Southern Baptist Convention Meeting to Review Expulsion of Churches
Response to sexual abuse and question of female pastors will be in spotlight
Adolfo FloresJune 11, 2023 8:00 am ET
Church officials’ response to sexual abuse and the question of whether women can be pastors will take center stage at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in New Orleans this week.
Messengers, as representatives from thousands of Southern Baptist churches are called, will vote on whether to sustain the convention’s executive-committee decision to expel some churches from the denomination because they had women serving as pastors. This year’s election for president is being seen as a referendum on the denomination’s efforts over the past year to hold abusers accountable and protect members of the church.
In February, the Southern Baptist Convention removed, or “disfellowshipped,” five churches, including Saddleback Church, the California megachurch founded by the evangelical pastor Rick Warren. It deemed them “not in friendly cooperation” with the denomination, which officially opposes women as pastors. After Warren retired last year, Saddleback Church selected Andy Wood as its lead pastor, and his wife, Stacie Wood, became a teaching pastor.
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The Southern Baptist Convention credentials committee said it received appeals from Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., as well as Saddleback in Lake Forest, Calif., one of the largest SBC churches. Another church, Freedom Church in Vero Beach, Fla., was removed by the SBC over its treatment of an allegation of sexual abuse and said it was planning to appeal at the annual meeting.
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The SBC, with roughly 13.2 million members, has according to Lifeway Research been losing members in recent years.
The convention cited its 2000 adopted statement of faith in its notices to churches being disfellowshipped, which said, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
Stacie Wood declined to comment on the Saddleback appeal.
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Fern Creek Baptist Church Pastor Linda Popham said her church adheres to the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message, a summary of the faith, which she said doesn’t limit who preaches.
“The way I read it, the way our church reads it, yes, we believe that the Scripture allows for” women to be pastors, Popham said.
Popham, who for more than 30 years has been pastor of Fern Creek Baptist Church, said she wonders why it is only now that the convention is seeking to expel her church, which has about 150 to 175 people attending weekly.
“Some of this I personally believe has been to redirect the attention away from the sexual abuse that has gone on,” Popham said.
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Messengers will vote on whether to approve the continuation of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, which has to be renewed each year. The task force is expected to present a database it has been developing over the past year of pastors, denominational workers, ministry employees and volunteers who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.
To be included in the database, persons would have to have been convicted of sexual abuse, had a civil judgment entered against them for abuse or have confessed to the crime. Someone can also be included in the database if an independent investigator commissioned by a church finds the accusations credible.
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This year’s presidential election is contested. Bart Barber, the sitting president, is being challenged for a second term by an opponent who has questioned aspects of the database. Barber didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mike Stone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Ga., announced his challenge for the SBC presidency earlier this year. Stone said he sought the nomination, in part, because an audit of the SBC executive committee found that it was on an unsustainable financial trajectory. The troubling finances, Stone said, are part of an overall decline in the number of members and churches that he said he would rectify through an evangelistic outreach initiative that he calls Crossover America and said would focus on churches being “on mission in their local communities.”
Stone opposes including people in the database who haven’t been convicted or confessed, prompting concern that his presidency could thwart the progress made on the problem of abuse.
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“I have been and remain in favor of a database of the convicted and confessed,” Stone said. “I do not support a database of people who have been accused.”
Marshall Blalock, a South Carolina pastor and chair of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, said Stone’s comment misrepresents who would be included in the category of “credibly accused” of sexual assault.
An independent investigation would be conducted by a licensed and certified firm that would use civil-court standards to look into the allegations, Blalock said. If investigators find the allegations credible, they would send the report to the ministry check site for a legal review, and Christian attorneys working with the SBC would ensure the investigation was done correctly. The accused would be notified and allowed to appeal before that name is added to the database.
No names will be included in the database when the task force presents the website this week, Blalock said, because members want to ensure that those who have been convicted aren’t currently appealing or had their convictions reversed. There is no time frame for when the database will be populated with names.
“It’s still not in place yet because we’re still working through all the standards, all the procedures to guarantee that the information is accurate and that people can trust what’s on the website,” Blalock said.
Mike McDonnell, a spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said failing to publish a database with names is kicking the can down the road and delaying accountability, which he said is particularly troubling given that the task force could be dissolved at any time in coming years.
“We’ve seen it certainly in other faith communities where they’ll put on a good show and often display that they’re taking significant measures when really it’s just a showpiece,” McDonnell said.
Write to Adolfo Flores at
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