SBC Elders, excommunications, and the marginalizing of women

I served three wonderful, quite traditional SBC churches in my 30 years as a pastor. These churches had a pastor, deacons, committees (later "teams"), the usual, typical organization. Deacons both served and provided some degree of leadership and guidance. Women were more faithful in attendance and did most of the work. Nothing unusual about that.

No church I ever served, nor have supplied in since retirement, has had elders. But having elders is the administrative structure du jour in Southern Baptist life, especially among our younger brethren. Fine, pastor-elder-overseer, are all biblical, as is deacon.

So, why am I always reading about certain things follow along with a church that moves from a traditional pastor and deacon polity to an elder model?

Consider the following scenario:

A church has a pastor and deacons. A move is made to rename the pastor as an elder and allow him to have a few selected, perhaps congregationally approved, fellow elders. Deacons are made irrelevant, dispensed with, or restricted to very strict ministry tasks absent any leadership role. Soon after the change, various church members are excommunicated, excluded from membership. Also, the roles of women in the church are severely restricted.

A good change? Bad change? Neutral? Take your pick.

The church I have in mind is the nationally known Westboro Baptist Church, the "God-hates-fags" church whose leader Fred Phelps was excommunicated shortly before he died. The churches regular spokesperson was his daughter who, after the elder change, dropped from high visibility.

If elders are useful for Westboro, can they be similarly employed in SBC churches?

Object to the comparison? I'm just reporting and connecting dots here. For all the talk about how spiritual, biblical, helpful, and superior an elder form of governance is, what I often see is a power grab by the pastor and a few cronies accompanied by an almost inevitable marginalization of women in the church.

Any SBC church that has a move towards elder leadership ought to get intense scrutiny from membership with both of these in mind. If it is merely a change in vocabulary, then fine, I'm probably on board but the devil is in the details and I would put those under a magnifying glass. My experience, certainly anecdotal, puts me in the position of being instantly suspicious of any pastor whose leadership in this area moves in this direction.

My advice to church members is this: Raise both eyebrows and see that both ears perk up when your pastor brings up any change that involves elders.

My advice to church search committees is this: You cannot afford not to bring up and thoroughly discuss with any prospective pastor the matter of elders. While doing so, at least one committee member needs to be educated enough on the issue so as not to be either finessed or bulldozed by the candidate.

Avoid a lot of grief, brethren/sistren, by paying attention here.

Your Friendly SBC Calvinist and Elder Rule

Consider the case of FBC Micanopy, Florida, a sad tale of a true elder ruled church.

Associated Baptist Press reports on the case:
Court refuses to intervene in church dispute over elder rule

The local paper wrote up the original conflict back in 2008:
Micanopy Baptist church splits in two

According to Wayne Harvey, director of missions for the Santa Fe River Baptist Association, the debate about how a church should be governed is not new.

"We ought to go to the Bible, of course, and there were some decisions made by elders and some were made by the congregation, but it's difficult to say for certain that there was elder rule or there was pure democracy," Harvey said.

Harvey said that while some of the 45 congregations that are members of the Santa Fe River Baptist Association have elected elders who make decisions, none of them have elder rule in which the position holders make all the decisions.

"First Micanopy is the only one that has elder rule," Harvey said. "They left our association last November."

Need it be said to SBC congregations, Pastor Search Committees and Associational Missionaries that if a pastoral candidate or staff minister brings up the matter of elders, they should be extremely wary...lest they follow the sad path of FBC Micanopy?

Some in the SBC have taken to designating around what they see as too much calvinism in SBC entities. Some blogging voices have sounded alarms on elder rule in SBC life.

Oh, and the current pastor of the church is a McArthur seminary grad, fully steeped in Calvinistic Christianity, I suppose and called by the church's elders.

Can't Calvinists start their own churches, after their own elder rule design, according to what suits McArthur et al, and not mess up perfectly good existing churches?

Two eyebrows raised...permanently.

Elders, meltdowns, and a new wrinkle on tithing

New Wrinkle on Tithing? Rev. Markel Hutchins is suing an Atlanta family for $490,000, ten percent of the $4.9 million settlement the family got when a family member was killed in a botched police raid. Hutchins said that he “served as the family and estate's spokesperson, strategist, advisor and consultant” and that he and his staff “holistically managed the public and private efforts that made the significant settlement possible…” Give the hireling a gift card to Outback Steakhouse and send him on his ambulance chasing ways.

New Wrinkle on Domestic Meltdowns? No, not a dysfunctional family’s household war but a Swedish guy who was “trying to split radium, americium and uranium atoms in his apartment--but only as a 'hobby,'” Indeed. He had a small meltdown and the radioactive stew blew up in his face.

I understand that at least one prominent blogger is interested in the minister’s housing allowance, specifically, how unordained female staff members, many of whom perform the same duty as male counterparts in other churches, but who are not allowed to receive part of their income from the church in the allowance and who thereby pay more income taxes. This will be worth a look.

Seems to me that there is a growing number of SBCers who are enamored with the concept and with the term “elders.” Seems also that there are a growing number of SBCers and SBC churches who are wary of those who are enamored with it. Plodder smells conflict brewing where these two groups touch.

In case you missed it, the White House has directed that the fault that caused the recent earthquake centered near D.C. be called “Bush’s Fault.”

Could there be any less appropriate name for a hurricane than Irene?

Plodder had a grandaughter born last week. She got a bill from the IRS yesterday for her share of the national debt, $47,106.92. Alas.