Patheos blog
June 18, 2019
By Captain Cassidy
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) just finished its big Annual Meeting. About 8100 Messengers showed up to what sounds like one of the worst three-ring-circuses the SBC has ever had. One of the primary agendas for the meeting–sorta–involved the denomination’s sex-abuse scandal. It’s hard to tell which is worse: the scandal as it is, or the SBC’s lack of interest in addressing that scandal in any meaningful way. Today, let me show you how the SBC treated the victims of that scandal at their 2019 Annual Meeting, and what that treatment shows about their priorities–and their future.
I focus on the SBC because, firstly, they represent the biggest clutch of white evangelicals around. Trends come to them a bit late sometimes, but they cling to them a bit longer. Where the SBC goes, therefore, the rest of the gaggle follows.
Secondly, they make (some) of their metrics and statistics available to the public. You can 100% bet your last dollar that, say, the United Pentecostal Church, International (UPCI) suffers from the exact same problems, infighting, and of course the same scandals. They simply don’t tend to release figures or have giant denominational meetings like the SBC does.
Thirdly, the SBC represents one of the most politicized groups around, with leaders who stand as some of the most deeply-embedded in our current president’s regime out of all their end of Christianity. Thus, keeping an eye on their antics seems like basic common sense to me.
(Fourthly, their willful ignorance, total and willful lack of self-awareness, and absolute and willful hypocrisy–and their evolution from the 1980s to now–kinda fascinates me. How could it not?)
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