It was a year of reckoning for the Southern Baptist Convention as #MeToo scandals swept into the highest level of denominational leadership and for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship a test of unity for churches that disagree about what the Bible teaches about homosexuality.
Here are some of the top stories covered by Baptist News Global in 2018.
Differences over LGBTQ inclusion test Baptist cooperation
Growing unease with a policy barring the employment of gays prompted Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leaders to seek middle ground in one of today’s most divisive controversies. The CBF Governing Board in February replaced the reference to LGBTQ Christians with a new policy that the 1,800-church Fellowship “will employ only individuals who profess Jesus Christ as Lord.”
A separate implementation plan clarified that employment of field personnel and top leadership remains limited to individuals “who practice a traditional Christian sexual ethic of celibacy in singleness or faithfulness in marriage between a woman and a man.” Leaders said the “vast majority” of CBF churches do not have sexual orientation in their hiring policies and that an across-the-board non-discrimination stance would make it harder to work with Baptists in other countries.
Story links:
CBF prepares for vote on proposed hiring policy
CBF moderator says proposed LGBTQ hiring policy meets Fellowship Baptists ‘where they are’
CBF relaxes policy on hiring LGBTQ staff, but maintains some restrictions
Texas Baptist convention takes note of more inclusive hiring policy by CBF
Baptist editor: CBF homosexuality debate outs ‘liberal Fundamentalists’
Citing partial lifting of LGBTQ hiring ban, Texas Baptist group to stop forwarding money to CBF
Gushee says LGBTQ hiring policy will weaken CBF
N.C. church involved in immigration dispute withholds funding to protest CBF hiring practice
Competing Baptist bodies grapple with their identity in Dallas
Related commentary:
Doug Dortch | Illumination Project: On cooperation, transformation and hope
Julie Pennington-Russell | Illuminations: The healing space between ‘good’ and ‘bad’
Cody Sanders | CBF & LGBTQ Baptists: Thanks for the Illumination
Alan Sherouse | With new CBF policy, there’s space for some but not for all
Jim Somerville | Why I voted against the CBF Implementation Plan
Matt Cook | Reflecting on CBF life in the midst of hope and ashes
Andrew Gardner | CBF hiring practice illuminates continued colonialism
Mark Wingfield | What is the Spirit saying about female and LGBTQ clergy?
Bob Setzer | ‘So how was the CBF meeting?’
Chrissy Tatum Williamson: One progressive Baptist’s take on CBF Dallas
“Break her down”
Paige Patterson
The image of “conservative resurgence” co-founders Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler took a beating in 2018.
In May Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary fired Patterson as president amid reports that he was dismissive of female students who came to him with sexual assault allegations. One example in the trustee report was an off-the-cuff remark that Patterson wanted to evaluate the truthfulness of a reported rape by meeting alone with the woman in order to “break her down.” Patterson said the quote was taken out of context.
Story links:
SBC leader under fire for comments about divorce, abuse
Paige Patterson controversy tests SBC’s ‘no criticism’ code, says former denominational worker
Southern Baptists say Paige Patterson’s views on women unbiblical
Paige Patterson apologizes for sermon illustration gone wrong
SBC president apologizes to women for comments by seminary head
#MeToo controversy takes down Southern Baptist patriarch
Paige Patterson unrepentant after seminary trustee action
#AlMohlerToo: Did a Southern Baptist power broker just get woke?
Abuse controversy prompts counseling group to move meeting from seminary campus
Paige Patterson out at Southwestern Seminary
Lawyer counters ‘misrepresentation and misinformation’ about seminary president’s firing
Under fire from #MeToo, embattled Southern Baptist leader withdraws from convention sermon
Southern Baptists grapple with #MeToo complicity
Post-Paige Patterson, interim seminary president sets humble tone for coming year
Donors call for investigation into trustee handling of seminary president’s firing
Related commentary:
Kyndall Rothaus | Paige Patterson, women’s voices and the gaping hole in education
Nancy Sehested | An open letter to Paige Patterson
Alan Bean | Pressler, Patterson and Trump: dancing with demagogues
Pressler lawsuit winds way through legal system
Paul Pressler, a retired judge and mastermind of the “conservative resurgence” strategy of gaining control of the Southern Baptist Convention through appointive powers of the president, appears to be winning a lawsuit alleging that he sexually abused a Houston man for 25 years beginning when the accuser was 14.
In October a judge dismissed the abuse allegations due to statute of limitations. Remaining issues involve allegations of slander and libel and questions over the status of the confidential settlement of an earlier lawsuit involving the same man and Pressler in 2004.
Pressler denies all allegations of assault, but court records include affidavits from other men who claim he made unwanted sexual advances toward them in the past.
Story links:
Pressler claims statute of limitations defense; his accuser adds slander claim
Pressler seeks gag order in lawsuit; SBC added as defendant
Pressler abuse lawsuit turns attention to confidential settlement of earlier case in 2004
Pressler lawsuit moved to federal court
Affidavit alleges unwanted sexual encounter with former judge who led SBC to the right
Third Pressler accuser comes forward
Pressler lawsuit headed back to state jurisdiction
Soft targets
Six years after Sandy Hook and nearly two decades after Columbine, mass shootings continue to plague the nation.
The Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day massacre of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, prompted March for Our Lives protests in March.
