to share the news, brethren, but your job ranks far below that of sewage plant operator (87), and you thought your job stunk at times. Here a new career path where you could bring some related experience and raw sewage doesn't call you in the middle of the night or whisper about your deficiencies in the hallways.

And you are behind truck drivers (108), automobile mechanics (103), parole officers (27), and even social workers (49).

One might think that clergy, who have some of the same job demands of museum curators (57), psychologists (58), pest control workers (95), recruiters (69), and human resources managers (31), might rank higher than 110th, far below these.

One of the constants in my several decades of pastoral ministry is the presence of a steady supply of my clergy colleagues who are whiners and complainers - not paid enough, always on display, constant job pressures, unappreciated, etc., etc.

My advice is to give some of the brethren an opportunity to blow off a little steam and vent a bit but to stay away from those who are always sitting on ready to share their latest job woes.

And stay away from job ranking articles.

Stick with this:

This saying is trustworthy: “If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.”

What God calls "noble" let no job ranking survey diminish.

Now, it's Monday, take the rest of the day off.