“If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity.”
- E. R. Charles
In these moments of looming investigations and possible lawsuits among the elite leaders and committees of the SBC, the call for a change of culture has mounted the wings of Twitter. Former resolutions committee member, and pastor, Bart Barber said this moment requires us to strengthen the “rope of trust.” Ed Litton says there is a “crisis of trust” for Southern Baptist leadership. Even former president, and megachurch pastor, JD Greear called for a “change in culture” to address our trust issues. There are even predictions that this will be the end of the SBC. It seems many are just waiting for the last straw of broken trust to fall. Alleged sexual abuse cover-ups, potential diversion of mission giving toward lawyers and legal settlements, million-dollar severance packages, backroom deals, non-disclosure agreements, politically motivated leaked letters, erosion of complementarian views of ministry, and critical theory philosophies left unaddressed, we certainly have created the right environment for mistrust. The predictable result is that many have had enough.
Enough with the pugilism! Although the SBC has never been a huge promoter of boxing, public knowledge of our internal squabbles is widely known. However, “pragma” is the word Paul uses to say Christians should never take our “grievances” to court before unbelievers (1 Corinthians 6). The Apostle predicted the world’s assessment: “Oh how pitiful! The stewards of God’s Truth can’t even settle everyday matters.” “How dare you,” he says. The blasphemic behavior of the church was part of the draining of the Gospel of its power in Corinth, and for the SBC, our embarrassing and disgraceful public displays are the overshadowing scandals of the hour.
Of course, we know lawyers will be needed if our issues are comparable to the Catholic church. They paid out 2.2 billion dollars to an estimated 100,000 sexual abuse victims in the U.S. alone. France saw 330,000 cases. We certainly must be close to that based on the outrage of Convention entity heads, State Convention letters, and social media grandstanders. Well, either that or we are dealing with six to eight cases and the possible second-hand bungling by a few people. In the end, this could lead to the insolvency of the SBC, but either way, this sounds all too familiar: Paul asked, “I say this to your shame, is there none among you wise enough to settle your disputes?” Nobody wise, competent, capable, and knowledgeable? This is the culture that has devolved in areas of our SBC entities. Enormous amounts of money and power are concentrated outside local churches, with limited transparency and seemingly void of enough internal wisdom to work through our difficulties. And, if it isn’t bad enough that the Executive Committee and the Sexual Abuse Task Force are lawyering up for a legal Armageddon, the embarrassing common denominator in law firms chosen by either side is this: Both are large LGBTQ supporters and social justice warriors. Just take a moment to read the accolades from their own websites.
The Executive Committee is not our only example. We have other cases like Southwestern Baptist Seminary vs. The Harold A. Riley Foundation, Will McRainy vs. NAMB, David Platt vs. McLean Bible Church, and maybe some on the horizon from FBC Naples, Florida, where many church members feel smeared by Convention employees after they felt pressure to call a “woke” pastor. In this new world where lawyers are now our CP-funded missionaries, and mission trip reports are traded for court transcripts, the Apostle summarized it best: “Brother against brother, and that before unbelievers.” “You abuse, and defraud each other.” According to Paul, we should be in anguish and mourning right now.
While I am sympathetic with those defrauded and abused, (and feel there should be justice for victims) and while I am grateful that some shadowy activities will be brought to light, I lament the means and lament the possibility of Convention bankrupting results. Some may disagree and enjoy the bar-room brawl atmosphere that has emerged, but as for me and my house, we have had enough! There are no loopholes for lawsuits among brothers, only the undeniable proof of our predictable defeat (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). It’s time to stop turning to lawyers and bracing ourselves for lawsuits. It is now time to start gathering for prayer and renewal.
Enough defending plagiarism! A denomination that struggles to call out unrepentant sin is in desperate need of revival. The unmitigated fact that SBC President Ed Litton plagiarized sermons is not debatable. Stop pretending. In spite of the semi-apology initially offered by Litton at the outset of “sermon-gate,” in one of his last interviews at Southwestern Seminary, Litton’s self-reflection concluded: “I don’t believe it was plagiarism.” It must be that Litton’s earlier claim of a good memory failed him in recalling Haddon Robinson’s description of using another person’s sermon without attribution: He called it “THEFT”—literally a textbook case.
"In the world of preaching, a pastor who takes sermons from other preachers--word for word--without giving credit is guilty of plagiarism." (H. Robinson, Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching, 586.)
We are not talking about a failure to cite a source; we are not talking about the pilfering of a comment here and there; we are not talking about tracing the outline of someone’s research; we are talking about the heist of entire sermons presented as his own—whether Greear’s or those provided by sermon factories like Docent. Any justification of this impudence is to belittle the sacred task of preaching and to further [pompify] the celebrity culture poisoning our convention. Do we really want to rebuild trust? This seems like a good place to start.