In October, America suffered the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in our nation’s history when a gunman entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and took the lives of 11 worshippers, injuring six others. A week later police in Virginia evacuated a historically African-American church for a bomb threat that turned out to be a false alarm. Another African-American Baptist church near Louisville, Kentucky, survived a near miss when an assailant who tried to enter the building instead targeted black shoppers in a shooting rampage at a nearby supermarket.
News links:
Some ministers demand action, others reflect after Florida school shootings
Parkland massacre takes pastor back to father’s mass shooting death
Pastor Robert Jeffress organizes ‘March for Eternal Life’
Frustration, fear and faith inspired youth to March for Our Lives
Robert Jeffress says schools should fight gun violence by teaching the Ten Commandments
Church at center of gun massacre to break ground for new building
Belmont University student dies in Waffle House shooting
Inspired by youth, churches rising to oppose gun violence
CBF leader condemns ‘white nationalism’ after synagogue attack
‘Thoughts and prayers’ not enough to end gun violence, religious leaders say
These grandmother gun-violence activists mean business
Related commentary:
Bill Leonard | ‘Anticipatory mourning’: America’s youth on death, guns and dissent
Bill Leonard | Waffle House, Starbucks — and the Church?: Iconic and vulnerable
Bill Leonard | Firearm violence: America’s pre-existing condition
Alan Rudnick | I talked on TV about the Pittsburgh massacre. Our 11-year-old’s response said more
Immigration
Gilles Bikindou
Before there was a migrant caravan or government shutdown over funding for a border wall, a CBF-affiliated church in North Carolina got a preview of the impact of President Donald Trumps draconian immigration policies. On Jan. 8 immigration officials nabbed Gilles Bikindou, a member of Greenwood Forest Baptist Church in Cary, North Carolina, for a dozen years, during what he thought was a routine check-in at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Charlotte.
Despite protests and humanitarian pleas, the government deported the 58-year-old to the Republic of Congo. Church members said it put him at medical risk, because life-saving medicines prescribed in the United States are unavailable in his native homeland.
News links:
Baptist church fighting deportation of member with dire health concerns
Baptists protest deportation of church member outside ICE office where he was detained
N.C. church appeals for its member scheduled for deportation this Friday
Arrests, deportations chill demand for immigrant legal aid ministries
Member of U.S. Baptist church deported to the Republic of Congo
Pastor says fight for deported Baptist church member will continue
Immigrant advocates unhappy with White House decision to end temporary residency for Salvadorans
Demand protection for Dreamers, group urges in launching call-in day
Cooperative Baptists trek to border for prayer, advocacy outside migrant child care center
Women of faith confront immigration policy at U.S. border
Related commentary:
The day life changed for a legal immigrant — and his church
Jon Singletary | #VeryBiblical: a response to Jeff Sessions
Alyssa Aldape: Another racist policy: are we paying attention?
#MeToo comes to church
It didn’t take long for protests in Hollywood and Washington against the mistreatment of women by powerful men to reach Baptist life.
The March resignation of Executive Committee Frank Page for what officials called “a morally inappropriate relationship” took everyone by surprise, but the self-styled “chief encouraging officer” and former SBC president was just the first of a number of denominational workers to quietly leave their jobs over allegations of sexual misconduct.
One, a South Carolina Baptist Convention executive named Mark Aderholt, resigned in June during a police investigation. The one-time foreign missionary was indicted Dec. 19 by a grand jury in Texas for alleged sexual assault against a minor while he was in seminary in 1997. The SBC International Mission Board knew about the allegations a decade ago but did not report them to the police.
Rachael Denhollander, a former gymnast whose testimony helped convict former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar for decades of abuse, told Christianity Today in January that the evangelical church “is one of the least safe places to acknowledge abuse.”
Other women came forward with similar stories, prompting the Southern Baptist Convention to pass a resolution in June condemning “all forms of abuse” against women.
News links:
Amid #MeToo fallout, Southern Baptist males quietly leaving jobs
Southern Baptist leader steps down over moral ‘indiscretion’
SBC spokesman promises ‘due diligence’ regarding Frank Page’s unidentified ‘indiscretion’
#MeToo spotlight turns on Southern Baptist megachurch
Key witness in Michigan State abuse scandal alleges double standard in evangelical church
Witness in Larry Nassar case calls out evangelicals for ‘double standard’ in sexual abuse
Victim to church: Sexual assault is not a sin. It’s a crime.
Interim IMB president says investigation into handling of abuse allegations will continue
Lawsuit says church missed child abuse caught on security camera
Related commentary:
Amy Butler _| From #MeToo to #ChurchToo to #NeverAtChurch
Bill Leonard | Converting our hearts: sexual abuse and the church’s hesitant penance
First woman to lead CBF stepping down
Suzii Paynter
Suzii Paynter, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s third executive coordinator and first woman to hold the job, announced this summer that she will retire after her successor is found. A search is underway for her replacement.
News links:
With retirement looming for Suzii Paynter, CBF leaders roll out leadership transition plan
Search for CBF leader underway
CBF-related seminary forced to close
Trustees of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond – one of 15 theological institutions that receives funding from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship –announced Nov. 13 the free-standing seminary must close “due to financial pressures.”
The original announcement projected the closing date as the end of the academic year, but after further review of seminary finances trustees moved the shutdown up to the end of January.
News links:
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond to close in 2019
BTSR moves up closing to Jan. 31
Related commentary:
Jackie Baugh Moore | The decision to close BTSR was gut-wrenching. It was also necessary.
Susan Shaw | BTSR, a female president and the ‘glass cliff’