More than two years after its last president resigned, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee is back to the drawing board in its search for a staff leader.
Thomas Hammond, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, told his state Executive Committee via email Jan. 23 that he was the finalist for the national position but has withdrawn from consideration.
The SBC Executive Committee presidential search committee was slated to bring a candidate for consideration Feb. 19. It has been widely known for some time that that candidate was Hammond, although no official announcement of his name had been made yet.
Thomas Hammond
Hammond has vocal critics among his own Georgia constituency and among other SBC leaders. Under his watch, the Georgia Baptist Mission Board has shrunk its staff by more than 75% and Cooperative Program giving in the state has declined from $40 million to $31 million — a dramatic decline for one of the largest state conventions affiliated with the SBC.
Georgia Baptists two weeks ago finalized a deal to sell their $42.3 million headquarters building at a 50% loss after years of not being able to unload the elite property in suburban Atlanta.
In his email to Georgia leaders, Hammond acknowledged he was the finalist and said he previously felt peace about the opportunity. But now, he wrote: “Over the past week, it has become clear that God’s will is for us to remain in Georgia. We are resolved to continue our efforts in ministering to pastors, their families and to strengthening churches to reach Georgia for Christ.”
Neither Baptist Press nor the Christian Index of Georgia named Hammond in Jan. 23 stories announcing the proposed presidential candidate had withdrawn.
It quoted search team chairman Neal Hughes, who encouraged Executive Committee members to “press on, trust in Jesus and approach each day with the joy of the Lord.”
Interim President Jonathan Howe commented: “This team has exemplified grace under pressure as they face their difficult task in the light of the current challenges across the convention.”
Those challenges are numerous and include several dozen lawsuits currently pending against the SBC and its entities, many related to claims of sexual abuse, along with the specter of the Guidepost Solutions investigation that documented years of Executive Committee leaders keeping a list of known sexual abusers in SBC churches while claiming it was not possible to create such a list. After two years of work on creating an online list of known clergy sexual abusers, the designated website remains blank.
That problem grew exponentially worse last week as the SBC’s own attorney tweeted that the co-architect of the so-called “conservative resurgence” in the SBC, Paul Pressler, is a “monster,” a “predator” and “of the devil.” That followed renewed accusations that SBC leaders knew years ago about credible allegations against Pressler for sexually abusing and raping boys and young men for decades while orchestrating a campaign for morality and orthodoxy in the SBC.
Ronnie Floyd
The Executive Committee presidency was vacated in October 2021 when Ronnie Floyd abruptly resigned in protest of his trustees’ decision to waive attorney-client privilege in the Guidepost investigation.
The first presidential candidate brought to the Executive Committee, Texas pastor Jared Wellman, was voted down last May, largely over concerns about process. Then three months later, Interim President Willie McLaurin — who was the next finalist for the permanent role — abruptly resigned when the search committee discovered he had fabricated most of his resume.
Then when current Interim President Howe was named, BNG broke the story that he is a member of a church dually aligned with the SBC and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and that his wife serves in a ministerial role in that church. The SBC is in the middle of a two-year plan to amend its constitution to eject any church with female ministers of any kind.
The full Executive Committee is scheduled to meet in Nashville Feb. 19-20.
Related articles:
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SBC attorney calls Pressler a ‘monster,’ a ‘predator’ and ‘of the devil’
SBC Executive Committee rejects nominee for president
Interim president of SBC Executive Committee resigns, admits to falsifying resume
New SBC head attends a dually aligned church and his wife is a ‘minister’