It’s a twist of irony that Litton’s major in college was “theater.” The man does have a great memory and a knack for handling a script, but the defense of lifting the material of others and presenting it as one’s own “is not even tolerated among the pagans.” What’s worse is the bizarre defense others are offering on Litton’s behalf. Even Bart Barber, who served on the infamous resolutions committee that generalized the denomination’s approach to CRT, defended Litton, saying,
The personal, cursory reading of a basic commentary will expose that Mark never did what Ed Litton did. Mark never said it was his own work.
"Technically Mark’s Gospel is anonymous since it does not name its author. The title “according to Mark” was added later by a scribe some time before A.D. 125. (John D. Grassmick, “Mark,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, 95.)
With establishment leaders fleeing from good sense to prop up discredited leadership, we are at the point of saying, “Enough is enough.” Had Litton actually repented, there would be restoration, but in the hurricane of mistrust we are enduring, and its debris causing havoc for every church in the SBC, it’s time for Litton to step aside for the sake of the Convention, and if not, he must be replaced in Anaheim.
Enough embracing progressivism! A convention that is only willing to generalize truth to avoid alienating specific, sinful philosophies and dispositions requires more than a change of culture. Some churches that departed the convention in the shadow of Al Mohler’s endorsement of Trump became disenchanted with SBC culture in their dual alignments or ship-has-come-in affiliation with us. When the backroom promises of a progressive “new day in theology and racism” didn’t materialize, they bolted for the door. They didn’t even send a thank you for the cash gifts and prizes. But, the hope of keeping those churches was a fool’s quest, just like the generalized resolution of Nashville. In the Resolutions Committee’s imitation resolution, the Convention became against “any philosophy” that is unbiblical. Of course, this should be complemented with a doctrinal statement that simply says, “We’re for everything good.” The refusal to target the pressing encroachment of CRT/I, which is affecting every American institution, was basically the firing of a shotgun in the air from a continent away. This isn’t going to have any impact on the culture of the SBC, and it certainly won’t impact the world. In fact, the whole world yawns at our posturing.
J. Gresham Machen gave ample critique concerning our frailties:
“I can see little consistency in a type of Christian activity which preaches the Gospel on the street corners and at the ends of the Earth, but neglects the children of the covenant by abandoning them to a cold and unbelieving secularism.” (Education, Christianity & the State)
Many of our churches want to give clear guidance to our morally vacuous culture. We don’t need lectures about being for things instead of against things. We are already preaching what we are “for.” WE PREACH THE GOSPEL UNAMBIGUOUSLY, and for that matter, WE ARE ALREADY PREACHING RACISM AS SIN. At times, however, it is for the preservation of cultural sanity that we must proclaim what we are “against.” Leaving people in open-ended ambiguity is neither loving nor Christian. “Enough is enough.” The Convention needs to make a clear statement on CRT in Anaheim, and messengers must not stop until that is achieved.
Enough is Enough: The way forward.
We are naive to imagine that the current, perceived problem in the Executive Committee is our only problem, and it is a crippling naivete that hopes some surface whimpers for change of culture will heal the deep cancers of our Convention. The only way to bring order and break the chokehold on the Convention by Convention entity leaders and employees, and megachurch pastors and all of their followers is for the everyday, average church, and their messengers to unite in our own repentance, call on God for revival, organize for change, and resolve to be faithful to the very end. Without these actions on our part, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries stands as the prophetic reminder of our future.
No, it was not Luther who made the opening quote of this article. It was actually Elizabeth Rundle Charles's novel, The Chronicles of the Schoenberg Cotta Family (Thomas Nelson, 1864). It included dialogue from a religious leader named Fritz, who mused on the impact of Martin Luther.
“It is the truth which is assailed in any age which tests our fidelity. It is to confess we are called, not merely to profess. If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point.”
This quote is often wrongly attributed to Luther himself, but the fictional novel speaks with the crushing realism of Luther’s spirit. The issues above are only a few where the battle is raging and those Southern Baptists who “confess Christ” must now take a stand. In Charles’ assessment, this is the test of our fidelity. This is the test for our generation. In biblical terminology, it is “for such a time as this.”
I have wrestled long and hard over the need for something like the Conservative Baptist Network of churches and pastors in the state of Oklahoma. The majority of my state is already conservative. I have many great personal and professional friends in our state convention, having served with many of them on the Board of Directors. We do many things right in our state and have been shielded from much of the controversy here. But the national issues are having an enormous and detrimental effect on all of us, and it is long past time to deal with them. There truly is a need of change beyond our typical rhetoric, posturing, grandstanding, and political maneuvering, and even beyond what our long-established organizations have the ability to solve. Enough is enough!
If you share these convictions, I am inviting you as a pastor or lay leader in your church to come to one of three gatherings:
Nov 4, 10:00 am - FBC Bartlesville.
Nov 11th, 10:00 am - FBC Edmond.
Nov 11th, 7:00 pm - Online (via Zoom). «« Click here to join the meeting
I will be joined by Blake Gideon, Pastor of FBC Edmond, and others as we identify key problems in the SBC and propose some actual steps to address them. In these meetings, I hope you will see that prayer, repentance, revival, and resolve will be the keys to real and lasting change. I invite you to join us and stand with like-minded SBC churches in Oklahoma as we seek the face of God together.