I’ve kept quiet amid the several years of very public clamoring for more financial transparency at the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board because I no longer have a dog in that hunt. However, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel is a bridge too far for silence.
That’s right: You just read the words “NAMB” and “Ritz-Carlton Hotel” in the same sentence. According to the watchdog group NAMB Whistleblower, NAMB has booked the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans for its annual meeting of state Baptist convention evangelism directors next Monday through Thursday.
Normally, presented with such an astounding fact, I would contact the potentially offending organization and ask for a comment or explanation. But there’s no need to waste my time doing that because NAMB’s communication office has proved to be the master of “no comment” on everything asked of them. Which is another part of the transparency problem.
“Even if NAMB officials were to explain they worked the bargain of a lifetime and booked guest rooms at the Ritz-Carlton for $59.99 a night, this would be a horrible idea simply because of the optics.”
Even if NAMB officials were to explain they worked the bargain of a lifetime and booked guest rooms at the Ritz-Carlton for $59.99 a night, this would be a horrible idea simply because of the optics.
It looks bad for a charity funded by the sacrificial offerings of hardworking churchgoers to book a conference at one of the most prestigious hotel chains in America. The name Ritz-Carlton is synonymous with conspicuous wealth.
Why, in God’s name, would anyone at NAMB think this is a good idea?
Yet this has not happened in isolation. Critics of NAMB and its leadership — and there are many — have been sounding an alarm for years about lavish spending at the SBC’s domestic mission board, which mainly focuses on church planting. As previously documented, NAMB is spending more money than ever to get fewer results than ever.
Dining room at the New Orleahs Ritz-Carlton
Something just doesn’t add up here.
There are the stories of file cabinets full of high-dollar gift cards that are handed out like candy to church planters and state convention employees to buy their loyalty. There are stories of employee buyouts and Non-Disclosure Agreements to buy their silence. And there are documented real estate holdings of NAMB owning extremely expensive residential properties in multiple cities.
Messengers to SBC annual meetings have tried to force more transparency on NAMB, and they have been stonewalled. State convention executives have demanded more transparency from NAMB, and they have been maligned. Duly elected trustees appear to be as complicit in these high-dollar escapades as staff leadership because trustees have done nothing to stop it and have refused to make public the kind of financial information that would prove the critics either right or wrong.
If there’s nothing to hide, show us.
A guest room bathroom at the New Orleans Ritz-Carlton
Although I’m no longer a Southern Baptist, I have a history as an employee of NAMB’s predecessor, the SBC Home Mission Board. And I can testify from personal experience that any of us who booked a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton would have been looking for other employment.
Appearances matter. Transparency matters.
If the SBC had not been so distracted by the horrors of its record on covering up sexual abuse, NAMB likely would not have skated through the last two annual meetings unscathed. There’s only so much energy for tackling hard things.
When it’s finally obvious to an outsider like me that NAMB has no clue about how it looks to people in the pew, how they spend offering money, it’s probably time to launch an investigation. Someone somewhere in the SBC needs to demand greater accountability from NAMB and its leaders — including both trustees and executive leadership.
If you need to know where to find them, just visit the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans next week.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He was associate director of news and information at the SBC Home Mission Board from 1988 to 1991.
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