Southern Baptists arrived in Dallas this week to consider how they will finance mounting legal bills after a spate of lawsuits were filed in the wake of a 288-page report published in 2022. That report detailed at length how key convention leaders mishandled allegations of sexual abuse or, as in the case of former SBC President Johnny Hunt, were themselves alleged perpetrators.
According to Jeff Iorg, the executive responsible for the convention’s administrative arm, Hunt’s $100 million lawsuit against his fellow Baptists is one of three pending cases that continue to drain the resources Southern Baptists allocate to a $200 million a year global mission enterprise.
Benjamin Cole
Yet for the second time in five years, the convention’s Executive Committee is asking church representatives (called messengers) to set aside funds as a “priority allocation” that otherwise would be designated for convention ministries and missions. Back in 2021, the committee asked for and received a $250,000 annual slush fund to underwrite Vision 2025, a multi-year initiative originally proposed by Iorg’s predecessor and a close associate of Johnny Hunt’s, Ronnie Floyd.
But Floyd resigned later that year, citing reputational damage as he faced a no-confidence vote from his own trustees and mounting pressure to step down as questions grew about his administrative competence and unwillingness to address the abuse scandal.
Almost as quickly, the convention forgot about Vision 2025, which included a component to “eliminate sexual abuse” among Southern Baptist churches.
In fact, not one of the convention’s entities mentions Vision 2025 in its annual report to church messengers. What’s more, despite trustees voting unanimously to adopt Vision 2025, the Executive Committee failed to mention a single accomplishment or return on the $250,000-per-year investment Southern Baptists made to fund the initiative.
Even the state convention executives, who pledged “to promote, advance and pursue Vision 2025,” appear to have completely forgotten their pledge. The same goes for the editors of state Baptist papers, who encircled Floyd with prayers at his initial unveiling of the far-reaching strategic effort.
“Vision 2025 just dies the death of apathy, neglect and million-dollar disinterest.”
So after five years of pledges, countless funds expended on promotional materials (most of which never were distributed), endorsements across the convention by entity leaders, executives, editors and influential pastors, Vision 2025 wraps up at the annual meeting this year having proved to be another hollow denominational promise. And certainly not with a bang, but this time without so much as a whimper.
No, Vision 2025 just dies the death of apathy, neglect and million-dollar disinterest by the very people who pushed its adoption by the convention in the first place. Even now, the Executive Committee comes again to convention messengers and asks for another “priority allocation” without much in the way of substantiation.
This time, however, it’s not just a five-year commitment of $250,000 per annum. They now ask for a $3 million earmark.
How the primary administrative and Cooperative Program distribution arm of the SBC thinks it can ask for more money when they so clearly sweep the failures of past “priority allocations” under the rug is not just discouraging, it’s an insult to churches and the messengers they sent.
Perhaps Iorg and his Executive Committee are hoping Southern Baptists won’t ask about their failed stewardship of Vision 2025 funds and outright refusal to account for its complete neglect in their report. And perhaps Iorg’s impulse to omit Vision 2025 from this year’s report was itself strategic.
Maybe, Southern Baptist entities, executives and editors are all talk when it comes to sending more missionaries, reaching more young people, equipping more ministry leaders and increasing Cooperative Program support.
And maybe, despite their 2021 pledge to “eliminate sex abuse” and designate $1 million in priority allocations to help fund the effort, messengers in Dallas will fail to recognize how their Executive Committee and other convention entities made much about Vision 2025 but never really intended to do anything about it.
Iorg may, in the end, benefit from Southern Baptists’ short-term memory loss about Vision 2025 and get his requested $3 million.
I suspect, however, messengers are paying closer attention than denominational executives think. I also suspect the abysmal failure of Vision 2025 and the Executive Committee’s neglect to report on its stewardship of the program’s key strategic initiatives might inform messengers when they have to decide whether or not to give Iorg another couple million dollars as a “priority allocation.”
Benjamin S. Cole is a crisis communications consultant who lives in Plano, Texas, and tweets about SBC life under the pen name The Baptist Blogger. He is co-host with Mark Wingfield of BNG’s podcast, “Stuck in the Middle with You.” He is a former Congressional staffer in the U.S. Capitol and still works in political consulting.
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