The quest to demand great financial accountability from the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board accelerated as messengers to the SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis were greeted by an Indy race car wrapped with the NAMB logo.
This prominent feature in the SBC exhibit hall drew immediate scorn on social media, generating a flood of snarky comments and outright criticisms for wasteful spending. No information was available on whether the race car was rented, borrowed or bought.
With more than 10,000 messengers already registered at the three-day meeting, the exhibit hall always is big business. It is the place where SBC entities and outside vendors make their pitches to sell products and ministries and garner support.
This is not the first time NAMB has used an expensive vehicle to promote its cause. In 2006, then NAMB President Bob Reccord showcased a firetruck with an extension ladder reaching the cross atop a church spire to promote its Elevate leadership conferences. That gimmick also drew scorn because at the time, NAMB had lost $600,000 in its first year of operation.
Today’s situation is different, as NAMB is flush with hundreds of millions of dollars in offering money and investment earnings. How that money is spent remains a source of contention for a faction within the SBC, mainly because the agency is spending millions of dollars more on church planting efforts that are producing fewer results than ever before. And the agency is selective in what data it reports.
Previous attempts to demand more transparent financial reporting from NAMB have failed, including one rejected this week by the SBC Executive Committee.
On Monday, the Executive Committee declined to act on a pair of messenger motions from last year’s annual meeting that would have required all SBC entities to publish financial information similar to what it required on IRS Form 990. Last year’s motions got referred to the Executive Committee, which typically is a way of killing motions.
News report from 2006.
Executive Committee leaders on Monday pledged to study ways financial reporting could be improved but would not commit to requiring more detailed information from NAMB and other SBC entities.
Undeterred, critics of NAMB took the microphone at the opening session of this year’s SBC annual meeting to try again.
Rhett Burns of First Baptist Church of Travelers Rest, S.C., made a motion to amend the SBC Business and Financial Plan to require all SBC entities to publish financial information “in the same detail, quality and scope” as would be required by IRS Form 990.
Parker Roberts of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Baxley, Ga., made a motion calling for NAMB to submit to a comprehensive forensic audit.
Those motions now go to the SBC’s Committee on Order of Business, where most likely they will, once again, be referred somewhere for study. If messengers choose so, they can demand an immediate vote on any motion rather than approve another referral.
A determination on these motions could come as early as this afternoon, but also could be delayed until Wednesday.
Among the 15 motions made in the opening session of the annual meeting, others targeted the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, which those in the most far-right of the denomination believe is too liberal. Still others called for making the annual meetings accessible for remote virtual participation.
And as expected, a motion was made by Andy Brown of First Baptist Church of Starkville, Miss., that the SBC “affirm” the Nicene Creed. Earlier, BNG reported the motion would be to amend the Baptist Faith and Message to include the Nicene Creed.
Another messenger made a motion that the preamble to the Baptist Faith and Message be amended to include three historic Christian creeds.