The 2022 Annual Southern Baptist Convention was a very infamous day for the Southern Baptist Convention. The Conservative Baptist Network was resoundingly defeated on the day one elections after Voddie Baucham narrowly lost the Pastors Conference presidential vote. The introduction of motions kicked off with numerous motions being made to demand transparency for the Cooperative Program, mainly NAMB. Additionally, Ed Litton was trolled numerous times for serial sermon plagiarizing.
What’s A Pastor?
Last year at SBC21, a motion was submitted to disfellowship Saddleback Church for ordaining women as pastors. The Credentials Committee who handles such matters reported this year that they would recommend no action be taken against Rick Warren’s church, claiming that the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is unclear about non-senior pastors. The Credentials Committee was unanimous in its findings, and recommended a study committee be formed to provide clarity on the BFM 2000. This response was given to much grumbling. Eventually a debate ensued on whether to investigate what the BFM 2000 means when it says pastor.
Later on, the platform would recognize Rick Warren to speak to the entire convention. During his bloviation Rick Warren claimed that he was not defending himself, that he had trained more pastors than the Southern Baptist seminaries, and posited a dichotomy between doctrine and missions. Afterwards, the Credentials Committee would withdraw their recommendation for an investigation. They reserve the power to act on Saddleback Church in the future.
Bart Barber Dominates
The highly anticipated presidential election that has featured a trilogy of scandals leading up to it resulted in the decisive victory for the status quo. Despite the tepid applause that Bart Barber’s nominating speech garnered, compared to Mike Stone’s nomination speech for Tom Ascol, Barber nearly reached a majority threshold on the first ballot.
Many messengers reportedly left the room prior in place of voting in the runoff.
Tom Ascol would lose nearly 200 votes in the runoff, while Bart barber would nearly gain the same amount. The Conse3rvative Baptist Network would also lose the race for recording secretary with Javier Chavez achieving roughly the same percentage as Ascol. The Conservative Baptist Network is not on half of the convention but merely one third.
SATF Update
The Southern Baptist Convention would ultimately move towards adopting the recommendations of the Sex Abuse Task Force Report. This would include the liability program, although this would move forward without an explicit messenger vote. The messengers would vote to create a committee and database of alleged sex abusers with no deference to the criminal justice system. This was approved resoundingly.
Conclusions
The Conservative Baptist Network comparably did worse than last year in part because churches left and also because Anaheim was a more difficult journey. The status quo will remain the status quo for the Southern Baptist Convention.
2 Responses
It’s clear that the SBC does not want conservative leadership. It does not want conservative ideals (it can’t even stay true to it’s own confession of faith, BFM2000, let alone the Bible). It seems that it’s time for biblically-minded, faithful believers and churches to depart from the SBC. Leave it to its own designs and destruction. If there really were a mass exodus of conservatives from the SBC it would just be a matter of time before the entity went completely apostate. Maybe it’s time to stop delaying the inevitable.
Bible-believing churches should exit, and soon. The SBC is going the way of the Methodists. Sad to see, but once the “Christian” Leftists sneak into power, denominations are generally doomed.