Southern Baptists are resistant to change, but given time and the right information, we will make the right decision. I’m certain that the rank-and-file SBC members in the pews would agree with the positions advocated by the reformers. We need to keep making our case.

Reform Efforts Are Gaining Ground, but the Platform Still Prevails. Here’s Why.

Despite an obvious divide in the Southern Baptist Convention (as seen clearly by the major recorded votes on hotly debated issues) and valiant efforts by those seeking to make positive change, this year’s SBC’s annual meeting was a win for the status quo. The following six observations explain how and why I believe this to be the case.

1. There are four main groups in the SBC:
1) the Platform, 2) the Reformers, 3) the Loyalists, and 4) the Normies.

First, the Platform. These are the guys on stage who control the agenda and run the SBC bureaucracy. Think of everyone representing the SBC Executive Committee, primarily the President and CEO of the Executive Committee, Jeff Iorg, as well as the Committee on Order of Business (a quietly powerful committee that controls the schedule of the annual meeting), the entity heads, and others. And don’t forget the parliamentarians and the lawyers (who absolutely have their own agenda, and you would be naive to believe that they don’t).

They’re a mixed bag. One major positive on the Platform this year was that SBC President Clint Pressley did a commendable job running the meeting. In the past, we’ve seen presidents work against the Reformers, but not this year. This year, it appeared that other Platform players were working against him. More on that in a moment.

Second, the Reformers. I count myself amongst this group. We are the ones who see the SBC slowly but surely heading over a cliff and are advocating for needed fixes and reforms to our theology, public witness, and internal Convention operations that we believe would revitalize the Convention, defend our Baptist distinctives, and most importantly, honor the Lord. Three reform efforts from this year stand out in particular: the call for financial transparency, the Law-Sanchez Amendment, and the abolition of the ERLC. The Reformers represent the concerns of the majority of local churches in the SBC, but they are not usually men with “institutional” power or positions.

Third, the Loyalists. These are individuals who support the Platform in public debates on their entity-sponsored blogs and as messengers from the floor. They are loyal to the Platform because they want to be the Platform. Their highest aspiration in ministry is to become an SBC “insider.” The siren song of the Inner Ring is calling their name. Some of them may share the Reformers’ concerns, but don’t see the need for making dramatic changes. Furthermore, they know that if they ever publicly support the Reformers, even if they agree in private, it might cost them their chance to advance up the denominational ladder.

The Loyalists are dispositionally committed to prioritizing “tone” over substance. To them, the Reformers sound too “angry,” too “radical,” or too “fundamentalist.” They are the “business as usual” crowd, and for them, business is booming. They probably left the convention happy. Finally, the Normies. To clarify, I don’t use this term as a pejorative, so please don’t interpret it that way. In an ideal world, the SBC is run so well that all of us are “Normies.” The Normies don’t follow SBC politics or issues closely (and in many ways, who can blame them), so they attend the Convention and vote based on their perception of the room at any given moment. I suspect most of them are laymen and women in their churches who love the Lord and expect to discover whatever they need to know while at the Convention.

The problem here is the dynamic of how they learn what they “need to know” during debate on the Convention floor; if they haven’t done their own research, they are forced to make split-second decisions based on who they trust more—a local church pastor like Rhett Burns or Juan Sanchez or the President of the EC and his army of lawyers.

All four groups have their own agendas, which guide their actions. In Dallas, the Platform worked with the Loyalists to run the show and was often joined by the Normies to win the votes. The Reformers certainly won many of the Normies on the vote to abolish the ERLC, and even more on the vote to pass the Law-Sanchez Amendment; however, ultimately, the powerful combination of the Platform and Loyalists prevailed.

2. The SBC Annual Convention is a massive advertising campaign.

This is a significant point that drives several further observations, which are developed below. Where 10,000 Baptists are gathered in Jesus’ name, advertisers will be in their midst. I’m not talking about advertising from sponsors outside the Convention, I’m talking about the Convention advertising itself to the messengers. In other words, in many ways, the Convention is like a giant commercial for itself. Here’s what I mean.

The genius of the Cooperative Program lies in its bottom-up strategy, which facilitates cooperation between independent churches, combining, amplifying, and multiplying our individual efforts in ways that (ideally) do not compromise our Baptist polity. The Baptist Faith and Message (ideally) gives every cooperating church the confidence that their Cooperative Program (CP) giving supports like-minded work. Many churches that exist today do so only because Southern Baptists of previous generations gave generously to the CP to raise up Baptist pastors and plant Baptist churches. I should know.

I was trained for ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS), where I was able to afford tuition due to subsidies enabled by CP dollars. I then planted an inner-city church in Cincinnati through the SBC’s Nehemiah Project in 2008. The pipeline from pew to classroom to mission field is richly funded by Southern Baptist generosity, and we owe it to them to honor their faithful giving.

But CP giving is voluntary. And CP giving is down. As such, to me, the messaging at the Convention seemed designed to justify that commitment to the messengers. The CP funds the Platform, and the Platform controls the messaging at the annual meeting. This creates an incentive for the platform to showcase all the great work the CP is doing while suppressing any messaging that would call its value into question.

Again, since CP giving is voluntary, it is the primary product being sold at the Convention. The Platform wants its product to shine brightly before its biggest audience to maintain the loyalty of its customer base.

Simply put, the Cooperative Program is a product, the Platform is selling it, and the messengers are the customers.

This gave the Convention a palpable salesmanship kind of feel to me. Anyone who’s raised support for missionary work knows that you have to inspire potential donors with powerful stories of life change. Some presenters asked for the sale directly: “Please continue your generous support for the Cooperative Program.” Others were more indirect: “Here’s how your Cooperative Program dollars are working for you!”

Of course, advertisers will not allow the weaknesses of their product to ever see the light of day. That’s why the Reformers are such a nuisance to the platform. We’re regarded as trolls giving one-star reviews for their product. Why pay attention to them?

We are not regarded as sincere brothers trying to do good—we’re seen as a marketing threat. If our concerns gain traction, it could erode confidence in the Cooperative Program, and funding could dry up (even though we believe and argue that we want to strengthen the CP, not harm it). That must not be allowed to happen.

All of these factors favor the status quo. As long as the money is coming in, the Platform can continue doing whatever they’re doing while confidently proclaiming, “This is the Lord’s work! Look at all God is doing! You have nothing to be concerned about. Just trust us.” This leads me to my next observation.

3. The Convention spends far too much of its precious time on celebration instead of business.

The SBC is a massive, sprawling organization comprising millions of people and hundreds of millions of dollars. There are numerous groups and subgroups within the SBC, each seeking to utilize the annual meeting to achieve their objectives. The SBC has six major seminaries and other major entities, all of which require airtime to present reports, address questions, and justify their allocation of CP dollars. Again, they’ve got to sell their product.

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