Top SBC committee foreshadows 'sobering and difficult decisions' ahead for Southern Baptists

The Southern Baptist Convention is hurtling toward tough decisions on its future and hard truths about its past, and the denomination’s president sees a major silver lining it all of it.

“God is present and active when we face sobering and difficult decisions as the body of Christ,” SBC President Bart Barber said in an address to the SBC Executive Committee this week in Nashville.

Barber, who is nearing the end of his second and final term, sought to help the convention see its circumstances as a glass half full despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and deep polarization over the denomination’s confession of faith. It was one of several moments during the executive committee meeting in Nashville this week that reminded the nation’s largest Protestant denomination of all the weighty decisions it will face in just months.

The SBC annual meeting this June in Indianapolis was already shaping up to be eventful due to a critical vote on a measure seeking to enshrine a ban on women pastors. But this week was a reminder of equally significant moments related to funding long-term abuse reform, denomination leadership and ideological alliances around those leaders, and a lesser-known report following an ongoing inquiry into a moment of SBC history that changed the denomination’s funding formula.

The SBC Executive Committee, comprised of about 20 staff and an 86-member board of elected representatives, manages denomination business outside of the SBC annual meeting.

Here are important takeaways from this week’s gathering and what it means for the upcoming SBC annual meeting:

Money

Funding SBC-affiliated agencies, called entities, changed in major ways following a 2009-2010 initiative that sought to boost missions and church planting, including by reducing the SBC Executive Committee’s yearly allocation.

That initiative, called the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, is currently under a microscope by an SBC group studying the long-term effects of that 2009-2010 initiative. "We all should give this task force all the support they need and all the information they need to fulfill the task that has been given to them," Barber said about the ongoing study into the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.

The SBC Executive Committee laid off staff in the fall, a sign of deeper financial challenges. Meanwhile, the SBC mission agencies continue to receive high percentages of funding from the Cooperative Program budget, which local Southern Baptist congregations contribute. Overall, the SBC is budgeting $5 million less in Cooperative Program revenue for the 2024-25 fiscal year compared to 2023-24 due to a decrease in total receipts the Cooperative Program receives.

A new calculus for both the SBC entities and perhaps the Cooperative Program is whether there will be funding for a new nonprofit to take on long-term abuse reform efforts in the SBC. “I have a high level of confidence that our entity heads will work with us in identifying a funding pathway,” North Carolina pastor Josh Wester, chair of the SBC Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, said in a news conference Tuesday.

The estimated amount to seed the nonprofit, named the Abuse Response Commission — including the expense to launch a database of ministers accused of abuse — is about $2.5 million, Wester said. Depending on what entities decide in the next couple months will determine if the abuse reform task force will request the full convention put Cooperative Program money toward the nonprofit.

In the past couple years, the abuse reform task force has received supplemental funding from Send Relief, a program managed by the SBC’s mission agencies. But Wester said the abuse reform task force has only received approval to spend about half of the money budgeted from Send Relief.

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, the heads of the SBC mission agencies expressed reluctance about funding the new nonprofit with Send Relief money.

"While we share a desire to support abuse reforms, many details remain unclear about the proposed ARC’s mission, legal structure, leadership, and accountability," said the statement from Send Relief, signed by its president and the presidents of the two SBC mission agencies. "Though Send Relief funds are not available for a non-SBC organization, they do remain available to the ARITF for its assigned work within the SBC."

More on abuse reform nonprofit: New nonprofit to lead SBC abuse reform efforts after delays in launch of abuser database

Leadership and ideology

At the same time the SBC elects a new president in June, it will vote on final approval for the proposed constitutional amendment to ban women pastors.

Among the two current candidates for SBC president, North Carolina pastor Clint Pressley and Oklahoma pastor Mike Keahbone, Pressley supports the proposed constitutional amendment and Keahbone doesn’t.

Meanwhile, Keahbone has been especially vocal about and involved with abuse reform efforts in the SBC. In fact, he’s one of six incorporators for the new Abuse Response Commission, the new nonprofit that will lead abuse reform. Following Monday night’s announcement about the Abuse Response Commission, the effort has received both praise and criticism. That divide over abuse reform might factor into the presidential election just as much as the proposed constitutional amendment on women pastors.

Opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment warn it will bring the SBC to a point of no return and perhaps even schism. But Barber, mindful of that anxiety, admonished the denomination in his address Monday night to look at this moment differently.

“Our success and failure in finding agreement does not rise and fall on our winsomeness or belligerence. … On our diplomatic prowess or on our war making bent,” Barber said. “That should encourage you to know that the father waits to hear our prayers of agreement as we work toward agreement from disagreement.”

Other executive committee news: Top Southern Baptist panel ousts churches over woman pastor, abuse response

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on social media @liamsadams.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Southern Baptist committee meeting foreshadows dramatic decisions