Moderates Score a Win for Now in the Southern Baptist Convention

In a surprise result, the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville yesterday saw the election of a moderate as the new SBC president.  Seemingly, younger members who turned out in larger numbers than anticipated swayed the vote and rejected for now the machinations of "conservatives" - those who want to turn a blind eye to sex abuse and racism within too many SBC churches - at least for now.  Having seen what reactionary elements in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church did in the wake of not getting their way in those denominations, it's a foregone conclusion that the SBC will continue to experience division and a possible exodus of far right churches.  Moreover, the pollicization of religion by and allegiance to Trump among the right wing elements will likely continue to fuel the exodus of younger members from the SBC.  The SBC remains no friend to LGBT Americans.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at what could be a short term victory for moderates - a decidedly relative term - within the SBC. Here are article excerpts:

The Southern Baptist Convention elected Ed Litton as their president on Tuesday, signaling a defeat for the hard right within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Litton narrowly defeated Mike Stone, the favored candidate of the far-right. For the past few years, the convention has been mired in debates over racism, politics and sexual misconduct that mirror many of the same debates in the Republican Party. The election took place at the convention’s annual meeting in Nashville.

In recent weeks, as leaked letters and backroom deals dominated conversations among Southern Baptists, Litton, pastor of First Baptist Church North Mobile in Alabama, pitched himself as someone who would lead the convention toward more racial reconciliation.

In a runoff, Litton received 52 percent of the vote, while Stone received 47.81 percent.

Stone had the support of a group called the Conservative Baptist Network that formed in 2020 to try to steer the convention in a hard-right direction. The CBN hosted its own gathering Tuesday at a nearby hotel featuring speakers who lamented the direction of the country and convention, including the state of public schools, how young people are leaving churches, and “woke” ideologies.

Ahead of the meeting, there was concern that there would be a backlash against some of the racial reconciliation of Southern Baptist leaders, said Ed Stetzer, who used to head the SBC’s LifeWay Research, its research arm. Instead, the convention voted for a president known for his efforts on race relations.

“The crowd was younger and more diverse then most expected, and that crowd carried the day,” Stetzer said.

The election result is unlikely to end the divisiveness within the convention or satisfy attendees like Judd Saul, a filmmaker from Cedar Falls, Iowa, traveled to Nashville because he wanted to warn Southern Baptists of the “drastic slide” into the political left and into CRT and was distributing pamphlets about the “woke SBC.” He said he was kicked out of his Southern Baptist church three years ago for promoting conspiracy theories and now attends a non-denominational church.

Another key issued raised at the meeting was how Southern Baptists have handled sex abuse both in their churches and at the highest levels of leadership. Because churches operate independently from one another, they have struggled to know how to prevent people who have been credibly accused of sex abuse from moving to other churches.

The convention, which is known for adopting resolutions on all kinds of political and cultural issues, also adopted resolutions opposing tax-payer funding for abortion and opposing an LGBT rights measure called the Equality Act.

In his speech, outgoing president Greear warned against getting too closely aligned with partisan politics.

“God hasn’t called us primarily to save America politically; he’s called us to make the gospel known to all," Greear said. "Whenever the church gets in bed with politics, it gets pregnant. And the offspring does not look like our Father in heaven.

From my perspective, a weakened SBC is a net positive.