UNITED STATES
Baptist News Global
January 27, 2020
By Bob Allen
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention said that local church autonomy does not excuse Southern Baptists from holding one another accountable in a mild rebuke of churches giving platform to a disgraced former leader accused of enabling sexual abusers.
In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, North Carolina pastor J.D. Greear advised churches to “consider” former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson’s 2018 firing for conduct “antithetical to the core values of our faith” before inviting the Conservative Resurgence co-founder to speak or preach.
“Southern Baptist churches must take our mutual accountability to each other more seriously than we have in the past,” Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, is quoted as saying. “If our system of governance means anything, it means exercising due diligence and heeding what those whom we put in positions of trustee oversight have reported about official misconduct.”
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